Four days?
What happened?
“I… where am I?”
“You’re in Mercy Hospital in New York,” the nurse explains. “I’m Janet. I’ve been looking after you. Don’t try to move yet, okay? Itwill take you a little while to get your bearings. Do you remember what happened?”
Slowly, I shake my head, trying to connect her words to the emptiness in my mind.
“Ivy, you’re one of the survivors from the Alpine airplane crash. Do you remember being on the plane? They think you hit a pocket of dead air and ran into engine trouble, so the captain tried to make an emergency landing. He did pretty well for a while but the crash was…” Her brows pull tightly together as if something on her mind forces her to stop talking. “You survived, but you’ve had surgery. You had a lot of internal bleeding but we’ve fixed that right up, don’t you worry. You have a deep head laceration that’s been stapled closed and you broke your ankle, but you’re mostly in one piece.”
Every word brings back memories like the crack of a whip.
The shuddering plane. The screech of metal and the screaming passengers. That sick feeling of weightlessness as the plane plummeted. A sea of terrified faces gazing at me for answers as we fell out of the sky like a rock.
How am I alive?
“I… the plane crashed?” I croak, each word burning the back of my throat.
“It did. A terrible mess, but that’s not important right now. What’s important is that you’re alive and while recovery will take some time, you’re going to be okay.” Janet pats the back of my hand, but there’s something she’s not telling me. Sadness hides in her eyes and her smile is similar to the smile I give passengers when reassuring them while hiding the truth.
“What’s wrong?” I croak. “How bad was it?”
Janet pats the back of my hand once more and her smile wavers at the corners. “I’m not… not sure I’m the best one to tell you this.” She lifts her head and glances into the darkness of my room, but just as she turns back to look at me, the door behind her opens further.
“She awake?” barks a nasally voice.
Janet spins on the spot, keeping one hand on my bed. “Yes, but she’s just woken up and she’s groggy. I’m not sure how well she’ll be able to answer your?—”
“Get out,” the nasally voice demands. “Now.”
“But Officer?—”
“Out,” barks another voice, this one higher-pitched.
Janet flashes me a sympathetic glance and departs from my bed. As she passes the new additions to my room, her voice hardens. “If she pushes that button, I’ll have security toss you out on your ass.”
Neither of them responds.
What is happening? How am I even alive after something as horrific as a plane crash? Struggling to wrap my head around Janet’s words, I brace both hands on the bed and shift my body. Tightness pulls across my abdomen, my head throbs, and despite there being no pain, the weight of the cast around my broken ankle immediately irritates me.
“Ivy Meyer?” The nasally man stands beside my bed while the other stranger stands at the foot of my bed with both hands leaning heavily on the railing.
“Uh… yes. Yes, that’s me.”
“Are you sure?” snorts the man at the end of the bed. “If she doesn’t know her own name, then what’s the point?”
“She knows,” replies the nasally man, sending a sharp glance back at his partner. His dark, beady eyes lock onto mine and a chill steals across my shoulders. Something about the emptiness in those depths is chilling, but it’s like I’m trapped, unable to look away.
“Ivy Meyer, you were on board Alpine flight 216, correct?”
My brow twitches. “Yes.”
“Do you know the statistics of surviving a plane crash?” Nasally doesn’t sound like he’s talking to me.
“I dunno,” replies the whinier one. “Eighty percent?”
“Give or take. Do you know the statistics of surviving a crash that kills ninety-five percent of the people on board?” Nasally finally looks at me.
