Departure. A. Riddle G.
feet for safety reasons. That slowed us down, but we did it. Then everything happened at once.”
“The blast?” Bob coaxes.
“The first one, yeah.”
“Was it above you?”
“No—behind, I think. Or all around. I don’t know. We dove, trying to get away from it.”
“And there was another blast?” Bob sounds eager, expectant.
“I … I don’t know. There was something … else. But I don’t know what. A series of shock waves, tossing us around in the sky. Never seen anything like it. We lowered the landing gear and went down even farther, trying to cut our airspeed, preparing for the worst. We thought it might be some megastorm. We couldn’t get away from it, though. Everything after that’s a blur. We kept diving, trying to get past it, but it caught up to us.”
Nick is still staring at Laptop Man, who hasn’t moved a muscle. He’s like a statue. What’s going on? You sleep in around here, and mysteries pop up by the minute. “What do you think of that?” Nick asks him.
Laptop Man avoids eye contact with Nick and speaks in an even, controlled tone. “Like I said, I don’t know anything about it. But it sounds sort of like the communications went out during a storm, and we crashed. Can I go now?”
“Nobody’s holding you.”
The Asian guy walks back to his seat and, after a last glance over his shoulder at Nick, plops down and starts typing away again.
What the hell was that all about?
Nick thanks the pilot and moves back into the galley between first class and the cockpit. Sabrina, who came with us from the lakeside, moves in to examine the pilot.
“You buy the pilot’s story?” Bob asks Nick, his tone skeptical.
Nick stares at Bob for a second, as if waiting for him to recant. “Yeah, I do.”
Bob nods a bit too theatrically, as if he were a TV detective finally choosing to believe an informant’s story. “The other two pilots are dead, so we’ve got no corroborating witnesses—well, save for ourselves. We tried the radio, but there’s no answer.”
“All right. I think we bed down tonight, wait for rescue. If nobody’s come by daylight, we reassess.”
“You’re forgetting the most important part.” Bob’s voice is edging toward panic.
“Right. What am I forgetting?”
“The guns.” Bob races into the cockpit and returns with a handgun, holding it by the end, like it’s a fish he caught on holiday.
“Put that back,” Nick says sharply. “And bring me the key.”
Bob mutters but returns with the key, placing it in Nick’s palm. “There’re four handguns in there. One for each of you.” He nods to the swimmers and Nick. I guess I didn’t make the handgun club.
“We’re not carrying them around,” Nick says. “We have to sleep, and someone could take them off us. It’s too dangerous.” He glances at the key. “And so is this.” He hands it to me. “They know the five of us will have been in the cockpit.”
I slip the key into my tight jeans pocket, where I swear I can feel it radiating heat. I feel like Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings, knowing I may hold the key to the lives of the survivors of Flight 305. Another burden to bear, though not quite as dreadful as the Decision.
The sun is setting as Nick and I make our way through the woods to the fire by the lake. Neither of us says a word, but in my mind, I’m going through the questions I want to ask him. Namely, what he does for a living. Ah, who am I kidding? I want to ask some roundabout question that gets at the real money shot: Is there a woman in Nick Stone’s life? A little lady waiting at home. A Mrs. Nick Stone. A soulless, way-too-skinny, fashion-victim, fake-as-Santa girlfriend. That’s unfair. My leg hurts. Excuses …
At the fire, we settle in and watch the sun set over the lake. As it slips below the horizon, I start my interrogation—nonchalant, of course.
“Where you from, Nick?”
“All over. You?”
“I grew up in a small town in England, but I live in London now.”
“This feel like England to you?” He motions to the lake and forest around us.
“Yeah, a bit.”
“Yeah, to me, too.” He slumps over, pulling the blanket up to his chin. “I’m beat, Harper. See you in the morning.”
He’s asleep in seconds. I can’t help remembering Grayson Shaw’s last words to me. Tell your boyfriend to sleep with one eye open, Harper.
I settle in between him and the fire and stare up at the stars. Sleep won’t come tonight. I’ve slept too much today already, but that’s not really it. Truth be told, it’s been a long time since I’ve slept next to someone I fancied as much as Nick Stone.
I EXPECTED TO WAKE UP TO HELICOPTERS, FLASHING lights, and waves of English first responders saying things like “Are you all right there?” and “Let’s have a look at you now.”
No such luck. The muddy beach by the blue-green lake looks exactly as it did last night: rings of people around a dying fire, wrapped up in navy blankets. Only a few are stirring, mumbling groggily to each other.
I get to my knees and lean over Harper, who’s curled toward the fire, sound asleep. I wouldn’t wake her for all the tea in China.
As I survey the camp, watching the survivors of Flight 305 wake to another day, two simple facts strike me: It’s been over thirty-six hours since we crashed. And someone should have been here by now.
AT THE NOSE SECTION, IT feels like déjà vu. Again there’s an angry mob, the second to mass here in as many days. Grayson Shaw is here, too, but at least he’s not center stage this time. He’s sitting at the back, looking hungover and haggard. He must have finally run out of alcohol. But that could actually make him more dangerous.
The food in the nose section ran out last night, when I was too tired to notice. The crowd’s muttering about people hoarding food, calling for searches of the camp and redistribution. “I’d kill a man for a Diet Coke right now,” I hear a skinny man in a rumpled suit say. I’ll look up Coke stock if I live through this.
Jillian’s taking the brunt of the crowd’s ire. They’re chewing her out like this is simply a disruption to normal in-flight service. The truth is, she’s just another survivor now, but the uniform she’s wearing pegs her as the person who hands out food. She looks relieved to see me.
“Help,” she says, lunging for me and clamping both hands around my arm, pulling me up to stand beside her at the bottom of the makeshift stairway as she faces the crowd.
Bob Ward and Sabrina are here, too. Their faces are solemn, but they nod, encouraging me.
The crowd quiets, people nudging each other and whispering.
That’s him.
Yeah, the guy from the lake.
“All right,” I say. “We’re going to get some food, but it’ll take some time.”
“We need something now!” a woman in a mud-stained sweater shouts.
“There isn’t anything right now, okay? Look, we have to work together