K. Weiland - Storming

The black tunnel stretched out in front of him. Somewhere down there, maybe he’d find a window. If he could put the lantern in the window, maybe just maybe Hitch’d be able to see it.

He started crawling, and he kept right on crawling—until he heard a dog’s muffled whine. Goosebumps scattered his skin, and he stopped short.

Taos . Could that be Taos?

Walter’s heart jumped with the first happy thought since Zlo had taken Aunt Aurelia.

Maybe, just maybe everything could still be all right. If Taos was here and if Hitch could somehow come save them both, maybe everything could be all right after all.

HITCH STAGGERED THROUGH the doorway into the cellblock. They were way up on the fourth floor of the brand new courthouse the county had built for Campbell. Rain rattled against the roof. Griff’s hand against his shoulder guided him toward a cell.

Another deputy pushed a handcuffed Jael to keep her walking on by.

As she passed Hitch, she reached out and brushed her fingers against his.

His body reacted on instinct, his head moving in her direction.

She looked straight at him, her eyebrows furrowed hard at that crossroads somewhere between outrage and concern.

Her look pierced him. He snapped awake, out of the chaos of his jumbled thoughts, and drew a shuddered breath.

“You are not all right?” she said.

Who cared if he was all right ? At this moment, the only thing he needed to figure out was how all this had happened. How could it be true? He had a son ? And that son was Walter—who had probably fallen to his death only a few hours ago? Dear God in heaven.

“Did you know?” he asked her.

She shook her head. Her bedraggled, wind-whipped hair flailed against her cheeks. “No. I would have told you.” She gave Griff a sidelong glare. “ They should have told you.”

The deputy assigned to her pushed her forward. “Come along.”

She turned her glare on him instead. “And what am I in custody for?”

“Sheriff says you’re an accomplice.”

Like enough she didn’t know what an accomplice was, but she tossed her hair back. “Your sheriff is criminal.”

Still, she let him herd her away. She was limping again, whether from the storm or her bare feet or something she’d pulled during her aerobatics earlier in the evening.

Griff touched Hitch’s elbow and guided him down the corridor. “This way.”

Almost every cell was packed with the Schturming refugees who had been left behind when Zlo’s men had broken him out.

Hitch let himself be guided. His mind churned in a nauseating blur of exhaustion and new adrenaline. He had a son. He was a father. Celia’d had a son. He and Celia had had a son together… and nobody’d ever told him.

He clamped his eyes shut as he walked. The past week scrolled through his head like a moving picture. Walter running through the cornfield as the Jenny zipped overhead. Walter peeking underneath the fuselage the day they met, when he’d wanted so bad to bum a ride. Walter playing with Taos. Walter holding that sign advertising rides. Walter sitting in Hitch’s lap during his first flight, his hands clamped tight on the stick. Walter turning somersaults afterwards.

Of course the kid was his son. Whose else? He’d even thought how, if he’d had a son, one like Walter wouldn’t have been too far off the mark.

And then there was Walter saying the first words he’d said in years—and saying them to him . And Hitch had sent him running like a whipped pup, as if Taos could have mattered more than him.

A groan tore up his chest.

Tonight, for the first time, he was a father.

No, scratch that, he’d been a father all along. For eight years. Tonight was maybe the first time in all those years he wasn’t a father anymore.

If he’d been faster tonight—if he and Jael had gone for Walter first, instead of Aurelia—if he hadn’t lost his temper with Walter after Zlo had taken Taos—if he hadn’t come back home—if he hadn’t left. All these useless ifs. At the end of every single one of them, Walter was still unaccounted for and probably dead.

He stopped short of his cell, yanked his elbow out of Griff’s grip, and turned to the wall. He smashed his hand into it once, then again. His knuckle split open and streaked blood across the wall.

Griff grabbed at him. “Hitch. Hitch—stop it. This isn’t doing anybody any good.”

Hitch spun on him, fist still clenched. He nearly swung at Griff’s head.

But what good would that do at this point? Another fight. One more for the history books. What good had any of those fights done? What had they proven? That he was right and his brother was wrong? What good would a fight do Walter now?

He dropped his fist and stepped backwards, into the open cell. He watched Griff the whole way. “Why didn’t anybody tell me?”

Griff watched him right back, but his expression wasn’t so certain anymore.

“You didn’t think I had a right to know something like that?” Hitch said.

Griff reached for the cell door. His hand trembled. “You left. You left your family. You lost your rights when you did that.”

“You think I wouldn’t have come back if I knew?”

Griff’s gaze charted Hitch’s face. Slowly, he shook his head. “We thought it was best for the boy.”

“That he never knew his father?”

“He thinks Byron’s his father.” He wouldn’t look Hitch in the eye. “Are you really going to tell me you’d have come back, settled down, given him a home? You’re telling me the life he would have had, getting dragged around the country, living hand to mouth would have been a better upbringing than what he’s getting with Nan?”

Yes! The boy was his son .

But the words caught in his throat.

He would have come back, picked up his swaddled infant, and flown right back out. Griff was right about that.

So then what?

He’d spent the last nine years chasing freedom through the skies. A baby would have chained him down as sure as a farm. Walter was nobody’s fool. He’d have figured that out. He would have realized a long time since that his father was no hero. Hitch Hitchcock was just a no-account wanderer. He had no roots, no responsibilities, no convictions.

Griff inhaled. “I’m not saying what we decided was right. I’m just saying…” He watched the floor.

Then he clanked the door shut. “What you said back there about Campbell being the one we should arrest… That true?” His mouth stayed hard, but something in his face was vulnerable, searching.

Hitch looked him in the eye. “What do you think?”

Griff opened his mouth, then closed it and nodded. “You’re stuck here for now—probably until a hearing. But I’ll see what I can do.” He left. His footsteps thudded down the corridor.

Hitch backed up, one step after the other, until the low bunk hit his legs. He sank down on it. His hands bumped into the thin mattress beside his thighs, and he left them there, limp. He leaned back until his head hit the wall. Overhead, rain hammered against the ceiling. Shadows shifted in the corners.

Walter was out there somewhere, either up with Zlo or dead on the ground.

Please let it be Zlo. His throat cramped, and he closed his eyes. Never thought he’d pray for that. But please let it be.

Because, God help him, he didn’t know what he’d do if it was otherwise.

He had a son, and hadn’t something in him known it all along? He loved the kid already. He’d loved him from the first time he’d met him. Taos had known. Somehow the dog had seemed to see it all before Hitch had even gotten a clue.