The lady.As if I'm here by choice.
The attendant retreats to the galley, and the pilot's voice comes over the intercom announcing our departure. The engines' pitch changes, and I feel the jet begin to move.
Oh boy.
“Relax, you have more chance of being struck by lightning than dying in a plane crash,” Morozov says.
“Sorry, if I don’t believe you. Your credibility took a nosedive around the same time you abducted me."
His eyes gleam with amusement. "If this plane goes down, we go down together. That should be oddly comforting."
“Yes, you’re right, thinking about you dying in a fiery crashisoddly comforting,” I snap, but I’m not really paying attention to him. Because we’re about to take off and my nerves are staging a full-scale mutiny.
I make a point of inhaling slowly in, and slowly out, in an attempt to steady them.
“Where are we going?” I ask Morozov as a distraction.
“Alaska.”
“Alaska?” Okay, so not Russia or Europe. This is good. I feel a surge of hope.
"And how long will it take to get there?" I ask.
"Four hours."
Four hours.It means I have four hours to figure out what to do. Four hours before we land somewhere and my options become even more limited.
The attendant returns with drinks. Morozov takes his vodka and downs half of it in one swallow, never taking his eyes off me. I sip mine, my hands still shaking.
“Drink,” he insists. “It will help with your nerves.”
“Letting me go would work better,” I say.
He gives me a dark look, so I down the vodka in one mouthful. It’s so smooth, I don’t even taste it. But I feel the burn spread through my chest, and it’s comforting.
“So are you going to tell me your name?” I ask. “Or should I just call you Morozov?”
He signals for another vodka, then brings his gaze back to me. “You can call me Nikolai.”
The jet accelerates along the runway, and we lift off, and I grip the edge of the seat until I’m white knuckled.
"You're scared," Nikolai observes.
"Of course I'm scared. You murdered someone, and now you've kidnapped me. What do you think I am?"
"Smart enough to survive this." He finishes his vodka and sets the glass aside. "Tell me about your work. You're an art curator."
The shift to casual conversation is so jarring, I almost laugh. "You can't be serious."
"We have four hours. We can spend them in silence, or we can talk. Your choice."
"My choice." I let out a bitter laugh. "I haven't had a choice since you broke into my apartment and stole me."
"You had choices, Holly. You chose to fight me. You chose to get in the car instead of forcing me to carry you. You chose to walk onto this plane. They were all difficult choices, but they were yours."
"That's not the same thing."
"No," he agrees. "But it's what you have right now."
