Except…. My knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. Everything wouldn’t be okay. I didn’t want things to go back to normal. The idea of going back to Krüger’s Tavern and flirting with random women felt flimsy and fake, like I’d been pushing paper doll cutouts around on a table my whole life, making the guy in the sharp suit go home with the woman in the tight dress, playing at romance without knowing what it really was.

It took almost fifteen hours before we finally reached a town and another four before we reached one that had an airfield. By that point, I was a wreck, aching and worn-out from driving. We changed back into our street clothes and Gabriel sweet-talked the owner of an air freight company. After some negotiation, some vodka shots and a thick wad of US currency, the guy agreed to smuggle us into Latvia. We piled into the back of a plane, squeezed in between some mail bags and a stack of cages containing live chickens. and I was asleep before we left the runway. I dreamed of Erin, kept reaching for her and finding she wasn’t there.

The next day—or maybe it was the same day, we crossed so many time zones I lost track—we touched down at a small airfield outside Riga, Latvia and were through the fence and onto the streets before the authorities knew we were there. For the first time since the helicopter crashed, we were back on track. We could go to the CIA safehouse, dump the guns and other equipment and pick up our civilian luggage, then get a commercial flight back to the US. I’d changed the dressing on my leg wound and it was feeling better—staying off my feet for a day had helped.

As the sun came up, we wandered towards the center of Riga, everyone yawning and jet-lagged. Erin was at the front of the group, talking to JD, and it was hard not to look at her. I wanted to drink in every detail of her face before I lost her forever. But I couldn’t let anyone suspect what had happened. I turned to Cal. “How’s Bethany doing in med school?” I asked.

“Great,” said Cal. “Acing it. It sucks that she’s away in Boulder so much but she’s home on weekends and it ain’t forever.” He got a secret little smile on his face and I could tell he was thinking of her. “I’m making her something. A surprise.” He shrugged, embarrassed. “She likes watching the sun come up. We used to do it back in Idaho, in the cabin. So I’m making a bench for the porch. A bench, but with rockers, like a rocking chair for two—well, three, with Rufus. Figured we could all sit there under a blanket.”