Chapter Fourteen
After the close call at CowBelle's parents' house, we were both too paranoid to go home. What if the Keplars came for us, what if they got us before we could stop the whitenoise? I felt like we were being watched or followed or maybe even both, and Gliese said nothing to keep this feeling at bay. So we drove around the city all night. The beauty of the city of Nashville is everything goes in circles around the city, so we just kept switching between highways, doing loop after loop, until it was time to go to the airport.
I parked the car in long term parking and we carried the two duffle bags that we'd shoved together back at the house the night before and ran to the shuttle that carried us off to the terminals. It was while we were running across the lot that Gliese grabbed hold of my hand and squeezed her fingers into my palm and didn't let go. We sat on the shuttle bus, our fingers entwined, and neither of us said a word about it. I stared at our hands, at the geometry of it, at how natural and good it felt, and I tried not to think about the fact that she wasn't really CowBelle.
Not for the first time in the last twenty-four hours, I was amazed by what DNA described about a person. Like the size of her hands, like the little dents and curves that I'd come to know so well over the years. The way our fingers fit together. I studied the way her fingers wove through mine. When I glanced up, it was to find Gliese studying them, too.
Our eyes met.
The shuttle came to a stop, rolling us slightly and we stood up, though I was careful not to break our bonded hands as I led her off the bus, the duffle bags weighing down my shoulder as we made our way through the check-in process and into the line for the security check points.
"You waken her in me you know," Gliese said after a few moments of standing in the narrow hall that led to the security check.
"I do?"
Gliese nodded. "It's been such a long time since I've felt this way."
"A long time?"
"Yes."
"How long have you been using her DNA?" I asked, confused.
Gliese was about to answer when I was motioned forward by the TSA attendant and I handed him my passport and boaring pass. Then I tugged off my shoes and tossed them into one of the bins. I watched them roll down the conveyer belt, followed by the two duffle bags. Gliese came up behind me once TSA had looked at CowBelle's passport. "Why are you taking off your shoes?" she hissed.
"Security requirement," I answered.
It took a few moments for me to explain to her why and she went second so I could demonstrate how the metal detector thingy worked and she came through a moment after me, shaking her head at the absurdity of it all. "Such primitive machines..." she muttered as we tugged our shoes back onto our feet.
When we arrived at our plane's gate, we sat on a bench by the window and watched for our plane to arrive, our fingers entwined again. I watched the ant-like airport employees rushing around with the checked bags and the gasoline hoses out on the tarmac.
"Tell me about her," Gliese said suddenly.
I turned to look at her. "What?"
"Tell me about Bellatrix," she pleaded.
I took a deep breath. "I dunno what to tell you," I said quietly. "She was... incredible. She was breathtaking." I shrugged. I stared down at our knuckles, specifically at a small scar on the middle knuckle on her hand that was from dismantling a telescope that needed repairing years ago. "She was headstrong, with a great laugh, and when we watched sad movies she'd cry. Like this one With Honors. She bawled over that every time we ever watched it. Like a baby."
Gliese was quiet, listening.
"She used to put sugar on her Apple Jacks cereal," I laughed.
"She loved you," Gliese said thickly. "I can tell. I can feel that about her."
My throat ached. "I loved her too," I answered.
"We are now boarding flight 1092 to Puerto Rico..."
I stood up, breaking apart our hands, my stomach rolling. I shouldered one of the duffle bags and headed to the gate to board. I could feel Gliese staring at my back, but I didn't turn around because I felt like if I looked at her - if I saw CowBelle's face - that I'd fall apart. When she came up beside me, I ushered her ahead of me. The airline employee held out his hand for Gliese's boarding pass and she stepped forward and I pulled my own pass out of my pocket.
Suddenly --
"Nick?"
I looked up and around and my eyes landed on Kevin, crossing the waiting area, a confused expression on his face. "What in hell are you doing here?" he asked, coming to a stop a couple feet way. He glanced around. "Puerto Rico?" he asked, his huge brows furrowing, "What's in Puerto Rico?"
"I gotta go Kev, I'll call you," I replied.
"Next," called the airline employee.
Kevin looked confused, "But -- Nick -- what's --"
"Nick?" Gliese asked, turning, too.
Kevin's eyebrows almost shot off his face in surprise. "What the --"
"Kev, I gotta go." I turned quickly back to the airline employee, holding out my boarding pass.
Gliese rushed to the other side of me.
"Bellatrix?" Kevin's voice was pinched, "Bella? Is that you?"
"Nick," Gliese's voice was scared.
"Kev we gotta go."
The airline employee looked between the three of us.
"Nick hurry," Gliese begged.
I turned to the boarding hall, "I gotta go."
"Nick wait. How did you -- how is she -- she's ---" Kevin stammered.
"I'll call you," I promised, and Gliese pulled me down the hall toward the plane hurriedly, her fist wrapped around my wrist.
"BUT I THOUGHT SHE WAS DEAD?" Kevin yelled from the waiting area.
A couple people in the hall looked around at us with nervous looks on their faces.
I gnawed my lip.
Gliese yanked me onto the plane, fear in her eyes, and pulled me into a seat in the far back of the plane, our backs almost against the flight attendants work space. CowBelle had always preferred the far back of planes, too, and I wondered fleetingly if things like preferences were encoded in peoples' DNAs as well.
"Keplar," she hissed.
"What?"
"That man. That man in the waiting area. He was Keplar."
"No he wasn't, that was Kevin," I said.
"He was Keplar," she insisted. "He's probably reporting to Barucki right now that we're on our way to Puerto Rico." Her eyes were bright with worry. "We need to hurry, we need to move quick or this is all going to be too late."
"But --"
"Nick, I swear to you, I saw it in his eyes, in the way he looked at me."
"He was just surprised is all, Gliese," I said, "Kevin knew CowBelle. He's been takin' care of me since she... since she -- died... He was just surprised to see you in her DNA, that's all. He doesn't know about Keplars so he doesn't have an explanation for what he saw."
She shook her head.
"Doesn't CowBelle remember Kevin inside her somewhere?" I asked.
Gliese continued shaking her head.
I took a deep breath and I leaned back into the seat. "He wasn't Keplar," I said quietly.
"What are the odds of him running into us at the airport?" Gliese persisted. "Was he supposed to be at the airport? They'll use people that you won't expect. People that you'll know, that you'll trust..." She stared up at me.
Come to think of it, it was weird that Kevin was at the airport. He was supposed to be heading back to the house to check on me, not leaving town.
"I know how to settle this," I decided, "I'll call the real Kevin on my cell phone and we'll see where he's at..." I said, digging out my phone. But at that precise moment the flight attendant came over the radio announcing that we were all boarded and about to prepare for take-off. "I'll call him later," I said, and I shoved my phone into my pocket.
Whitenoise by Pengi
