I shake away the memory, but I still can’t move. I’m transfixed by Mike’s body on the floor and by the slumped body of the sharp-faced hijacker—Amazon—in the left-hand seat. Both men are dead. There’s an angry ligature mark around Amazon’s neck, and the same around Mike’s, and I think how easy it is to bring a weapon on board a plane—an innocent piece of cord inside a drawstring bag or hooded top.
Missouri’s in the right-hand seat, her hand on the yoke and a piece of black plastic hanging uselessly from her sleeve. Cesca and I move as one, but the flight deck is cramped, and Cesca steps on Mike’s arm, flung out across the floor. She stumbles, crying out with the horror of it all, and I reach to pull her back—
Too late.
There’s a terrible noise—a guttural, primeval scream. Cesca stands upright for a split second, blood pouring from a gash in the side of her head. Then she falls.
Missouri has the fire ax, taken from its clip beside her seat. Sharp enough to cut its way out of a wreckage, sharp enough to break a skull, to pierce a brain. She places the ax across her lap.
No.
I say it out loud, roaring it, shouting it for this time and the last time and for every time I should have said it.
Sun pierces through the glass, a rainbow carving the flight deck in two, separating the dead from the living. Everything slows until I’m aware of every breath, every movement, and as Missouri’s hands touch the steering yoke, I reach into my pocket.
Here, let me show you…
No, I think. Let me show you.
Finley’s headphones pull against Missouri’s neck, the ends wrapped around my fists. Her hands claw at her neck, fighting for the wire, but I pull harder, dropping to the floor and bracing my legs against the back of the seat. I can smell the metallic tang of Cesca’s blood, feel the tangle of limbs against mine, but still I keep pulling. I try to imagine Missouri’s bulging eyes—her lolling tongue—only it isn’t her I’m seeing, it’s a man. Another pilot.
There’s a sudden feeling of weightlessness as the wire snaps, and I fall back. I scramble to get up, pain in my arms from the force I’ve been using, but Missouri isn’t moving. Have I killed her? Is it over? The space around me feels at once too small and too big, the clouds moving so much, it feels as though I’m the one who can’t be still. I’m aware of Rowan and Derek moving around me, dragging Mike and Amazon outside. Sound comes back to me as if my ears have been blocked, everything taking on a clarity it’s never had before, and I crouch by Cesca, who isn’t moving. Derek hands me a cloth, and I press it to the wound on her head.
“Stay with us, Cesca,” I whisper, hot tears stinging my eyes. We’re so close now. So close. I look up to find Rowan standing there. “Upstairs,” I tell him. “There are two more pilots.” I give Rowan the code for the relief bunks.
Cesca’s eyeballs flutter beneath closed lids, a network of tiny veins visible beneath the taut skin.
“Help me get her into the galley. There’s a first aid kit in the big locker by the fridge.”
We’re half carrying, half dragging her out of the flight deck when there’s a sudden bang, and the door to the bunks flies open. I choke back a sob of relief. We’re going to be okay. I can get a message to Adam, to Sophia, and they’ll know that I kept my promise. That I’m coming home.
Only it isn’t Ben or Louis in the doorway.
Rowan looks between me and Derek, his mouth fighting to find the words.
“The two pilots,” he says eventually, shaking his head as though he could deny his own truth. “They’re dead.”
Blood roars in my ears.
Ben and Louis are dead.
Cesca’s unconscious.
We have control of the plane, but no one on board knows how to fly it.
FORTY-FOUR
6 A.M. | ADAM
The fire crackles above our heads, like footsteps on a carpet of dry leaves. Sweat slicks my palms, my back, my brow.
“Daddy?” Sophia looks at me with that mix of curiosity and wariness, and I shape my lips into something meant to reassure. There’s a crash from somewhere inside the house. The hall stand? A picture? The hall is carpeted, thick drapes at the door to keep out the draft. Too many