Exported [Book 3 in the Expiring Series]

10 Touché

Iris~~

The plane touches down on free soil—now I'm being melodramatic. But am I? I'm free from. . . from. . . from the Society. You know, the evil aristocracy that I grew up hating but now I'm marrying into? My sarcasm should not be directed at myself.

This is free soil though. People here can travel. If I didn't know Jonas, I wouldn't have ever been given the opportunity to fly away from Elleany. In a way, being on French soil at last is funny. I'll probably get in trouble if the Society learns where I am—or at least why I'm here—to see their exiled. But this is the place I was supposed to go to not cause the Society any problems.

As the plane slows, the outside world comes into focus, and I spot the airport terminal closest to us, a glass building that looks like a cylinder on its side. The rest of the airport is huge, and we pass a plane with a clover on its tail that's from Ireland. The control tower looks like the terminal except it's upright. Suddenly I don't want to chuck Colton out of the plane. I'm nervous but slightly excited. I glance at Bently and Colton who's seated next to me. Who would have though my bachelorette party would be with Colton and Bently? I don't see us hitting the town and getting drunk.

Though it is Bently and Colton. Maybe the getting drunk part is foreseeable.

The private jet of the Society's stops on the tarmac, and steps are wheeled up to the cabin door. Colton and Bently disembark first, but I hang back at the threshold. How do I explain this to Jonas? I can't. He's on his way to be millions of miles away. I can't believe he's actually up there—in space.

I make my ways down the stairs, one foot at a time, and eventually I step onto the tarmac. Onto France. A few attendants unload Colton's bags. He's the only one with luggage. A part of me was expecting for there to be press. The two of them are foreign leaders visiting another country after all. But Colton wouldn't want anyone to know we're here, which is going to be impossible to keep secret. Does the monarchy already know? Surely, they do.

"Iris, keep up," Colton yells. He and Bently head for a doorway that's underneath the glass part of the terminal.

I lift the front of my skirt so as not to trip over it and hurry after them all while working to maintain poise and grace. When I step through the doorway, I find them talking to a man behind a desk. Colton hands him a stack of papers, which must function as our passports.

About ten minutes later, the man clears us, and I follow Colton and Bently through another door, this one leading into an elegant hallway that seems to be seperate from the rest of the airport. The black marbled hallways take us outside where a limo awaits. A woman stands ready by the door which she promptly opens when she sees us.

"Beta." She bows as Colton slides in followed by Bently. "Digamma." She definitely knows who they are.

I smile at her as I pass her, ducking down to enter the limo.

"Miss Levine." She even gives me a small bow. To me? Did Colton see that?

I settle into a seat across from Colton. Bently is closer to the open partition that separates us from the driver. He begins talking to the driver in, what due to our location on the globe, I can only assume to be French.

"What other languages does he know?" I ask Colton.

"Italian and German, I believe."

"What is he telling the driver?"

Colton shrugs, pulling out his phone from his pocket. "I don't know, but I'm going to make the safe assumption it's to where I told him I want to go."