Black Diaries

41. The Getaway

They are not after you! They are not after you! You are perfectly safe!

That became my new mantra on the way to the airport. In the week leading up to our departure I had done everything I could to prepare—taken yoga lessons to stay calm, taken pills to sleep at night, and taken knife-fight lessons and extra karate lessons in case staying calm wouldn't be enough.

It will be! Just stay calm, I told myself. John F. Kennedy International Airport is the sixth-busiest airport in the United States—the busiest if you count only in international passenger traffic. It stretches over four-thousand nine-hundred and thirty acres, including eight-hundred and eighty acres in the Central Terminal Area. The airport has more than thirty miles of roadway, twenty-four million six-hundred sixty-five thousand nine-hundred and eleven passengers per year and over thirty-seven-thousand employees, NONE OF WHOM, repeat, NONE OF WHOM ARE FBI AGENTS WHO WANT TO HUNT YOU DOWN!

"Are you all right?" Elliot beside me asked, solicitously.

"I'm fine! Perfectly fine!"

"It's just... you seem a little agitated."

"God! I'm not agitated, damnit! Just shut the hell up, will you? Me, agitated? Ha!"

"Um... all right."

We halted right in front of Terminal One.

Terminal—I had always considered the term slightly strange for a place where passengers get onto an airplane. Terminal? Terminal what? Disease? Bomb-attack? Plane crash? Whoever had named that part of an airport really needed a shot of optimism.

The others, however, did not seem to share my pessimistic views of terminals. While Nelson remained sitting in the driver's seat, leaving the car idling, an assistant chauffeur who had been hired for the day jumped out immediately and opened the doors for us. Grabbing our luggage, he strode briskly ahead, leaving us to follow into the terminal.

The terminal which was not, repeat, not swarming with FBI agents.

Elliot extended his arm to me.

"Shall we go?"

I took a deep breath. I couldn't allow fear to rule my life! That was what it said on all the websites for people with phobias. Why shouldn't the same thing that was true for heights and spiders be true for federal agents?

Calm Down, Cassidy. FBI agents are nothing to be afraid of. They aren't really soulless demons. They are perfectly normal people who kiss their kids goodnight every day. Yes, they are armed, and may want to shoot a bullet through your head, but other than that they are perfectly nice and harmless.

Elliot was still looking at me, a slightly quizzical look on his face. "Cassidy? Shall we?"

"Yes." I nodded. "Just do me a favor—stay a few steps away from me, just in case."

"In case?" He stopped to stare at me, but I was already heading towards the entrance, so he hurried after me. Just in front of the front doors, I suddenly halted, whirled around and grabbed him.

"Just in case this is my last chance," I breathed. "Elliot—I love you!" And I pulled him down to smash my lips against his. For a few moments we shared the hottest, most intense, most bitter-sweet kiss I had ever tasted, then I broke away. He was blinking down at me, thoroughly disorientated.

"Cassidy... are you sure you're all right?"

"No. If I die, remember me, will you?"

His mouth dropped open. Before he could start gathering his wits off the floor, I turned and stormed into the airport, eyes tightly shut, my hand clenched around the handle of my hidden knife—a brand new carbon fiber model.