Page 15

chapter fourteen

Tuck

Day One

I hated the thought of leaving behind the body of the man who’d saved our lives and given his own in the process, but there was really no other choice. He now lay between two massive evergreens in the middle of the field we were in, his body covered in the rocks I was able to gather, hopefully offering some protection against scavengers. It’s the best I can do for you. I’m so sorry, man. My hope was that we could find help and send a crew in to recover his body.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Charlie and Emily rummaging through their suitcases and changing into warmer clothes. Wherever we’d crashed was frigid. As I arranged the rocks around Russell’s body, I tried to determine how far we’d flown and where we might be. I’d been angry and stewing and because of that, my internal clock was likely off. But my best guess was that we were either in Indiana, or Illinois. Had we traveled far enough to be in Ohio or even Pennsylvania? Maybe, but I didn’t think so. I’d never been to the East Coast, but it was early December, and it was cold as hell, maybe even on the verge of snow, and so we definitely weren’t in Arizona or Colorado. Plus, no mountains or desert. Maybe Charlie or Emily would have a more accurate guess. I assumed they’d flown this route at least a few times. But frankly, I didn’t much feel like talking to either of them. They hadn’t so much as offered to help grab what we could off the plane. They’d stood aside and watched me do it. They were clearly useless. Unless one of them could get their phone to work.

I placed the final rock on Russell’s cairn—the best one I could manage anyway. I had balanced larger ones on top, so he was mostly covered. I turned away, the lump in my throat making it difficult to swallow. I didn’t even know the dude, but he deserved better than this. I made a mental note of the landscape here, and the direction of the sun, so as soon as possible, I could send the authorities to collect his body and bring it home to his family. He’d been wearing a wedding ring that I’d removed and put in my pocket to return to his wife.

“Nothing,” Charlie was saying, staring down at his phone and pressing buttons and then holding it up to the sky as he turned in circles. He’d done the same thing thirty minutes before when he’d taken his and Emily’s phones from the blanket I’d used as a sack to collect what I could from the plane. “It won’t even turn on.”

“Same with mine,” Emily said, staring down at hers. I’d looked for my own phone but hadn’t seen it anywhere. It’d likely rolled under something in the mayhem of the descent and the crash, but since we had two phones and the smell of jet fuel was strong and worrisome, I had decided it wasn’t worth the risk to search for mine.

“They weren’t low in charge, so maybe they got banged around in the crash,” Emily suggested, turning hers over as though there might be evidence of damage on some part of the device.

“Even if it starts working, we’re probably too far out in the middle of nowhere,” Charlie said, his expression glum as he put his phone in his pocket.

The blanket from which they’d retrieved their phones lay open on the ground, the water bottles, snacks, and other items I’d deemed useful still inside. Of course, I hadn’t had any idea where we were or what we might be up against, so who even knew if I’d gathered anything useful, other than food provisions.

All I did know was that we seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, the sun was lowering in the sky, and Charlie was right about one thing: it was cold as fuck.

Emily had put on a white jacket with a fur collar and a pair of tight black leather pants, but she was still shivering. “Do you have anything warmer than that?” I asked.

She looked down at her outfit and shook her head. “I have a pair of pajama pants.”

“I’d put them on. Layer up.”

She appeared ready to argue, but then nodded, bending toward her luggage. Charlie had put on a jacket too and was sitting on his suitcase, fiddling with his phone again.

I opened my duffel bag and pulled out a jacket and some boots, and then tossed the useless clothing items on the ground and began transferring the things I’d gathered from the plane into the bag.

“What are you doing?” Charlie asked.

“It’ll be easier to carry this,” I told him, zipping it closed.

“Carry?”

“Yeah. Carry. I’m going to start walking.”

“Walking?” Emily balked. “Why would you start walking?”

“Because there’s probably some sort of civilization within a few miles, and it’s better than sitting here and freezing our asses off.”

“But…but air traffic control must know our plane went down,” Charlie said. “Help has to be on the way.”

“Didn’t you hear Russell?” I asked.

“Who’s Russell?”

“The pilot .”

“Oh,” Charlie said, his gaze skittering toward the place where his body lay and then away.

“He was trying to contact air traffic and couldn’t get through. No one was answering. That was right before the engines failed. It’s very possible no one knows where we are, or even that we went down.” Plus, something weird had happened. Everything on the plane had very suddenly shut down. And I had wondered about an electric storm because of the lightning. But would that have caused fires on the ground too? I couldn’t see any now, but I’d seen them from the airplane window. It was like something specific had happened to both the sky and the earth. Whatever it was had knocked out all the plane’s systems. And if that was the case, no help would be coming. We were on our own.

“I don’t know,” Charlie said, “waiting here seems like the smarter option. Who knows what’s—” he waved his arm around the mostly empty field save for a few scattered trees “—that way, or that way. We might get lost.”

“We’re already lost,” I said, picking up my duffel bag. “But suit yourselves. Good luck.”

“Hey!” Emily said. “You have all the food and water.”

“I’m the one who got back on that plane and collected the food and water,” I said, my jaw tight. Still, I wasn’t going to leave them to die, even if Charlie had lied about me and Emily had willingly believed his lies. That stuff seemed insignificant at the moment. I opened my duffel bag and tossed them each a bottle of water and a handful of the individual-sized snack bags from the minibar on the plane. Then I rezipped my bag and headed away.

“Wait!” Emily said. I halted, turning again. She shot a glance at Charlie, hesitating, as though she was waiting for some form of permission from him.

“I’m losing daylight,” I gritted out, anger suddenly warming me like an internal fire. Good, I’d stay angry. My nose felt like a damn ice cube.

“It’s just…” She shifted from one foot to the other. I glanced down and noticed that she was wearing a pair of hot pink heels. “I think we should stay together,” she said in a rush of words punctuated by puffs of white vapor. “Strength in numbers. There could be predatory animals out here.” Her eyes darted around and then back to Charlie.

Charlie’s gaze shifted around too. “Maybe you’re right,” Charlie said. “There could be a town or something over that hill. It’s impossible to see from here.”

I’d honestly been looking forward to ditching them. But… God. What if she died out here? What would her parents say if they knew I’d just left her to fend for herself? I looked down to Emily’s heel-clad feet once more. “You can’t walk in those.”

She followed my gaze. “Oh…well, these are my most comfortable heels and all I brought.”

Christ. They were already holding me back and we hadn’t even started walking yet. I glanced at Charlie’s feet. They appeared about the size of my own. She wouldn’t fit in either of our shoes. “Do you have a pair of slippers?” I asked.

“Slippers?” Her brow dipped. “Um…yes. Hold on.” She bent to her suitcase and dug through it, retrieving a pair of pink fuzzy slippers.

I reached out and took one, turning it over. There was a thick layer of rubber on the bottom. “These’ll work,” I said. I took a pair of socks out of my duffel bag and tossed those and the slippers at her. She caught them against her chest, her mouth opening slightly. “Put these and the slippers on and let’s go.” She clutched the socks and slippers, her expression morphing into confusion. “Sixty seconds,” I said, “and then you can catch up.” I wrapped the duffel bag’s strap around my body, balancing the weight on my back. “Or not.”

I looked away, out to the horizon, planning my route and silently counting the seconds. When I’d reached sixty, I started walking. I heard lots of movement and huffing behind me, and then the sounds of their footsteps following, but I didn’t look back. If they couldn’t keep up, that was their problem. And yet, the way my ears perked up and my steps slowed the few times I didn’t hear them behind me made me suspect I was lying to myself about not giving a shit about leaving Emily alone in the wilderness. Either way, however, the minute we hit a farm, or some other form of civilization, remote or not, they were on their own. They could call their people to arrange a pickup, and I’d be on my way.

Where, Tuck? Where will you go now?

I had no answer to that question, and a hollowness opened up between my ribs, where the lump of terror and confusion from the plane crash had been. I wasn’t sure which one I preferred. I picked up my pace, stepping over rocks and brambles, my eyes focused on the faraway hill that I hoped would make it clear what direction I should travel.