“No! Are you crazy?” Fitz yelled. “Let me out of this car! Let me out right now!”
“Are you gonna walk back?” Wolf inquired. Fitz slumped down so far in his seat he touched the floor.
“Burn, I don’t ask for much as your brother. I just want a quiet place of my own, a nice cup of tea, a book –“
“A computer to hack,” I chimed in.
“A joint to smoke,” Wolf added.
“A class to sleep through,” Burn said.
There was a pause. Fitz groaned.
“You make me sound like a monster.”
“A whiny monster,” Burn agreed.
“Where are we, anyway?” I asked.
“An old friend’s,” Wolf said. “Of our mother’s.”
Fitz stopped groaning at that. Burn pulled the car over to the side of the barn, and got out. I followed. Wolf got out too, but Fitz crossed his arms and laid sideways over the backseat, his freckled face scrunched up.
“I’m not getting out.”
“You are,” Burn insisted. Fitz sat up quickly.
“You know I hate this place! I specifically avoid it every year you and Wolf go. You used her –” Fitz pointed at me. “As distracting bait! I can’t believe you, you – you charlatan!”
“Small words,” Burn requested.
“It means you’re a filthy liar and a huge asshole!”
“I try.” Burn deadpanned.
“It would be nice,” Wolf said. “If you joined us for once.”
Fitz’s eyes darted between me and Wolf, then back to me again. I was still utterly lost as to what was going on.
“You’ll get out,” Burn said. “And you’ll do it. Like the rest of us.”
“I’m not like the rest of you!” Fitz hissed. “I don’t like flinging myself off into five thousand feet of air –“
“Air?” I muttered. Suddenly it made sense. The aircraft barn, the big open space –
“There you kids are!” A rough voice greeted us. An older man with tanned nut-brown skin smiled at us with all his wrinkles. He tipped the brim of his baseball cap to me. “And you brought a lady with you, this year. Good afternoon, darling.”
“H-Hi?” I tried. “I’m Bee.”
“Bee – well isn’t that a pretty name. I’m Jakob Petersen, owner of this fine establishment.” He smiled, his eyes going wide. “And Fitz! By the devil – I thought we’d lost you to the sands of time, my boy. Turns out those sands just made you taller and more handsome, didn’t they?”
Fitz grumbled something that sounded like a ‘hi’. The man nodded to Wolf, and shook hands with Burn, who towered over his average height.
“You gotta tell me your secret, Burn,” Jakob said. “How’d you get Fitz to come back after all these years?”
Burn nodded to me. “Bait.”
“Thanks,” I said. “It’s great knowing how much I’m worth around here.”
Jakob laughed. “More than your weight in gold, Bee. I haven’t seen Fitz in nearly ten years. He must like you something fierce to turn up out here again.”
“She’s amusing,” Fitz barked. “Unlike everyone else here!”
“Stop being sour about it,” Wolf snapped. “You got fooled. So what? Roll with it.”
Fitz slapped a palm to his forehead. “I never thought I’d see the day where you, Mr. Stick-Up-Your-Ass, would be lecturing me on the merits of going with the flow.”
“This is a sky diving facility, isn’t it?” I asked. Jakob nodded.
“You betcha. Blackthorn kids here used to come with their mom – god rest her soul – every year for her birthday. She loved the adrenaline. Can’t say I knew a woman who loved it more than she did, that’s for damn sure. You still taking care of her bike, Wolf?”
Wolf nodded, avoiding my eyes. We both knew he’d let that bike fall in the garage that day – saving me from injury instead. I was still mystified by that. He cherished that thing more than breathing.
“Let’s get this show on the road, then.” Jakob clapped his hands. “How many we taking up today – four?”
“Three,” Fitz squeaked.
“Four,” Burn insisted.
“Four it is. You kids wait in the office while I get everything ready. There’s a water cooler and a chip machine in there if you get hungry or thirsty.”
“Thanks, Jakob.” Wolf said. Jakob smiled.
“No worries, Wolf. It’s good to have you all here again.”
Burn led us over to a small trailer that’d been refurbished with an air conditioner and a few couches. Wolf settled on one, resting his head on the back of it. Fitz fiddled with the chip machine, stuffing Fritos into his face nervously. Burn leaned against a wall and waited, and I skimmed my fingers over the brochures piled by the door – Petersen’s Sky Diving Company.
“Are you afraid of heights, Fitz?” I asked. Fitz laughed, brittle.
“I’m not afraid of heights.”
Wolf looked up. Burn looked over. Both fixed their stares on him.
“Okay,” Fitz relented. “So I’m a little afraid of heights. But you have a fuckin’ phobia, Wolf! You know what it’s like! Why are you forcing me to do this?”
“Because,” Wolf droned. “Every time we did it when we were kids, you got so scared before it happened. And when it was over, you got excited and wanted to do it again.”
“I don’t remember that!”
“You probably blocked it out. It happens a lot to kids going through traumatic experiences.” I offered helpfully. I skimmed through the brochure, eager to lap up the extensive safety tips Jakob had included. Heights wasn’t my thing – any sane person was afraid of them – but least sky diving wasn’t anywhere near my house, or my family. If I was diving through the sky, I couldn’t be home, and no matter how much my conscious nagged at me to get home and make dinner for Dad, I just didn’t want to. Not today. Just for one day, I’d take a break. I deserved that much, didn’t I?
“Okay, Madam Shrink, then what do you suggest I do?” Fitz asked.
“Deep breaths,” I said. “One at time. Oh and whatever you do, don’t look down.”
“Fantastic,” He threw his arms up in defeat. “I can’t wait to die in the prime of my life by falling fifteen-thousand feet straight down.”