Keep Me(68)

Lucas grabs the controls, a steady stream of obscenities coming out of his mouth as he frantically tries to correct our course. “Shit, fuck, shit, shit, motherfucking shit—”

“What hit us?” My voice is steady, my mind strangely calm as I assess the situation. There is a grinding, sputtering noise coming from the engines. I can smell smoke and hear screams in the back, so I know there’s a fire. It had to be an explosion. That means someone either shot at us from another plane or a surface-to-air missile exploded in close vicinity, damaging one or more of the engines. It couldn’t have been a direct missile hit because the Boeing is equipped with an anti-missile defense that’s designed to repel all but the most advanced weapons—and because we are still alive and not blown into pieces.

“I’m not sure,” Lucas manages to say as he wrestles with the controls. The plane evens out for a brief second and then nosedives again. “Does it fucking matter?”

I’m not sure, to be honest. The analytical part of me wants to know what—or who—is going to be responsible for my death. I doubt it’s Al-Quadar; according to my sources, they don’t have weapons this sophisticated. That leaves the possibility of error by some trigger-happy Uzbekistani soldier or an intentional strike by someone else. The Russians, perhaps, though why they would do this is anyone’s guess.

Still, Lucas is right. I don’t know why I care. Knowing the truth won’t change the outcome. I can see the snowy peaks of Pamir in the distance, and I know we’re not going to make it there.

Lucas resumes his cursing as he fights with the controls, and I grip the edge of my seat, my eyes trained on the ground rushing toward us at a terrifyingly rapid pace. There is a roaring sound in my ears, and I realize that it’s my own heartbeat—that I can actually hear the blood coursing through my veins as surging adrenaline sharpens all of my senses.

The plane makes a few more attempts to come out of the nosedive, each one slowing our fall by a few seconds, but nothing seems able to arrest the lethal descent.

As I watch us plummeting to our deaths, I have only one regret.

I will never get to hold Nora again.





Part III: The Captive





Chapter 21

Nora



Two days without Julian.

I can’t believe it’s been two entire days without Julian. I’ve been going about my usual routine, but without him here, everything feels different.

Emptier. Darker.

It’s like the sun has hidden behind a cloud, leaving my world in shadow.

It’s crazy. Utterly insane. I’ve been without Julian before. When I was on the island, he would leave on these trips all the time. In fact, he spent more time off the island than on it, and somehow I still managed to function. This time around, however, I have to constantly fight off a horrible feeling of unease, of anxiety that seems to worsen with every hour.

“I really don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I tell Rosa during our morning walk. “I lived for eighteen years without him, and now all of a sudden, I can’t go for two days?”

She grins at me. “Well, of course. The two of you are all but inseparable, so this doesn’t surprise me in the least. I’ve never seen a couple this much in love before.”

I sigh, ruefully shaking my head. For all her seeming practicality, Rosa has a romantic streak as wide as the sea. A couple of weeks ago, I finally confided in her, telling her how Julian and I met and about my time on the island. She had been shocked, but not nearly as much as I would’ve been in her place. In fact, she seemed to think the whole thing was rather poetic.

“He stole you because he couldn’t live without you,” she said dreamily when I tried to explain to her why I still have reservations about Julian. “It’s like the kind of thing you read about in books or see in movies . . .” And when I stared at her, hardly able to believe my ears, she added wistfully, “I wish someone wanted me enough to steal me away.”

So yes, Rosa is definitely not the person to knock some sense into me. She thinks my withering away without Julian is a natural result of our grand love affair, instead of something that likely requires psychiatric help.

Of course, Ana is not much better either.

“It’s normal to miss your husband,” the housekeeper tells me when I can barely force myself to eat at dinner. “I’m sure Julian misses you just as much.”

“I don’t know, Ana,” I say doubtfully, pushing the rice around on my plate. “I haven’t heard from him all day. He responded to my email yesterday, but I sent him two emails today—and nothing.” This, more than anything, is what upsets me, I think. Julian either doesn’t care about the fact that I’m worried—or he’s not in a position to respond to me, being knee-deep in fighting terrorists.