Lan pushed the curtains aside that separated the main cabin from the back. He had his backpack in his hands and tossed it on one of the chairs, rifling through it as he spoke. “The hostess is dead. Someone whacked her over the head with something heavy, maybe a pan. It’s not pretty back there. Lots of blood. I doubt she’s the one who drugged us. Since I don’t think we have a stowaway, that leaves the pilot. He hit her a couple of times. I checked the whole back, but couldn’t find the f**ker.
Fuck. “Where is he? We need to find him.”
“He’s in there.” Cooper hitched a thumb back toward the cockpit. “He’s dead.”
That was bad news. Could Cooper fly the plane? He’d only handled small aircraft with propellers before.
“Who’s dead?” Alea asked, her head coming up from Dane’s chest. “Dead is sad. No one should be dead. Except for Khalil. He was an ass**le.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Lan asked. “Coop, maybe you should have a look at her.”
“She’s just a lightweight,” Dane shot back. “Coop needs to fly the plane.”
Alea gasped and tried to step back. “Am I on drugs again? Did I take drugs?”
“It’s fine.” Dane pulled her closer, unwilling to let her get very far. She raised her arms and gave him an ineffectual push, trying to put distance between them. But the struggle was short-lived, and she finally let him hold her. “Someone drugged the wine. You didn’t have much.”
“I can’t relapse. Can’t go back there. Can’t.” Tears streamed down her face.
She was talking about the shit her captors had addicted her to. “We’ll take care of you, baby. Don’t worry.”
“Dane, we have bigger problems,” Cooper said. “The pilot poisoned himself, but not before he also killed the radio and all the electrical equipment, then dumped most of the fuel.”
Cooper’s words landed like a bomb in the cabin, diving toward the earth even now.
“Are you telling me that we’re over the Indian Ocean and we don’t have any fuel?” Dane asked.
“I don’t know where the f**k we are. I don’t know how long we’ve been in flight. I don’t have a f**king longitude or latitude. I don’t have a goddamn radio to call for help because that dead f**ker made sure that we’re going to go down without any hope of sending out a distress signal,” Cooper said between clenched teeth.
Dane pushed down his burst of panic. He had to take things in hand or the others might fall the f**k apart. “Cooper, we’re not in trouble because you’re going to fly the plane.”
“You know I’ve never flown anything like this,” Cooper replied. “And it’s not really flying since we’re going to be completely out of fuel in about five minutes.”
“Then you’ll glide us down.” Landon seemed to have picked up on Dane’s calm vibe. “We have a couple of minutes. What are our options? Do you see any land where we can set down? Should I look for parachutes?”
“Parachutes won’t work,” Dane replied, settling Alea into a chair. He didn’t want to leave her alone, but this was getting damn f**king serious. This plane and everyone in it was going down. He had ten minutes tops to formulate the best plan for their survival. “The pressure against the door will make it impossible to open until we get closer to the water. Our best bet is to try to find a place to put the plane down. Coop, I need you in that cockpit. If we’re lucky, maybe we’re not far off the coast of Indonesia or one of its islands. Go look.”
Cooper nodded and disappeared again.
“I don’t even have a cell signal,” Lan said, looking down at his phone.
“Cell towers don’t cover great swaths of water, man. But we all have apps on our phones that could be helpful. Everyone try to waterproof your phones. And save as much battery life as you can. Lan, get every bit of food you can find in back in case we aren’t rescued immediately. We’re going to need water. And see if there’s a life raft.”
“What’s happening?” Alea asked a bit more lucidly, pushing her hair back with trembling hands.
His first instinct was to coddle and protect her, tell her not to worry and to go back to sleep, but she was more than a pretty doll. She was a brave woman, and he was going to need every available hand and resource if they had any hope of getting out of this alive.
Dane sank to one knee and took her hands in his. “Our plane has been sabotaged, and we’re crashing. We need to do everything possible to mitigate the damage and find a way to survive. I need you to focus.”
She nodded, genuine tears running down her face, but he watched as she visibly straightened her spine and gathered her strength. “Okay. The cushions are floatation devices. There should be an inflatable raft.”
“The pilot took a knife to it,” Lan said, tossing a big yellow thing into the cabin. “It’s useless as a raft, but we could build a desalination unit with it. If we can find some land. I tossed the clothes out of this case. I think it was the hostess’s. It’s now holding water bottles and a bunch of snacks. Hope you like crackers, peanuts, and pâté. What the f**k is pâté made of?”
He didn’t have time to teach Landon about the art of fine cuisine. “Anything we can use to fish?”
“I’ve got land!” Cooper shouted.
Dane shoved down his relief. It wasn’t over yet.