#Chapter 16: The Crash

"Nicole? Are you still there?" Kent sounds like he's asked this a couple of times, and his voice sounds impatient. I shake myself from where I'm standing at my hotel window, staring through the dingy gray curtains out onto an even dingier gray street.

"Sorry," I say. "I'm here. I'm just – well, Kent, I'm really freaking terrified."

Kent's voice softens immediately.

"I know, Nick," he says. His tone becomes low, soothing, steady. I latch onto it, letting it ground me. "Trust me, this is big, and I'd be scared shitless if I were you, too."

"Gee, that makes me feel better," I say, trying to make a joke of it. Kent laughs, softly and kindly.

"It should," he says. "Look, Nicole, you'd be an idiot if you weren't scared. I'm scared. I'd feel a lot less confident in this plan if you weren't feeling scared."

"Really?" I ask, wrapping my worn wool cardigan more tightly around myself. The light in my hotel room is dim, the walls bleak and cheerless. Everything around me is colorless, just like m