what it’ll feel like, whether it will be fast, whether it’s better or worse than crashing into a building. I imagine the sky, spinning around me, the panic rising as the altitude drops down, only that isn’t my imagination, it’s a memory and—
I ground myself. Stop this. Focus on now. On here.
There are hundreds of passengers. Half a dozen hijackers. We can do this.
And yet.
Most of the passengers are still hunched in their seats, clinging to loved ones, frantically messaging everyone back home. Can I rely on them to rally when we need them? I think of Carmel, her life cut short in the cruelest way. Explosives aren’t the only way to kill.
“She lied to us!” The shout comes from halfway down the cabin, where a vastly overweight man is getting to his feet. He fills the aisle, damp circles around his armpits and in dark crescents beneath the bulge of his chest. “She said the plan was a bluff. No one would get hurt.”
“You stupid fucking gorilla!” Niger says. “No one’s supposed to—”
“—tell them the plan?” The big man’s tone is sarcastic. “Well, guess what, dick-brain? There is no fucking plan!”
“We have to trust Missouri.” Niger looks around the cabin at his comrades. “We have to follow her. This is everything we’ve worked toward. Remember what we’re fighting for!”
Zambezi is nodding feverishly, her gaze falling between the cabin, Niger, and the locked flight-deck door. The other hijackers are looking to Niger now, too, in the absence of Missouri, and I can feel us losing them. If they see Niger as a replacement leader, we’ll lose any chance of getting back control of the plane.
We have to move. As soon as the authorities know what Missouri has planned, the fighter planes will be given the order to fire.
“Stay calm,” Niger says. “Hold your positions.”
“You’re going to listen to him?” I say, turning to take in as many hijackers as I can see. “He’s been lying to you.”
“What the fuck are you—”
“He’s been seeing her, behind all your backs.” I point to Zambezi, who looks at Niger for help, her mouth working wordlessly. As soon as I saw him properly, I’d immediately remembered the two of them in the bar, the familiarity of the way she looped her thumb into his pocket. It had struck me as odd that two people who had clearly met before were traveling in separate cabins, and I’d wondered if perhaps my instincts were off the beam—if memories of early dates with Adam were coloring what I was seeing.
“None of us has met before,” the big man says. He’s shaking his head, insistent but confused. “I’m Congo. Did any of you know that?”
Ganges backs him up. “We’re not allowed. Missouri doesn’t—”
“Fuck Missouri!” The shout comes from the doctor, who’s out of her seat and pushing past to get to the front of the cabin. “You piece of shit, Niger. You finished with me because you said it was jeopardizing the operation, and all the time, you were shagging that!”
“Lena—” begins Niger, but there’s an outraged gasp from Zambezi, who leaves her post to stand next to him, and I turn and look at the others, because if there’s ever going to be the right time, it’s surely…
“Now!” I say, and I run, the sudden movement beside me telling me that Cesca, at least, is coming with me. Yangtze’s blocking the flight-deck door, but Rowan and Derek are coming too, and they grip the younger man’s shoulders and drag him out of the way. He’s tall, but there’s no substance to him, and he crashes to the floor even as he’s throwing a punch, limbs splayed like a discarded mannequin. We have nothing to lose now, and the knowledge gives us all strength.
Cesca taps in the emergency code to the keypad on the flight-deck door.
I hold my breath. Under normal circumstances, the pilot would be looking at the cameras right now. At the first sign of anything amiss, they can override the access, but there’s every chance Missouri won’t know how to—
Click.
We’re in.
The sun’s coming up, a hint of gold tinting the clouds that swirl around us, endless and dizzying.
Here, let me show you…
If Lena was lying, this is where it ends. In the release of a trigger, in a sharp explosion. In fire and shrapnel and too many shards of bone and metal to ever be pieced back together. My chest feels tight, blood roaring in my ears so loudly, it drowns out the sound of