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1
AVERY
“Sebastian!”
I scream as a deafening explosion suddenly tears through the small private jet. We lurch dangerously, mid-air, and to my horror, I see flames out of one window, the right wing crumpled and going up in smoke.
“Hold on!” he yells, covering me with his body, protecting me as the plane shakes and dips.
“What do we do?” I cry, as Sebastian stumbles back into the pilot’s seat.
“Sit down and buckle up!” he yells at me, trying to get control of the plane again. “We have to do an emergency landing!”
Oh God. I do what he says, fumbling with the belt in panic. I can see the dark mountains rearing up ahead of us, the snowy forests barely lit by our flashes of light. They’re coming too fast. Too close. “Sebastian!” I scream again, as we plow into the forest, the sound of crunching glass and metal deafening as the crushing impact sends me reeling.
And everything goes black.
“Avery. Avery, wake up.”
I moan in protest, eyes squeezed shut and my head pounding.
“Come on, Avery!”
Sebastian’s voice is too loud, and now something is shaking me. My eyelids flutter, letting in light that’s too bright, and I groan, trying to turn away.
It hurts. Everything hurts.
“Go ‘way,” I mumble, needing to sleep again. God, sleep, it’s all I want. Just to drift off, gently, into the haze of darkness beckoning me—
CRACK.
Someone slaps me across the face. Hard.
My eyes fly open, and I gasp in shock. “What the hell?” I demand, finding Sebastian leaning over me. His jaw is bruised. His eyes are dark as he grips my face in both hands.
“Avery.” His flash of relief is gone so fast, I could be imagining it.
“I can’t believe you just slapped me,” I blurt, my head still ringing.
“You needed to wake up. Now you are. Are you hurt?” He asks briskly, releasing me.
“I…” I look around, taking in the crumpled metal and broken glass around me. The jet is on its side in the snow, the windows of the cockpit smashed, and snow billowing in.
I shiver, with shock—and the cold.
“Focus,” Sebastian barks. “Are you hurt? Can you stand?”
I swallow hard, trying to pull myself together despite the fear and confusion whirling in my mind.The explosion... Our crash landing...
We survived.
“I’m OK, I think,” I venture. My head is still pounding, and I reach my hand up, wincing when I brush against a cut near my hairline. I pull my fingertips away and see blood.
Sebastian immediately examines it. “The cut’s not deep. You’ll be fine.”
Fine.
It’s not a word I’d use right now, crash-landed somewhere in the Swiss Alps, alone with a man who was just pledging to make me suffer.
