Fade by Kailin Gow

into the driver’s seat of the Ferrari. Grayson and I get in.
    “Are you okay to drive?” I ask.
    Jack shrugs. “I’m fine. The bullet went straight through. I’ll just be sore for a while, that’s all.”
    I don’t argue as he puts the car in gear. We drive for most of an hour before coming to a private airfield. It isn’t big, just a couple of hangars and a runway, but it’s big enough for a private jet to be sitting on the runway.
    “That isn’t for us, is it?” I ask.
    Jack nods. “I would have brought you this way last time, but Sebastian was using his jet.”
    The steps up to the jet are down, and a young man in a simple uniform comes down them. He takes the keys to the Ferrari from Jack, promising to take it back as the three of us go aboard. Even Grayson seems impressed with the luxury of the interior. This isn’t some bucket of bolts bought cheaply to do a job. This is more the kind of jet that a rock star might own, complete with cabin crew.
    “This all seems…” I don’t know how to finish it, and for the first time today, Jack smiles.
    “Most of the people in the Underground like the finer things in life, especially when it comes to hi-tech toys like this. It’s one way of attracting some of the best brains out there, though plenty of them are just happy at the chance it gives them to uncover the truth.”
    The truth about things like me. Jack doesn’t say it, but the words hang between us.
    Surprisingly, he keeps away from us on the flight. Grayson sits right next to me, as though afraid to let me get too far away again. Jack, however, seems to be content to talk to the plane’s crew, and spends a large amount of the flight making calls. It seems that he’s busy arranging something, or reporting on what has happened. He even pulls out a laptop from an overhead locker at one point, working on it with a look of complete concentration.
    “So,” Grayson whispers to me, “all these people work for this ‘Underground’?”
    I nod. “I guess so.”
    “With resources like this, it has to be ex-government,” he says.
    “What?”
    “It makes sense. What if it’s some kind of renegade operation? Something that kept going after it was meant to have been shut down thanks to cutbacks?”
    I shrug. It makes a kind of sense, but there are other options. “It could just be privately funded, with some big backers behind it. I think I might already have met one.”
    Grayson reaches out for my hand then, and I know that whatever the Underground is, whatever happens with it, I won’t be alone. Jack, meanwhile, is down towards the front of the plane with one of the female cabin crew. His shirt is off. I’ve seen him like that before, of course. I lived with him for weeks. Yet now, I can’t seem to take my eyes off him. He is magnificent, with perfectly chiseled abs and lean muscles in all the right places, although he’s sporting a shoulder wound. The flight attendant is helping Jack to re-dress his shoulder, and being quite enthusiastic about it. No, it’s more than that. She’s practically throwing herself at him, tossing her hair, smiling at all the right moments, and taking every excuse to touch him.
    Worse, Jack seems to be flirting in return. A couple of times, he says things that make the woman laugh, while he seems to be perfectly happy with her attentions. Jealousy rises up in me like a wave, and even though I have no right to it, sitting there with Grayson, I know I can’t just sit there.
    “I need to go to the restroom,” I tell Grayson, before getting up. Of course, the path to the restroom just happens to take me right past where Jack and the flight attendant are currently finishing up. I give her a not too friendly stare. “Could you fetch Grayson a drink please?” I say. “He was complaining of being thirsty.”
    The woman smiles, and I feel a little bad about the hostility. “Of course.”
    She hurries off to fetch it, leaving me with Jack, who seems faintly amused by the