Everything's fine.
It's just a storm.
I repeated that mantra over and over again until I lost track of time. The plane still struggled through the air and Nash didn't say a word. I didn't dare ask him what was happening. I didn't want to take away any of his concentration.
And then it started to rain. Huge, fat drops of water plastered against the little window and soaked the plane.
Over the sound of the pounding rain, I heard a muffled curse.
That's when I knew we were in trouble.
I scrabbled with the seatbelt, finally getting it undone, and raced toward the front. I felt like I was in some sort of carnival funhouse-the kind with a tilting floor that made it impossible to walk straight.
"Nash!" I yelled, rushing forward.
"Go back to your seat, Ava," he yelled, not looking away from the windshield. "I've got this under control."
I admired his confidence. I admired how assured he was. It almost made me feel better. Almost. But then I looked at the sweeping view before us.
It looked like we were flying right into the mouth of some kind of swirling, angry beast. I knew the wind was fierce because of the speed the uber-dark clouds scattering across the sky. The rain still pelted the plane, falling in heavy sheets so fast the tiny windshield wipers could barely keep up.
Blinding white lightning shot through the sky, lighting up portions of the storm. I understood now why some people said a thunderstorm was really the gods fighting. This was intense and powerful.
"Go sit," Nash barked.
I did as he asked because I didn't know what else to do. I'd never in my life felt so helpless than I did right then. It was like seeing a clear future toward imminent death and not being able to do a thing to stop it.
I started to pray. I said every prayer I knew and then I closed my eyes and just begged God to help us.
With every tilt, lurch, and bump, my breathing became a little more shallow. I moved over to the window seat and stared down below us, trying to guess how far the ground really was.
Too far.
And it was all ocean. The dark water stretched as far as I could see. It looked choppy and churned as if there was also a storm raging beneath the surface of the sea.
Even if we survived the plane crashing, the chances of not drowning were slim. I wasn't sure which way I would prefer to die. Thinking about it made me feel extremely sick. It was like asking a person if they wanted to be shot or stabbed. The answer was neither.
The answer was I didn't want to die.
A gust of wind attacked the plane, tossing it up into the air and turning us onto our side. I finally understood the reason for the seatbelt because had I not been wearing it, I would have fallen across the plane and hit the other side.
I sucked in a deep breath. I couldn't scream. I was beyond screaming. I was so utterly terrified that my body just hung there like a ragdoll and trembled. When the plane righted, my body jerked in the seat, my head bouncing off the window.
And then we fell out of the sky.
The plane literally took a nosedive toward the ocean.
I no longer had to wonder if this plane had the oxygen masks built into the ceiling because they fell out, one of them dangling in front of me. I stared at it, numb, knowing I needed to put it on but unable to command my body to move.
Nash appeared, his face pale and his light-green eyes wild. He stumbled over to me and my eyes snapped up. "Who's driving the plane!" I demanded, already knowing no one was.
He didn't say anything. He just strapped the mask over my face and then turned to go back to the cockpit. I grabbed his hand as oxygen made its way into my lungs.
Our eyes met.
His fingers tightened around mine.
It was the kind of moment that needed no words. We both knew exactly what was happening. We barely knew each other. We were only connected through our family ties, and now it seemed we might die together.
His face would be the last one I would see.
His skin would be the last skin I felt.
Both our lives would be cut short and we would be left with nothing but a bunch of what ifs.
"I'm going to do everything I can to keep us alive," he vowed.
I clung to his words after he disappeared. I replayed them over and over in my head. It wasn't a promise. It wasn't a guarantee.
It was all I had.
A clap of thunder boomed through the sky and caused me to jump about a mile high in my seat. It was so close and so loud it shook the plane. The hum of the engine sputtered. I heard Nash radioing for help. I heard him begging for someone to answer. No one did.
The tiny plane plummeted, quickly losing altitude, barreling toward the ocean as the storm raged around us. I unhooked my seatbelt, tore the mask from my face, and went for Nash. If I was going to die, I wasn't going to be alone.
He barely glanced at me when I sat in the seat beside him. He was pulling on the controls, sweat dotting his forehead and trailing down his face. As soon as he would manage to get the nose of the plane pulled back up, it would only force itself back down again. It was a vicious cycle-up and down, up and down.
As the body of water drew closer, I began to brace myself for impact. I knew the force and speed we were traveling would slam us into the water like it was a wall of concrete. There wasn't anything left to do.
With a loud curse, Nash let go of the controls. He turned to me. We shared another of those meaningful looks, and then he was leaping over the controls separating us and covering my body with his.
He was trying to protect me.
Tears leaked out of my eyes and fell onto the cold, hard floor of the plane.
Nash started speaking softly to me. In Spanish. The cadence of his words was like a song. I didn't bother to ask him what he was saying. I didn't care.
I was just glad the last sound I would ever hear was his beautiful voice.
The plane screamed on impact, buckling under the pressure of whatever we hit and groaned with such ferocity that any hope we would survive vanished.
And then there was nothing.
THE ISLAND …
3
It could have been hours. It could have been days. I didn't know how long we floated between the living and the dead. All I knew was that time had passed. The peaceful sound of the waves crashing along a sand-filled shore was the first thing I heard when my ears came alive.
The sound was soothing and I snuggled down in my bed, trying to get comfortable.
But there was no comfort.
One of my eyes opened and all I could see was chaos. Debris littered the area around me. Something poked into my side and my body began to tingle. As my mind cleared of its self-imposed fog, I became aware of the stiffness in my muscles, the pain lingering in my limbs, and of a searing, slicing pain radiating throughout in my skull.
Plane crash.
Dead.
No … Alive.
Nash.
The final thought caused me to push up off the floor quickly. Too quickly, because I fell right back down into a pathetic heap. Refusing to accept the way I felt, I pushed up again, this time a little bit slower. I blinked, squinting through the dimness of the interior of the plane.
Or what was left of it.
The entire tail section was gone.
And beyond it …
Beyond were dense leafy greenery and the chatter of foreign-sounding birds. But I wasn't ready to think about where we might be or what might lie in wait tucked deep inside the foliage. My first concern was for the man who tried to protect me even when we were falling from the sky.
He was no longer on top of me.
He was no longer beside me.
I didn't see him at all. Suddenly an all-encompassing panic gripped me like a vise. What if he was sucked out the back half of the plane? What if he was out there injured or … worse?
Calm down, Ava! I demanded of myself. He didn't fall out of the plane. He was right here, with you. If he had fallen out, you would have too.
Thank goodness there was some voice of reason left inside me.
I sat up, pushing away some of the debris-pieces of the plane, papers, glass-and peering into what was left of the back section of the plane. Some of the seats were missing. Some had come loose and were lying on their sides. Oxygen masks still dangled from what was left of the ceiling, some knotted together, some missing parts. A couple of the windows were busted out, allowing in a little bit of light.
I walked carefully through the area, balancing my hand on the walls as I walked. Over toward the left, underneath a few windows, was a pile of three chairs. Sticking out from beneath them was a foot.
I lunged forward, tripping a little and falling into the chair on the top. I grabbed it and hauled it backward. My muscles strained under the weight, but I kept at it. When it was gone, I was able to see more of Nash's still body.
"Nash," I said, my voice sounding like a rusty saw scraping across metal. "Wake up. Please don't be dead."
My vision was blurry from the tears soaking my eyes, but I kept working, shoving back another chair and uncovering his face. I dropped to my knees beside him and took his jaw in my hands. I tilted his head toward me and put my ear right up to his lips.
He was breathing.
He looked so vulnerable lying there with blood smeared across his cheek and dark curls falling over his forehead. I reached out and brushed them away, revealing a bruise on his forehead. "Nash," I said again, his name more of a whispered prayer.