The Escape (US Marshals #1) - Lisa Harris Page 0,8

grabbed Madison’s hand, then closed his eyes and braced for impact.

Four

Madison drew in a deep breath and immediately felt a stab of pain shoot through her rib cage. She opened her eyes and forced herself to not panic. An eerie stillness surrounded her. It was quiet. Too quiet. There was no sound of an engine running. No voices. Just the smell of something burning and the quiet groans of the metal aircraft.

Sunlight streamed in from behind her as she tried to focus on the situation. She unbuckled her seat belt, then slowly stood up, needing to figure out what had happened. Where they were. And why it was so quiet. She pressed her hand against the back of the chair to steady herself, pressing her lips together at the pain. She held up her arm. Nothing seemed to be broken, though her wrist looked slightly swollen. She pulled up the bottom edge of her shirt and found a bruise forming.

But she didn’t have time to worry about it right now. Seconds seemed to drag by. There were six people on this plane and nothing but silence. She couldn’t be the only one who had survived the crash.

Metal creaked beneath her as she turned around and discovered the source of the light. The aircraft had been snapped in half and the back section—where the prisoners had been—was gone. But that wasn’t the most disturbing part. The front—where she stood—wasn’t on the ground.

She tried to not panic as she struggled to put together the scenario in her mind. They’d crash-landed in a forest. And the plane—at least half of it—was hovering somewhere above the ground. One false move . . .

She shoved aside the thought and moved slowly to the other side of the aisle where Jonas sat motionless. “Jonas. Jonas, are you okay?”

He answered with a moan. “I think so. How long was I out?”

Jonas’s voice flooded her with a sense of relief. “Not long, I don’t think.” She fought to clear her mind. They needed to make a plan to get out of here. Needed to see if the pilots and prisoners were injured. Needed to get off this airplane before it took another dive and ended up on the ground this time. And they were also going to have to get help.

Madison checked her pockets to find her phone, but it wasn’t there. She searched the area around her seat, then felt her heart sink when she caught sight of it. She unwedged her broken phone from beneath a piece of twisted metal. The screen was shattered and blank.

Great. “What about the pilots?” Jonas asked, pulling her back to the crisis at hand.

“I don’t know. I have to go check on them, but we’re lodged in a tree. Do you know where your phone is? Mine’s crushed.”

“I’m not sure where it is, but we’ve got to get out of here ASAP. We’re still responsible for those prisoners.”

“True, but the tail of the plane is on the ground. It was snapped in half.”

Jonas sucked in a breath. “We’re lucky to be alive.”

She nodded. “I’ll check on the pilots if you check on the prisoners.”

“Madison . . .”

She turned around. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I can’t move. My leg is pinned beneath the seat in front of me somehow.”

“Don’t panic. We’ll get you out.”

“And if this airplane decides to quit defying gravity first?”

She took careful steps but managed to maneuver herself until she stood right beside him. She studied the seat. The chair in front of him had twisted on impact. She moved in front of it and pulled as hard as she could, but it didn’t budge.

A tree limb snapped somewhere beneath them, and the plane shifted. Her stomach lurched.

“How high up are we?” he asked, straining to look out the window from his seat.

“I’m guessing about twenty to thirty feet off the ground.”

“And I’m stuck beneath a strip of metal.”

“That about sums it up. It shifts slightly when I push on it, but then I can feel the plane shift as well. Let me check on the pilots. If they’re alive, they’ll be able to help.”

“Careful. Any movement is going to mess with the integrity of the plane. If the weight shifts, and the plane falls . . .”

He didn’t have to finish his sentence, though at the moment, the plane dislodging from its current location was only one in a long list of problems they were facing. She took another step. The plane creaked beneath her but didn’t