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Authors: Allie Pleiter
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All I know is that my brother gave WWW permission to climb with SpiderSilk under certain conditions, complete with waivers that Max agreed to sign. But maybe I can know more soon. We managed to get some of the lines from WWW so we can examine them. Our technician got in yesterday and he’s going over all the equipment—not just the SpiderSilk but everything Max was using when he fell.”
JJ shoved one arm through the sleeve of her sweater. It was July, but the hospital seemed to house a sterile chill in every room. “You didn’t answer my question. How long have you known?”
She glared at him, and Alex knew every aspect of how they treated each other from here on in would hinge on what he said next. “I’ve known it was a possibility since a little while after we got here.”
Something shut in her eyes. Alex’s skin prickled at the defensive posture that seemed to overtake her body. If a person could have inner armor, he’d just seen it lock down tight. Without a word—but with a message so clear it made a hollow hole in his chest—she left the room.
Chapter Six
“W ait, now?” Sam barked over the phone. “You’re coming to Denver now? ”
Alex handed his passport to the security officer. The thing was so bedraggled and covered in stamps it never ceased to cause stares.
“You know,” Alex said as he tossed his bag onto the conveyor belt and began emptying his pockets into a plastic bin. “You might want to be thankful my plane’s going to Denver and not Fiji. If you wanted to convince me I’m done with AG, you’re coming really close to succeeding.”
“We had a plan. We’d decided you were going to stay there. You were supposed to...” Alex didn’t hear anything else as he jabbed the power button on his phone with an angry grunt and tossed it into the screening bin, too. They’d had a plan? Alex hadn’t felt like they’d been running AG on the same plan for months. The team excitement, the rush of partnership—all that was gone. Picking his wallet and keys back up on the other side of the security screening, his eye caught the departure display above him listing a flight to Singapore. The urge to run surged up with a power that astonished him.
Just go. Leave it all behind. You’ve lost your way and you won’t find it in Denver. Go far. Far.
Distance called to him like the antidote to everything that was too close and too tight. For one irrational second, Alex thought about “forgetting” his phone in the little plastic bin and just walking away from everything.
But Max couldn’t walk away from anything now. This problem was too big to discard. And although it sounded wonderful, even Singapore’s misted mountains wouldn’t wipe the last look JJ had given him from his memory. No, that look burned at him every time he closed his eyes. He had promised to leave when she told him to go, and she had clearly told him to leave when she walked out of the chapel. It was better for everyone if he went back to the office in Denver and tried to see what could be done. He should have been glad to be getting out of ground zero for this disaster.
He wasn’t. Not in the least.
Instead, Alex slumped into an AG van at the Denver airport hours later feeling twice as exhausted as when he took off. He might as well have never left Chicago because JJ followed him everywhere. On the plane, he’d encountered a hundred reminders of her. That scarf was the color of her eyes, this magazine article had her tone of voice, a pair of children down the aisle made him wonder what Max and JJ had been like as youngsters. Alex’s gift for geographically stuffing miles between himself and problems had always worked—until now. Now the farther he ran, the closer she felt. It was making him nuts.
“Red Rocks.”
“Sir?” The driver turned to look at him, stumped by the request to visit Denver’s outdoor amphitheater.
“Take me to Red Rocks.”
It bothered Alex that he didn’t recognize the driver’s
JJ shoved one arm through the sleeve of her sweater. It was July, but the hospital seemed to house a sterile chill in every room. “You didn’t answer my question. How long have you known?”
She glared at him, and Alex knew every aspect of how they treated each other from here on in would hinge on what he said next. “I’ve known it was a possibility since a little while after we got here.”
Something shut in her eyes. Alex’s skin prickled at the defensive posture that seemed to overtake her body. If a person could have inner armor, he’d just seen it lock down tight. Without a word—but with a message so clear it made a hollow hole in his chest—she left the room.
Chapter Six
“W ait, now?” Sam barked over the phone. “You’re coming to Denver now? ”
Alex handed his passport to the security officer. The thing was so bedraggled and covered in stamps it never ceased to cause stares.
“You know,” Alex said as he tossed his bag onto the conveyor belt and began emptying his pockets into a plastic bin. “You might want to be thankful my plane’s going to Denver and not Fiji. If you wanted to convince me I’m done with AG, you’re coming really close to succeeding.”
“We had a plan. We’d decided you were going to stay there. You were supposed to...” Alex didn’t hear anything else as he jabbed the power button on his phone with an angry grunt and tossed it into the screening bin, too. They’d had a plan? Alex hadn’t felt like they’d been running AG on the same plan for months. The team excitement, the rush of partnership—all that was gone. Picking his wallet and keys back up on the other side of the security screening, his eye caught the departure display above him listing a flight to Singapore. The urge to run surged up with a power that astonished him.
Just go. Leave it all behind. You’ve lost your way and you won’t find it in Denver. Go far. Far.
Distance called to him like the antidote to everything that was too close and too tight. For one irrational second, Alex thought about “forgetting” his phone in the little plastic bin and just walking away from everything.
But Max couldn’t walk away from anything now. This problem was too big to discard. And although it sounded wonderful, even Singapore’s misted mountains wouldn’t wipe the last look JJ had given him from his memory. No, that look burned at him every time he closed his eyes. He had promised to leave when she told him to go, and she had clearly told him to leave when she walked out of the chapel. It was better for everyone if he went back to the office in Denver and tried to see what could be done. He should have been glad to be getting out of ground zero for this disaster.
He wasn’t. Not in the least.
Instead, Alex slumped into an AG van at the Denver airport hours later feeling twice as exhausted as when he took off. He might as well have never left Chicago because JJ followed him everywhere. On the plane, he’d encountered a hundred reminders of her. That scarf was the color of her eyes, this magazine article had her tone of voice, a pair of children down the aisle made him wonder what Max and JJ had been like as youngsters. Alex’s gift for geographically stuffing miles between himself and problems had always worked—until now. Now the farther he ran, the closer she felt. It was making him nuts.
“Red Rocks.”
“Sir?” The driver turned to look at him, stumped by the request to visit Denver’s outdoor amphitheater.
“Take me to Red Rocks.”
It bothered Alex that he didn’t recognize the driver’s
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