Winter Went | #2 Winter Series

Chapter 16

|| Josh ||

Travelling in a cloud isn't quite as boring as Josh expected. Of course, he'd done it before a few times, but nothing was like this long haul.

The main reason is that of the sights to see. He can look down and watch the fields fly past or the crowds of ants that scuttle to and fro. But the sight he finds he enjoys the most, however, is the one sitting in front of him.

He can still remember the slamming of his heart as he saw her falling from the ring. There was a moment before his instincts kicked in, the one the Government tried to train, and he yanked her back.

He hangs onto the memory of her hair flying back towards him and the whiff of sweet shampoo. He won't forget the way his hands dug into her fleece, the way he pulled her back as though to say you're mine. You're not falling. I won't let you fall.

He watches her now. As he gently guides the circle towards the coast, he observes. He likes the way her brownish-coppery hair falls, the deepness of her eyes, the way she examines the world running below like it's a treasure.

Then he scolds himself, shooing the thoughts from his mind. He has been trained to be thoughtless unless necessary. Trained. It's his duty to do things even if his gut tells him no. It's duty, not ruin, he reminds himself.

A small noise interrupts him. He turns, and Angie sits there. An eyebrow is raised, and she makes the same noise again, a sort of cough. Only now she smiles knowingly, and he can't help the hotness that runs to his ears even though he wills it to stop. He wondered if his observations could be done in quiet, but of course, he knows, Angie Daye has a clear mind of his thoughts.

* * *

The second time he gets tired, he doesn't tell anybody. They're all minding their own business either watching the world run by, sleeping, or eating.

When he looks down below, though, he can see the coastline, and on the inside, he smiles.

"Almost there," he murmurs. "Almost."

Twenty minutes later, he begins the descent. He tries to go down slowly but the thumping of his heart and the jitteriness of his fingers make it harder than he'd like.

The sky is a deep orange, bleeding into darkness, almost gone. His stomach rumbles, but he pays attention to the dark silhouettes of farmhouses and barns underneath them.

By the time they touch down, it is twenty-past-ten. He feels the time in his bones, the exhaustion, but he feels alive because finally, finally there is something here that he can claim.

Smiling on the inside, he leads his small group through mucky fields. They complain and whine, but he ploughs on until he's two metres in front, then three, then four.

He's smiling. Smiling inside!

Because the piece of paper with instructions suddenly seems heavier as though it's gained importance. He's memorised the list; he knows every swirl of the ink, every press on the page. He knows which farmhouse to turn to, which gate to open, which path to lead everyone down.

The barn looms up ahead of him, and he's grinning and grinning.

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