Breaking Sky(16)

“Pippin.” She prickled with nerves. “This apron is camouflaged. Did we just land on some secret Ri Xiong Di base?”

“We’re in Canada.”

“Canada?” She forced a laugh. “Oh man, you really freaked me out for a sec.”

“We shouldn’t be here.” No snark. No sarcasm.

“Yes, I know that, but we’ll be gone in five. What’re the odds that Ri Xiong Di is monitoring this tiny speck of an island at this exact second?”

“The odds are never in America’s favor, Nyx. That’s what this cold war has been all about.”

She switched the canopy latch and unstrapped her harness. Phoenix was so close, and about a mile away, a small hangar door opened and people poured out. Many people. “Let’s go make friends before that crowd sends us packing.”

“Chase! Listen to me!” Pippin yelled.

Chase jumped from Dragon, the deep fall sending a jolt through her knees. She hadn’t set down outside of the Arctic in so long that the mild lake breeze took her by surprise. “It’s too late,” she called up to her RIO. “We’re all in now.”

She popped her helmet off and messed the sweat through her fauxhawk into a more pleasing look. “Will it make a difference if we go say hi?”

“I don’t know,” he called out.

“Don’t you want to meet them?” She fought the edge of a smile as Pippin de-helmeted, swore, and scrambled down from Dragon.

“You’re crazy, Nyx.”

“Yeah, but I’m not cracking up.” They jogged to Phoenix together. “Come down!” she yelled at the two figures in the cockpit.

Phoenix’s canopy lifted, and the pilot and RIO leaped out. Chase stepped back, bumping into Pippin. Phoenix’s team was a lot bigger than they appeared in the air. Both of them were over six feet tall with swimmer’s shoulders.

“Think you owe me five bucks,” Pippin muttered. “Those aren’t boys. They’re men.”

The RIO took his helmet off first—and threw it. He was the sort of wide-broad guy that could pass for fifteen or twenty-five. Still, he was cute—if you didn’t mind the caveman-worthy brow ridge.

Before Chase could put a greeting together, the RIO charged. He hit Pippin like a linebacker, tossing him to the pavement. Chase threw herself on the guy’s back. She got her elbow around his neck and was about to choke him when the pilot lifted her off like she weighed nothing. He tossed her down and hauled his RIO away from Pippin.

“You’ve ruined everything!” the RIO shouted as his pilot dragged him to a safer distance. His voice cramped with a French accent.

“He didn’t fly us into this!” Chase yelled back. “I did!”

“I don’t hit girls.” The RIO pointed at Pippin. “That little one I can take.”

“How noble.” Chase pulled Pippin to his feet. His face was cranberry and he gasped unevenly. “You all right?”

He slapped his chest and gave her a thumbs-up.

Chase set her eyes on the pilot. His face was all but hidden behind his visor, and his red helmet was adorned with a white maple leaf above a stenciled call sign: ARROW. So the third Streaker was from the Royal Canadian Air Force? Weird. But even weirder, the pilot was grinning at her.

“You. Arrow.” She wanted this moment to be better, but she was running low on time. The crowd approaching from the hangar was much closer, and the way they hustled unnerved her. “Afraid to show yourself?”

Arrow ducked out of his helmet, rolling it under his arm in a slick move.

Whatever Chase had been imagining, he wasn’t it. He was young, with a heated blush that lit up his cheekbones and underscored playful blue eyes. His black hair was long—a sweaty mess, half contained in a ponytail at the back of his neck.

He was also laughing at her.

“What’s funny?”


“You. You’re so serious.” Arrow stepped closer, and his humor faded into a smirk. He was cocky; she had been right on that score. But Pippin was wrong to call them men just because they were big. Arrow didn’t have the manly swagger she’d been expecting. He seemed lighthearted and easygoing, like a guy standing before a particularly awesome arcade game. Like someone who’d never been hungry or scared or left to bleed beneath a patchwork of barbed wire. Chase had been expecting her equal. What she’d found was another boy.

She had plenty of those already.

He held his hand out to shake, but she didn’t take it.

Arrow registered his disappointment with a tilt of his head, reminding her of his slanted wings in flight.

“Why…” Chase felt the pressure to ask a real question before they were interrupted by what looked like half of the Royal Canadian Air Force. “Why do you have a Streaker?”

Arrow’s eyes sharpened, the laughter fading fast. She’d hit a nerve. Good.

“We shouldn’t be talking to them, Arrow,” his RIO said from behind him.

“Agreed,” Pippin added.

Arrow spoke without taking his eyes off Chase. “After what we did in the air, I think a little polite greeting is in order.” He was still holding his hand out, still daring her to take it, and his words hinted at the feelings she’d had when flying with him. The tease and flirt. The tangle and stamina. The mach charge.