The man is tense beside me, but he’s not frozen in panic. He holds the controls in a firm grip as he steers what is now basically a glider. His voice is urgent but steady as he continues to communicate with people on the ground. Every muscle in his body appears strung tight and ready for action, his thighs two taut cannons of muscle that I could almost believe capable of launching us to safety.
If I wasn’t struggling against sheer panic, I might admire this version of my brother’s friend.
Though, probably not. Because I still intensely dislike him and do not want his irritatingly handsome, Jason Statham–looking face to be the last thing I see before I plummet to my death.
“We’re too far from the airport,” he says. “We’re going to land on the highway.”
“What?” I yelp, then clap my hand over my mouth as the tower responds.
Why did I ever want to fly an airplane?The silently screamed question forms from my terror and not the logical part of my brain that knows emergencies like this are rare. Moments before everything went wrong, I’d been euphoric. Even with a pilot grumpier than a trucker without coffee, I couldn’t stop smiling. This flight teased me with a dream I’d harbored since I was seventeen years old.
Now everything is a nightmare.
I know it’s a bad idea, but I glance out the window anyway. I mean the glass isright there. It’s kind of hard not to peek at my impending doom.
Before the engine cut off, the cars beneath us were smaller than ants, barely discernible on the tangle of roads. Now they’re the size of raisins, slowly approaching almonds. Soon I’m going to run out oftrail mix large enough to compare them to. I can make out colors but not the horrified faces of drivers who soon are going to have to share a lane with an airplane.
Landing on a road is good, I try to convince myself.Better than water. We’d have to fight our way out of a sinking plane. I can’t swim in jeans!
“Beth.”
At the sound of my name, I tear my mind away from thoughts of fighting for my life in wet denim. I meet George’s stare, his gray eyes holding mine, unrelenting.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
What the hell?
Now I’m not only panicked, I’m pissed.
“Don’t apologize,” I snap through the headset. “If you kill me, Shawn will kill you.” The logic doesn’t add up too well because there’s not exactly a scenario in which I perish but George walks away from this. But I keep going. “You know how to fly a plane. So fly it. Land us on the highway. Sooner rather than later, please.”
Because I’m about to pee my pants in fear, and I really don’t want to end my life covered in urine.
George gives me a short nod, refocusing on the space in front of us. The next five minutes are not the worst of my life, but they’re definitely the most intense. I sit helpless in the copilot seat of a plane I wish I knew how to fly while relying on a man who doesn’t like me to save my life.
And the ground keeps getting closer.
“Here we go,” George grits through his teeth. I try not to whimper, but the cars and trucks are unnervingly close.
Do we have to?I have the sudden urge to ask him.Can’t we just glide for a little longer?
But without a working engine, the only way is down.
I want to close my eyes, but I keep them open. If this is the end of my life, I should see the finale, right?
Oncoming traffic finally realizes we’re not just a low flier, and they veer off to the shoulder. Who knows what’s happening with traffic flowing the same direction we are?
Is there a car underneath us?
Hopefully they have a sunroof.
The wings wobble on a stray air current, and I yelp.
Please don’t let me die today. I want more time. I haven’t done anything yet.
“Come on,” George grunts. The aircraft trembles, then straightens. “Hold right there. That’s a good girl.”
My mind stutters as his words feed to me through the headset.
