“Uh, Darren?” I prompted, “Why...” My words faded out and I needed to lick my lips a few times before trying again. “Why do you have a gun?”
My words seemed to jerk him out of the trance he’d been in, and his bloodshot eyes snapped up to my face. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. Sweat ran down his forehead in beads, and tears leaked from his eyes. Every vein in his face stood out with the sheer tension thrumming through him. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he started to sob as he apologized and panic seized me. I froze, totally unsure what the hell to do. Was he going to shoot me? Why?
“Darren,” I started, holding my hands up, palms out. I had no idea why, it just felt like a calming sort of gesture. Or maybe I’d been watching too much TV. “Darren why don’t you put the gun down?” I was aiming for soothing, like I was talking to a wild animal.
He shook his head slowly, tears still running from his red, puffy eyes. “I’m so sorry; they made me do it. I had to keep my kids safe.”
I’d been so focused on the gun, I hadn’t noticed the device in his other hand until it was too late. Not that I could have done anything, anyway. Without any further hesitation, he pressed a button on the little remote, and an explosion rocked the aircraft from the left side, followed by one on the right. Still holding my horrified, stunned gaze, Darren raised the gun to his face and pulled the trigger.
Blood splattered the walls, the controls, the windows, me. It was everywhere. Frantic screams ripped from me as Dylan and Beck came bursting into the cockpit, and found the mess which was once their pilot. But that was the least of our problems. The plane shifted and Darren’s lifeless body fell forward, leaning heavily on a large lever and sending us hurtling toward the ground.
“Move!” Dylan barked, shoving me aside. I was still frozen in shock, whimpers ripping from my throat, and I didn’t even flinch when Beck grabbed me around the waist from behind and held me firm within his strong arms. As I watched, Dylan heaved the dead pilot from his seat and sat down. He hesitated only a moment before taking the important looking lever thing in his strong grip and slowly,painfully slowly, pulling it back in an attempt to control our descent. Or, that’s what I had to assume he was doing.
The plane was shaking and jolting like we were in a giant blender and it was only by Beck’s impressive strength that I hadn’t been thrown clear across the cabin.
“Sit down,” Dylan yelled at us. “Strap in, we’re going to crash.”
I couldn’t have moved if I’d tried. My whole body was locked up in sheer terror, and my gaze was fixed on the smears of crimson decorating my arms. Somehow, Beck manhandled me into the co-pilot’s seat and buckled my seatbelt with cold efficiency. He yelled short, sharp commands back into the cabin—for Evan and Jasper—then strapped himself into the jump seat.
“Can you land us?” he demanded of Dylan, whose pale, tense face was firmly fixed on the controls and displays in front of him.
It was only a brief hesitation before Dylan replied, but it seemed like alifetimewhile we continued hurtling toward the ground. Fast. Too damn fast. “No,” he said, and my stomach dropped through the floor. We were going to die. Holy shit.
“He blew the left engine, and seriously damaged the right,” Dylan elaborated, coldly calm in the face of our impending doom. “The best I can do is try and control our crash. But we will crash.”
I looked to Beck in panic, but he just nodded. “Do your best.”
“Do your best?” I repeated in a shriek. “That’s it? We’re about to die in three seconds!”
“Not that quick,” Dylan replied, still totally devoid of emotions. “Cessna 172s travel at a maximum altitude of twelve to fifteen thousand feet. On average, we would drop at approximately five hundred feet per minute. We’re currently at nine thousand feet, give or take a bit. That means we have a full eighteen minutes until impact, but I’ll round it to ten minutes to account for the fact that our engines are on fire and we’re in a nose dive.”
“Right, ten minutes,” I repeated, my voice high pitched with terror.
My life would be over in ten minutes. There was so much I hadn’t had a chance to do. So many experiences I had missed out on.
“Looks like I’ll see my parents sooner rather than later,” I said stupidly, and for a moment, that was a comfort. I didn’t want to die, but if they were there on the other side, it wouldn’t all be bad.
Beck was looking at me, I could feel his steely gaze, but I was focused on Dylan. Watching as he wrestled the Cessna, doing whatever it was he was doing to slow our deaths.
“You’re not going to see your parents,” Beck bit out, finally dragging my attention to him. “This isn’t our first plane crash, and it won’t be our last. Someone is always trying to take out Delta’s successors. To weaken us. But those fuckers always underestimate Dylan’s skills and my determination to live so I can put a bullet in each of their skulls.”
My stomach lurched as the plane rattled again. It was so rough now that I almost felt like my insides were going to be shaken out. No doubt I’d have bruises where the seat belts were cutting into me.
“How in all fuck is this not your first crash? Like … what the fuck?”
His eyes were merciless. “We’re important people. The inheritors of a fortune that out masses the rest of the world’s combined. We control so much more than you can even imagine … and we have enemies.”
“Oscar?” I whispered, realizing that this was a decent explanation for my brother’s death.
Beck shook his head, a scowl tipping his gorgeous face into something darker. Sinister. For a moment I almost believed he was as invincible as he implied.
“Oscar’s death was not by their hand.”
Before he could elaborate, Dylan swore again, and for the first time some of the cool detachment from his face disappeared. “Get into brace position,” he barked.
I looked around frantically, finally noticing that the ground was a hell of a lot closer than it had been before. Below us was what looked like a world of trees, and I wondered if we were still in America. Was I about to die in another country? Would anyone find us or would we be a bunch of burned corpses?
“Are you fucking deaf, Riley,” Beck snapped. “Brace yourself!”
