Page 15 of Controlled Drift
Black Tide spoke softly when they spoke at all.Murmured updates.A clipped laugh.The rustle of fabric and gear being stowed.He caught fragments without turning—medical supplies unpacked, Victor’s voice steady and controlled, Tane’s sharper edge softened by focus.
“His leg wound is healing nicely,” Victor murmured.“If he stops getting captured and threatened, it should heal up all good.”
“Yeah,” Tane replied.“Niko, you just need to stop getting injured, bruh.”
Ethan swallowed.He had never been injury-prone before
He heard the pissed-off response from Niko, tightly controlled, but couldn’t make out the words.
Time stretched.
Then, quietly, footsteps approached.
Ethan didn’t look up when the copilot seat shifted.He didn’t need to in order to know who had joined him.
Niko settled in beside him with a tired exhale, movements measured, one hand braced briefly against the console before he eased his left leg into a more comfortable position.
They sat in silence.
Ethan became acutely aware of everything the cockpit held—the faint vibration through the yoke, the way the horizon line refused to stay perfectly still, the smell of recycled air layered with fuel and antiseptic drifting forward from the cabin.This was the place he understood best.A narrow, contained world governed by numbers and physics, not memory or consequence.
Niko’s presence disrupted that balance anyway.
Ethan could feel him beside him without looking.The careful way he breathed.The way he held himself as if pain were something to be negotiated with rather than endured.
The kind that pressed instead of comforted.
Ethan kept his eyes on the horizon, jaw tight, pulse suddenly loud in his ears.He had imagined this moment a hundred times in the years he’d spent not imagining it at all.None of those versions included the weight of Niko’s presence beside him—real, solid, breathing.
“You okay?”Ethan asked eventually, voice rougher than he meant it to be.
Niko nodded once.“Yeah.”A beat.“I will be.”
Ethan’s hands tightened briefly on the controls.
“Thank you,” Niko added, quieter.“For coming.”
Ethan let the words land.
“Any time,” he said.
Niko’s gaze shifted to the cockpit, taking in the layout with professional interest.“This is a hell of a plane.”
Ethan exhaled slowly.“Fastest commercial aircraft in the world.Modified to suit my style and needs.It’s a private registry and hard to find.She likes to stretch her legs.”
Niko huffed a breath that might have been a laugh.“I thought so.”
Silence crept back in.
“I knew it was you,” Niko said finally.
Ethan stilled.
“When I saw that climb,” Niko continued.“No one flies like that unless they trust the air more than the rules.”He glanced sideways.“I knew it was you coming for me.”
Ethan didn’t answer.
He couldn’t trust his voice.
