RIVER POV
I wondered how long was too long before I needed to come clean to Wyatt. Until I was forced into explaining to him the mission we were about to embark on and what he could possibly witness in the process.
I needed him to fly this plane, that was indisputable. I needed him to strap a smile on his face and welcome Hendrix aboard, preferably unarmed with no escape.
I knew if I told him too soon it would risk him backing out, either that or giving the whole plan away with his sheer panic.
He was quiet but I could feel the second hand heat radiating from his body with how mad he was at me.
It was strange, all this time had passed between us and in one way it seemed like no time had passed at all but in the other, us being friends was like a whole different lifetime ago.
"So," I breathed out, wanting desperately to break through that tense atmosphere between us, "what happened with you and Tyler?"
He checked controls on the jet, pressing buttons and pulling levers, ignoring me. I hovered in the doorway keeping watch for Hendrix, his men or the other pilots.
I tapped my fingers against the door frame, getting impatient with the waiting around.
"Why are you so pissed at me?"
"I thought we were friends." He snapped back.
"We are friends."
"No River, we're not friends." He huffed air out of his nose in annoyance. "We're certainly not friends today but back in college, I thought we were friends."
"We were." I shrugged and he laughed coldly.
"I didn't even know who you were, who you are."
"Nobody did, legally I wasn't allowed to reveal my true identity. I wasn't allowed to talk about it to anyone."
"Fuck that. You tell your friends your shit, you lay it all on them and let them help you but you never told me because you never valued me as a friend. You fucking left town and never even said goodbye to me. I found out you were gone weeks later from Millie. You found your money and cut us all out of your life."
"That's not-"
"Save it River. It is, it's exactly what happened and just to be clear, I'm doing this because Millie is in trouble. Not for you. Not for Tyler. For Millie and Everly. That girl has been through enough hardships in her life and if I can do something to make that situation better then I will."
"Okay."
He nodded and then turned his back to me, carrying on with his inspections. Silence lingered between us for a while after that, thick silence, tense silence and hella awkward.
"Huh." He commented after an eternity, the puzzling tone to his voice pulled my attention away from the door for a split second.
"What? Is that a good huh or a bad huh?"
"The oxygen tank is low." I stepped away from the door to grab a closer look at the tank. Admittedly, I had no clue what I was looking at but he continued pondering. "Why would someone sign off on a flight if it doesn't meet safety requirements?"
"Maybe someone made a mistake." They didn't make mistake, this was an illegal flight, it probably wasn't even checked safety-wise.
"A potential life threatening mistake."
"Do we need oxygen to fly?"
"Not to fly but if we get into trouble when up in the air we would need an oxygen supply, the pressure would suffocate us. I can't believe this wasn't adequately checked."
