The Stage (Phoenix Rising #1) (16 page)

“What’s going on?” I yell. He takes a sharp left.

“I’m trying to keep you a secret.” His response is quick, his voice tight. “You scared the shit out of me,” he admits taking another right. “I lost ‘em. You can sit up.”

“Who are you running from?”

“Someone’s talking on the set. Hard to know who it is. With the promos starting last week—” I put my hand up to cover my mouth. My head is shaking involuntarily. Outside, I can see that we’re on an LA street somewhere, not the freeway.

“I didn’t know the promos started.”

“Yes. And your story is in several of them. I’m trying to hide it, Mia. It’s fucking impossible.”

“Hide what?” I squeak.

“This. Us.” His hand pointing to himself and then me.

“There’s no
us
, Kolton.” I say, knowing it will hurt him. Why do I want to hurt him? Because he hurts me, because he thinks he can do anything he wants? The car slows down evenly and he pulls over to the side of the road. My heart is pounding inside the cage of my ribs. He turns his upper body toward me and moves his right arm to rest on the back of my seat. I press my back into the car door and glare at him.

“You make me
crazy
. I want to grab you right now and fucking prove to you how much of an
us
there is.” I can feel the warmth of his breath on my face. The heat of his body radiates out and touches me. Everywhere.

“I don’t want you, or this—any of this crap!” I yell, looking him in the eye.

“The difference then, between you and me,” he says, his voice making me ache as he takes my chin, owning it, and lifting it up to claim my eyes with his, “is I know exactly what I want.”

“But you said—”

“You deserve better. But this is the truth, Mia. I’m telling you the truth. Finally. Give me some fucking credit, please.”

He makes no move toward me. Neither do I toward him. He just holds my chin and stares right through me, until I can see him, really see him—his fear, his vulnerability, his doubt in himself, all of it. I understand why he keeps pushing me away. He’s scared.

Then, a flash bursts through our moment in the dimness of an LA night. He grabs me, hiding my face in his chest as another blast of light invades us. Another and then more than I can count until we are all lit up. His hand moves to the gear shift as I duck my head into the center console. It’s eerily calm and quiet as he speeds away.

I hear the wheels humming on the pavement, the purr of the engine, the shifting of the gears, and, all the while, Kolton’s hand remains light and soothing on my back. His fingers move back and forth through my long hair, soothing me like my mother used to do when I was scared, or when I just needed her touch to move on from a bad experience.

“We’re on the freeway now,” he says, and I try to raise my head. “No,” he says. “They’re right behind us.” We remain quiet until he makes a few turns, and I can tell by the sudden light and hollow sounds that we’re inside the garage at the Wilshire Thayer. “Mia. They’re not allowed inside the garage. But they will have their lenses pointed at us when you get out and walk to the elevator. We need to cover you up.” He hands me a light jacket from somewhere, probably the back seat.

“Is this the best thing to do? Bring me here while they’re all watching?”

“I have a plan,” he says, taking the jacket and covering my head with it. Under the covering, I feel sort of safe—like when you’re little and hide under the blanket,
knowing
you’re invisible. I take my hair and stuff it in my shirt. I don’t want them to know my hair color. What’s he doing out there? Maybe calling Devon for help? Then I pull my bag up and hide it under the jacket, too. I’ve always been carrying it with me; someone might recognize it and rat me out.

He opens my door and when I look out to the concrete, I see his phone in his hand, his feet along with Devon’s and Manny’s, too. He squats down so I can see just his mouth from under the coat. “I’m going to hold the elevator for you. But I don’t want any pics of you and me walking in together. They won’t have much with just you walking out of the car alone.”

I nod, but know there are all those other pictures of us inside the car. He stands and walks away. Devon reaches his hand inside the car. I take it, and see that Manny is holding a big blue blanket up to keep me hidden even more. He walks beside me, and Devon keeps the jacket in place. The first steps I take hurt because of all the blisters and I have to limp all the way to the elevator door. Manny keeps the blanket up until the elevator doors hide us from pictures.

As the elevator starts to climb, Kolton takes the jacket from my head, and pulls me into his chest. “You’re limping. You’re hurt. God, Mia Why did you run?”

“I read the article. I—got scared—I,” I sink into his embrace. Part of me wants to escape, the other wants to never let go. He warned me, didn’t he? He told me about the privacy. I just thought it would happen to someone else, or way later. That’s how humans are; we’re deniers.

When the doors open, a burst of cool air slaps me in the face. “What—what’s going on?”

“We’re on the roof,” he says, walking me toward the stairs. I wince in pain and he picks me up, no hesitation, and climbs some stairs that lead to a landing pad with a blue and silver painted helicopter sitting on top of it. The paint is unique, like the blue got ripped off in spots showing the more plain silver underneath.

“Who’s going to fly that?” I ask. He doesn’t respond. Manny opens the passenger door and Kolton helps me into the seat.

“Put the cyclic between your legs,” he says, before shutting the door and walking around to the other door. I’m guessing he means the thing that looks like a joy stick and I shift my leg over it, realizing when he opens the door that he’s actually going to fly the helicopter.

“Kolton?” When he opens the door. “You can’t fly this.”

“I have my private pilot’s license. Okay. Don’t worry.”

“Shit!” I panic. “Where are we going?”

“To my house in the hills. Remember me telling you about it?” I nod, stunned. “It’s my parents’ house. No one knows I own it. It’s in the desert—completely private.” He hands me a weird green headset that looks like it’s from World War Two. “Put your seatbelt on,” he orders as he puts on some fancy streamlined headset that says ‘Bose’ on it.

I take my bag off and put the green headset on. I’m all squished in here with my bag on my lap. I look behind me and see there’s a tiny hole behind my head to the back seat. I shove my bag through it and find the seatbelt to my left. It looks like a regular car seatbelt. I’d always thought helicopters had those five-point harnesses. I click it in place as he’s pushing buttons on the console.

The inside instrument panel isn’t huge like on an airplane. It’s more like a box in the center between us with circular gauges full of numbers. It lights up in a dim amber hue. The scent inside smells musky, like foam rubber, fuel, electronics coming to life. He opens a vent window and yells, “Clear,” just before the black rotor above us starts to twist and beat itself against the air.

In my ear, I hear the air traffic controller say some weird code stuff to Kolton. He responds but they’re talking too fast for me to even try to understand. My mind is spinning like the rotor.

I’m in a helicopter.

Kolton’s going to fly the helicopter.

I try to get it to sink in.

He’s messing with something on the left side near his seat. It makes the rotor turn faster as he pulls the center joystick around and around. It looks like he’s checking it before we take off. He turns toward me. “I—I’m scared of heights!” I try.

“Mia, I completely understand your fear. I learned to fly because I have anxiety when I’m not flying, myself. I have a lot of experience. I’ve been flying for years. Plus, I’ve been taking her back and forth almost every day since you’ve been at my apartment. You’re completely safe.”

“Her?”

“The helicopter.”

Oh, of course. He
would
learn to fly so he’d have control since he didn’t when the airliner went down when he was little, killing everyone on board except him.

“Do you trust me?” he asks. I know immediately the answer is yes, and I nod.

He smiles, looking relieved I said yes so quickly. I grab the cloth hanging near the door to hold on. His legs move on some pedals and I realize I have them near my feet, too. His hands are on two different controls, the one to his left and the one between his legs, like the one I have.

I concentrate on the wrap around bubble window in front of me; it even goes under our feet. I feel the pressure of the lift as we climb upward. It’s so loud, the sounds of air being swept by the rotor. The heliport starts to get farther below us. It feels like we’re climbing sideways, like a crab walks. We go higher and follow the road below.

It’s darker up here than it was on the ground. It feels like we’re in a bubble, a bubble flying toward both of our needs for solace and privacy. I feel safer now than I have in so long. We keep following the road. The higher we get, the red lights of the cars start to look like human veins, like one entity instead of thousands of different cars.

“How high are we?” I ask.

“Five-thousand feet,” he says, his voice sounding lighter than I’ve ever heard him. He seems so in control up here. I mean, he’s always in control, but now he’s happy about it. LA is huge. That’s what I realize up here.

“Look down and you’ll see Hancock Park.” Near my feet I do see it, a turtle shaped space of green amidst house lights, street lights, and car veins. “We’re over Central Los Angeles.” After several minutes of listening to him hum a song I don’t recognize, it feels like we’re losing altitude. “I want to show you Silver Lake. Look.” I can see it as we approach. In the dark it looks black, but shiny. Once we’re over it, he hovers like a hummingbird in front of a juicy flower; the sensation odd because it doesn’t feel like we should be able to hover. Then he moves the stick between his legs slightly and we move even lower. We’re directly over the lake, as he accelerates, flying us so fast, just above water. I laugh. I can’t help it. This is incredible!

I catch him watching me as he flies the length of the water. As we pass over a barrier and a little square reservoir, he turns right and we begin to climb the air again, reaching the height we were before. From here, I can see the freeways intersect, reminding me of arteries; the earth is so alive with life. Our problems seem to disappear up here.

“You liked that,” he says, smiling proudly and I nod, feeling the smile in my cheeks. It’s a real smile, an exhilarated one. I’ve flown like this before in my dreams. That happy dream I have when I have powers and the air treats my body like it’s water and I’m an expert swimmer. I love that dream and this is just like it.

“I love it up here,” I say, grasping my hands to my chest.

“All phoenixes are meant to fly,” he says through the earpiece, like direct access to my brain. As I contemplate Kolton’s near obsession with my survival story, I enjoy watching the cars below. The way LA looks like it has a heartbeat that goes all the way until we reach the jagged edge of where the city ends and the wilderness begins. Now it’s dark, darker than I’ve see the night become in a long, long time.

“Do you want to fly?” he asks me, his voice in my head like thoughts coming in through the earphones.

“Umm—like actually
fly
your helicopter?”

“Yes, Mia. I trust you.” And, for some reason, I don’t say no. I just look at him. “Put your feet on the pedals then place your left hand on the collective there. See it?” I swallow hard, but decide to do everything as he instructs me. “Your right hand needs to go on the cyclic between your legs.” So I wrap my hand around it, and he smiles. “I have to say, I’m a little jealous of the cyclic right now.”

He’s
flirting
with me? I’ve never seen him so playful—ever. I shake my head bashfully. “You need to pretend that your movements are inside a small imaginary square the size of a wedding ring box. Can you imagine that size?”

“Yes,” I say.

“She’s very receptive to any movements you make.”
I’ll bet she is
, I think, then feel a little guilty. All guys must call their helicopters ‘she’ and think of their cyclics like—well, you know. “The cyclic moves us forward, left, and right,” he says in my ear. “That’s good, Mia. Now what we’re doing is called a positive release of controls. I will say ‘now you have the controls’ and you will repeat it in the positive by saying ‘I have the controls.’ Got it?”

“Yes,” I nod. My heart is beating through my chest. There can be no doubt of the symbolism going on here. He’s giving me the controls of this machine, but control over us, too. I feel sweat beading on my forehead.

“Mia, you have the controls,” he says, his voice soft, but sure.

“I have the controls,” I answer, my voice jumpy because of the weight of responsibility as he removes his hands. The cyclic vibrates as he places his hands on his thighs, fingers splayed like he did in the car the day we kissed. I swallow hard. It’s like he knows what that movement does to me.

I have the controls. I start to feel dizzy from the enormity of what he’s just said, what I’m doing, where we are, what just happened with the photographers; that there is an ‘us’ and he’s given it all over to me. All of it hits me. My hands start to shake, and we drop down a little, scaring the crap out of me.

“Kolton!”

“It’s okay, Mia,” he says, putting his hands back on the controls. “I have the controls. Repeat it in the positive.”

“You have the controls,” I say, taking my hands away from the cyclic like it nearly bit me. I grasp my hands together; they hurt from holding those sticks so tight. I put my head back and raise my chin, counting up from the number ten. That’s what my mom always taught me to do when I was car sick, so I do it now. My head fills itself with numbers until I lose count and start over. In the background, I hear the air traffic controller talking in mysterious flying lingo to Kolton but I keep counting.

I do that until he says, “We’re here, Mia. I’m going to land.” I look down and see a house with a field next to it. We’re in the desert, the lights from under us illuminating the ground below, along with cacti and beige dirt. He hovers and then we come down, hopping once before we come to rest. He turns some switches and the rotor slows. When it stops, the silence is loud, a sharp contrast to the high-pitched sounds of being in flight.