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Chapter Ten
Laney
I CAN’T BELIEVE THISis happening.
I’m shaking all over and my teeth are chattering, and I know it’s from the shock. I’ve got a gash on my forehead and my neck is aching, but otherwise I don’t think I’m injured. It’s incredible the four of us have managed to walk away from this, though I can’t say the same for the two pilots or the flight attendant. I’m doing my best not to look at the front of the plane, and I don’t know where the back has ended up. It must have broken off somewhere in the air before we hit the ground.
A black plume of smoke billows into the sky. As much as I hate that the plane is burning, it’ll definitely tell people where we are. Anyone searching for us is bound to see it for miles around.
That’s if there is anyone for miles around.
I can only assume the reason we’re not all dead is because we were already flying low when the pilot realized the computer was giving him the wrong altitude. The thick fog we were flying through meant he was unable to see the ground, so when the plane did go down, we were already close. That the plane broke into pieces meant the front of the plane—the part we were no longer attached to—took all the impact.
“The fire and smoke are bound to catch someone’s attention, if there is anyone nearby,” Reed says, echoing my thoughts, “but we’re going to need to put some distance between ourselves and the plane.”
Cade’s brow furrows. “You mean leave the plane?”
I look around at the others. “What if someone does come looking for us and they find the plane all burned up and we’re not here? They won’t know there were any survivors, or to come keep searching for us.”
I guess once they get a team out here to try to investigate what went wrong to bring the plane down, their forensics will figure out that there were only three bodies onboard, but it might be too late for us by then.
Reed seems to consider this. “We don’t need to go far, unless the fire spreads, of course.”
“Someone will find us, though, won’t they?” My voice is too high pitched, an edge of panic to it. “I mean, aren’t planes tracked? Someone will have seen the plane was in trouble and know where to look for us.”
“Yes, I’m sure they will,” Reed assures me.
Cade stares at him in disbelief. “You’re fucking joking, right? Don’t you know how planes work? They send off a ping every fifteen minutes or so to let them know of our location. If we were flying at five hundred miles an hour, we’re looking at a search area of one hundred and twenty-five miles, and that’s even assuming the computer monitors pinpointed our final location correctly. You heard the pilot say the computers weren’t working.”
“Enough!” Reed snaps. “You’re frightening her.
“So fucking what? She should be frightened. She should be fucking terrified. We all should.”
“We survived,” Reed says. “Let’s focus on that. Having a positive mindset is vital right now. It could make the difference between us getting out of this or not.”
Cade rolls his eyes and makes atsksound with his tongue and teeth.
Not all of us survived, though. I thought I’d already seen enough death after finding my mother, but it seems the universehad more in store. I just pray this will be the last, and our deaths won’t be next.
“We need to stay near the plane,” I insist. “If we’re going to be found, it’ll be right here. If we start wandering off into the forest, we could be lost for good.”
“But what if we’re near a town or city?” Cade says. “We could help ourselves rather than waiting for it to arrive.”
“If we’re near a town, someone will have seen the plane come down and will have alerted the authorities,” I throw back at him.
He lifts his eyebrows. “Are you sure about that? In the fog? No one would have seen a damned thing unless they were right underneath us.”
“How far were we from Montreal, anyway?” Darius asks.
Reed shakes his head. “I’ve no idea, but I think we’d passed Minneapolis. The flight path to Montreal takes us over a whole heap of wilderness from there. We’re going to need food and water, and ideally shelter until help shows up.”
“What about wildlife? Aren’t there bears out here, and mountain lions, too? What if they smell the blood from—” I can’t bring myself to say it.
He glances toward the crash site. “The fire will keep anything like that away.”
Flames lick across the metal body of the plane. I do my best not to think about the bodies of the pilot and co-pilot inside, how they are roasting. Can I smell them on the air? I don’t want to think about it.
What will happen when the fire reaches the middle part of the plane? Will that go up in flames, too? Or worse? What if it explodes and we’re close by?
