Chapter
1
This is myfirst time in a single-engine airplane, but I’m almost certain the propeller isn’t supposed to stop moving in the middle of the flight.
And the pilot isn’t supposed to mutter, “Fucking hell.”
“Is something wrong?” My voice sounds far away, fed back to me through the borrowed headset I fit over my ears before we took off.
The pilot’s hands are busy on the controls, and he ignores my question.
That’s George Bunsen’s normal approach to interacting with me, but I would hope an emergency might warrant a brief break from his cold shoulder. And he can’t claim not to have heard me. Not only does my microphone transmit my words directly to him, but with the propeller gone still, the world around us is suddenly, jarringly quiet.
“This is a joke, right? You’re messing with me.” Which, coincidentally, is exactly what I said to my half-brother when he informed me about this outing. Shawn discovered my pilot’s license study materialsa few weeks ago and took it upon himself to arrange this one-on-one flight. As an early birthday gift, he insisted.
And this would have been a perfectly thoughtful present if the pilot and I didn’t hate each other.
Okay…“hate” might be a strong word. “Intensely dislike for reasons we have never voiced because his are ridiculous and mine are valid” sounds more accurate.
I wonder what Shawn threatened George with to make him agree to this? I guess a lifetime of friendship gives a man a lot of dirt.
But back to the plane I’m in that is no longer working.
For a brief, blissful moment in time, I convince myself that I was right and the aloof George Bunsen has a secret, dark sense of humor. He’ll switch the propeller back on, laugh at the gullible flying-newbie, and go back to pretending I’m as bothersome as a stain on the upholstery.
“We’re good, right?” I gasp, still waiting on an answer from the aggravating man. “This is normal?”
Again, George doesn’t respond to me as one of his hands tightly grips the yoke and the other moves with determination on the knobs of a radio that looks completely foreign to me. I thought I had a firm grasp of what a Cessna 172 instrument panel would look like. I know enough to see the oil pressure gauge is on zero, as is the engine RPM. But my petrified brain cannot figure out what those readings mean.
When George speaks, it’s to the local airport tower, the words tinny but clear in my headset.
“Mayday. Mayday. Engine failure.”
“It’sfailing?” Blood roars in my ears, drowning out the conversation happening between George and people outside this plane. People safe on solid ground where they don’t need an engine to work to keep them alive.
My mouth opens again, ready to babble out a string of panicked questions, but I snap my jaw shut when I realize George is still talking,giving them all of our information combined with jargon I half understand.
Don’t distract him! He needs to concentrate!
The guy in charge of our safety can’t comfort me, so I try to soothe myself, double-checking the clasp of my seat belt is latched before wrapping my arms tight around my body, my normally pale knuckles turning bone white with my grip. I breathe deep and think calming thoughts.
You’re not going to die today. You will land safely. You will not spend the last moments of your life with a man who wishes you never existed.
George Bunsen has never been subtle about his disdain toward me. He has a habit of leaving rooms I enter and avoiding my gaze when we’re forced to interact, which is why I was shocked he agreed to take me up in his plane at all.
But there’s no saying no to Shawn Newton.
Shawn and George have been friends since childhood, their fathers two heads of a luxury transportation company. They formed a bond before I even knew I had a brother. I’ve always lived with my mother instead of the father Shawn and I share.
The few interactions I’ve had with George before today gave me the undeniable knowledge that the man finds me to be a waste of space. An annoying gnat that occasionally hovers around his best friend.
Not someone he’d want to spend a couple hours with in the compact quarters of a cockpit. Especially not when he’s lost control of said cockpit and everything attached to it.
The lack of plane sounds is eerie. The rumbling roar of the engine quieted at the same time the propeller slowed. The cacophonous noise and vibrations are simply gone. There’s a stillness, as if we’re suspended, and I mainly know we’re moving—that we’re descending—from the weightless lift in my stomach.
Shouldn’t there be alarms blaring? Lights flashing? Some mechanical indication that this is a big freaking emergency?!
Needing something to distract myself, I watch George work.
