Chapter Twenty

 

“Crew seats for takeoff,” Captain Marks announced on the tannoy as we taxied toward the runway. The engines rumbled louder, the pilot was making up time. We were late departing.

I sat next to Harmony, buckled up, and glanced out of the window. Outside the sun was beating down on the tarmac and shimmering in long waves of heat.

“You okay?” Harmony asked.

“Fine. Just tired.”

“Me too, and fat. My family, I swear, eat more than normal people. Who needs six choices of pudding after dinner? It’s impossible to not sample everything.” She rubbed her stomach. “Still, it makes up for not eating for a week after those damn shrimp.”

“Have you heard from Jackson?” I asked.

“No, we didn’t swap numbers. It was just a night of wild fucking.” She shrugged and I wished I could have her flippant attitude to time spent with a sexy hockey player.

“What about you,” she asked. “Have you heard from him?”

I shook my head. I’d finally told Harmony all about Vadmir and our week together. I’d had no choice. She’d guessed something had happened in Russia and soon connected the two. But it was good that she knew. I needed my best friend’s support while I was so low.

The plane took a tight corner and lurched to the right.

“Jesus, Captain Speed Demon is putting his foot down.” Harmony gripped the seat.

I held my safety belt and wished I was at home in bed. I didn’t feel like working today. I should have called in sick.

The engines roared and the plane kicked up the gears, pressing me into my chair. It tipped to the right then the left, the whole fuselage rocking.

“Windy out there,” Harmony said.

“Yes. Should get us there quickly, though, make up the lost time.”

“Means we’ll have to be fast with lunch.”

“Yes.”

We hurtled along, rattling over the runway. The engines blasted out energy. The plane tipped again, to the left then to the left a bit more.

My stomach lurched. A bad taste formed in my mouth. Something wasn’t right.

But still we shot along. I waited for the nose to tip upward, for the plane to lift from the ground. Out of the window I could see the terminal getting smaller and smaller. Shrinking into the distance.

“Fuck,” Harmony muttered. “What’s he doing?”

“I don’t know.” I glanced at her. She had the same flash of fear in her eyes that I knew was in mine. It took a lot to rattle an air stewardess but adrenaline was now pumping into my system.

I shook my head, just a fraction, and reached for the St. Christopher around my neck. I rubbed it between my index finger and thumb. The engines were screaming. The plane felt unstable, as though it was too heavy for the thrust but too light for the wind buffeting it around.

Suddenly the brakes came on. I was plunged forward, as was Harmony. Our safety belts trapped us against the seats and knocked the breath from my lungs.

A chorus of screams rang out—passengers terrified by the sudden violent deceleration.

I stared at everyone’s heads bobbing about. The sound of the plane skidding on the tarmac screeched around my brain. The plane shook, juddered, and the seats rattled. Several overhead compartments flew open, contents spilling out and landing on the people below.

“Shit,” Harmony gasped.

Another violent jerk had me lifting out of my seat. My limbs flew upward and then crashed back down, my spine shrieked in complaint as a shard of pain raced through it. My body was out of control, I couldn’t stop it being battered and flung around.

Harmony yelped next to me, her head cracking on the back of the seat.

Our speed didn’t seem to be reducing. Terror gripped me. The sounds of the passengers crying out, yelling, screeching was partially drowned by the booming sounds of the plane crashing.

Shit. We were crashing. Something had gone terribly wrong.

Suddenly instinct kicked in. All of those hours and hours of training came to the front of my mind. This was my job, much as being a mile-high waitress was part of my role, staying cool when everyone around me panicked was also what I needed to do. And this was the real deal. Now. We all hoped we’d never have to use the skills we’d had drummed into us but if we did, then there was nothing else for it but to do our stuff.

The safety belt pinched against my hips, struggling to hold me against the seat. The plane tipped to the left, renewing the sharp pain in my back again. An almighty bang told me the wing was on the tarmac. We began to spin. Flying forward and hurtling ’round in a doughnut.

I shut my eyes and clenched my teeth. Wondered if death would be quick. A picture of Vadmir reaching for me, his big strong arms wrapping around me, hovered in my mind’s eye. I suppressed a sob. I really would never see him again. Never hear his voice or see his smile.

“Fire,” Harmony gasped.

I flicked open my eyes. Sniffed the air. She was right, there was a whiff of smoke, electrical, seeping toward us.

“We’re stopping,” she said. “I think.”

I looked out of the window. My neck struggled to cope with the turbulent skid we appeared to be stuck in. We did, however, appear to be slowing.

“We have to get everyone out, quick,” I said, reaching for my buckle.

She clasped her hand over mine, stretching downward because the way the plane was now slanted to the left. “Wait,” she said.

She was right, we were still moving fast. But with each passing second we slowed.

Finally, we came to a halt. Instantly I was standing, hauling myself upright with the help of the seat in front of me. I ignored the spasm-like pain in my back.

The main lights were off and, despite it being mid-morning, the fuselage was dark, dark and a boiling mass of confusion. I lunged for the exit, rammed the safety off and flung it open. The smell of smoke hit me as a puff of black air wafted past the door. An almighty whack and a bright flash of yellow unfolded, the slide deploying from the bustle.

I could hear the emergency vehicles in the distance. Behind me Harmony barked instructions.

Hurriedly I turned back to the passengers only to be knocked out of the way by a man throwing himself at the slide. I dropped to my knees then dragged myself up again. “Your shoes,” I said to a woman who was hauling herself past me wearing magnificent silver stilettoes, “take them off.”

She slipped from her high heels and lunged toward the exit.

I glanced down and saw the man who’d pushed past me holding out his arms to break her slide.

“Can you stay there and help?” I shouted down to him.

“Yes!”

I turned, coughed and helped a child and his father to the exit. “Go quickly,” I said.  “And hold him tight.” The safety lights were on, people dragging themselves through the wonky plane toward me. I secured my footing and lodged my hip against the wall, reached out and pulled passengers close and then sent them out of the exit.

Over and over I did this, bang, bang, bang getting them off the plane. Terror seared across everyone’s faces. Shouts were coming from farther back in the fuselage where Patrick and his team would be doing the same as Harmony and me. A woman with blood running down her face struggled to get up. I grabbed her shoulder, pulled and then was relieved when a male passenger wrapped his arm around her waist and took her out with him.

My eyes were stinging. The smoke was getting thicker. But the plane was emptying. I could see the last passengers.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Harmony said, spluttering. “I can smell fuel now. It’s going to blow.”

“Yes,” I said, “nearly done.”

The emergency sirens were screeching through the air. “Are the pilots out?” Harmony shouted.

“We’re here.”

I turned and saw Captain Marks and his crew. Their usual immaculate appearance was ruffled and they had urgency in their expressions.

An older man was battling to reach us. I dashed toward him, holding onto the seats as I went.

“Get out, Harmony,” the Captain said. “Samantha, you too.”

“Hang on.” I reached the man, his glasses were shattered and he appeared to have a broken wrist. His left hand was floppy and useless and he was clutching it. “Hold on to me,” I said, “We’ll get you out.”

He grabbed me, he was heavy but I hauled him several paces.

Suddenly Captain Marks was in front of me. “Go,” he said, scooping the man up and holding him against his chest. “Now.”

I lunged forward. The rest of the crew were off the plane. The smoke was so dense now it was hard to see, hard to breathe. The low-level lighting lit my way, though it was disorientating being at a side angle.

I reached the exit. Captain Marks was close behind me. I glanced over my shoulder at him. He was struggling. Quickly I helped pull the old man forward. He appeared unconscious now.

“Get off the plane now, ma’am!”

I looked downward. At the base of the slide two fire officers were holding out their arms to me. Behind them were several other fire crew members unrolling hoses. It was dark and disorientating and I was light-headed from the smoke. I tried to recall everything I was supposed to do. My section was clear, everyone was out now, except for the old man.

Captain Marks stumbled and fell onto his ass, the man he was helping like a rag doll against him. “Go,” I said, pushing them both to the door using my hands and my feet. “I’m right behind you.”

They slid down in a tumble of arms and legs. The fire officers at the bottom helped them stop and then one threw the unconscious passenger over his shoulder and rushed away.

I pressed my arms across my chest, the way I’d been taught, and jumped onto the slide. I went fast and hurtled down. Panic rose in me. I couldn’t stop—only hot, hard tarmac awaited me.

“Hey, I’ve got you.” Big arms reached for me, then I was scooped up and pressed against a hard chest.

“Thanks,” I gasped to the fire officer who’d caught me. I looked up at his face but he had the visor down on his safety helmet and I couldn’t see his features just the reflection of the plane, swamped in orange flames.

He turned and began to run, carrying me with him. I gripped his jacket and sucked in oxygen as the smoke thinned.

Just ahead of me a passenger, the first man who’d got out, was rushing along. He turned, iPhone in his hand, and snapped a photograph.

* * * *

“It certainly is dramatic,” Patrick said, looking at the front page of the New York Times.

I studied the picture again and a wave of nausea swept over me. The image of me being carried away from a burning plane by a big hunk of a fireman was splashed over nearly every newspaper in the country. My hair was whipping out behind me, my skirt ruffled up so that I was unwittingly flashing a length of my thigh, and my feet were bare. At some point I’d lost my shoes but I couldn’t remember when.

“Thank goodness he carried you,” Harmony said, leaning over and pointing at my feet. “You’d have burned your feet on the runway, it’s completely melted.”

“I know.” I shuddered and the pulled muscle in my back protested at the movement. I reached into my purse for another painkiller and knocked it back with a slug of coffee. “What time is this supposed to start?” I nodded at the clock that showed eleven. Exactly twenty-four hours since the incident. I felt drained, exhausted, but also a little floaty; I guessed it was the codeine.

“Now,” Patrick said, crossing his legs and stabbing the air with his foot in a jerky, impatient movement. “They’ll be here any minute. Sooner the better, I just want to go home to bed.”

“My head still aches,” Harmony said, rubbing the back of it. “I know they said it was okay but that doesn’t stop it hurting.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” I said, “I can still smell the smoke, too. It’s like it’s got stuck in my nose.”

“And the screams,” Patrick said, clasping his hand over his cheek. “I know we trained for this stuff but they don’t prepare you for just how loud the screams are.” He grimaced. “I’ll never forget them. This one woman, she was hysterical, I thought I was going to have to slap her around the face to get her to listen to me.”

The door to the conference room opened and we all went quiet—a crew of eight who’d all been to Hell the day before but luckily had come out of the other side. We were battered and bruised, none of us had had much sleep and our pale faces and tired eyes showed that.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” It was Baron Taylor, Head of Safety. I’d never seen him before but heard his name many times. He was in his mid-fifties with gray hair and sharp eyes. He wore a smart navy suit and a tie with the airline emblem stamped all over it.

He strode in and took a seat in the rough circle we’d assembled ourselves in. Two more members of staff, one of them Nicola, sat either side of him.

“Good morning,” he said, looking at us all.

There was a murmur of good mornings and general shuffling.

“First off,” he said, “I’ve just heard that the gentleman, the one with the broken wrist and concussion, is doing very well this morning so that’s good news to kick off with.”

I nodded. I was pleased to hear that.

“It’s remarkable and a credit to you folks that there weren’t more injuries, minor or worse or, Heaven forbid, fatalities.” He smiled, placed his hands on his thighs and leaned forward. “I want you all to relax because today is just an informal chat, a debrief. Everyone will be spoken to individually but I wanted us to gather here now and talk about the events of yesterday while it’s still fresh in everyone’s head.” He paused. “What went well? What could have gone better? Do you have any ideas for improving evacuation policy?” He smiled. “Luckily these events are extremely rare but having experienced the situation we all train for you are now valuable commodities in assisting with the next generation of safety measures.”

He looked around and gestured to our cups. “Does everyone have a drink?”

Most people nodded. He really was doing his best to put us at ease.

I shifted on the hard plastic seat and hoped the pain in my back would soon settle. I knew it was nothing serious, they’d X-rayed it at the hospital, it was muscular but still, I wouldn’t be dancing or going on rollercoasters for a while. I just wanted to lie down, stretch out flat and let my body heal.

“Ah, Ms. Headington,” Baron said, looking my way. “It’s your picture the country is waking up to.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“And how do you feel about that?”

I hesitated. I hadn’t really thought much about it. I guess I was still a bit shocked from the crash. I hadn’t slept much; Harmony and I had pulled duvets onto the sofa and talked most of the night, running through events as a way of sifting through our turbulent memories. “I’d have preferred to have had time to brush my hair and add some lipstick,” I said with a smile.

There was a polite murmur of laughter.

Baron gave me a gentle nod. “You were the last out I’ve been told.”

“Yes, sir.” I sipped my drink.

“Captain Marks left before you.”

“Only because I shoved him. He was struggling, he had the unconscious passenger to deal with, a dead weight.”

“You did the right thing,” Baron said, smiling. “And it was very brave of you.”

I shrugged. “I was just doing my job.” I pointed to the picture of me on the front cover of the paper Patrick had on his knee. “Just like this fire officer was.”

“And you did your job very well,” Baron said. He looked around the small group. “There are a few things I’d like to talk about, with everyone—”

An almighty bang shook the room. The door had been flung open, cracking against the wall and shifting a picture on its hook.

Filling the doorframe was a man—a big man with long thick legs, wide shoulders, short hair and an expression that screamed determination.

“Oh, fuck,” Harmony gasped. “It’s your Viper, Samantha.”

Vadmir stepped into the room. His gaze searched the spread of faces and eventually settled on mine.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t keep him out,” panted one of the office secretaries, rushing in behind him. She had a clipboard pressed to her chest and her hair had partially escaped its updo.

“It’s okay,” Baron said, standing. He folded his arms and looked Vadmir up and down. “Can I help you with something?”

“No,” Vadmir said. He walked up to Patrick, snatched the paper from his lap and stared at the photograph. “Fuck!”

“Oh, Christ on a motorbike,” Patrick said, fluttering his fingers over his legs where the newspaper had just been.

Vadmir stared at me. His brow creased and his teeth gritted. “This,” he said, flashing the picture my way, “shouldn’t have happened.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked. My heart was fluttering and my stomach clenching. His presence when I was feeling delicate was even more overwhelming than usual. Especially when I hadn’t thought I’d ever see him again.

“I have come to get you,” he said, tilting his chin and tensing his jaw.

“But I…” I was already in shock, now it was doubled. “You can’t come in here.”

Baron stepped between me and Vadmir. “She’s right, you can’t come in here. We are debriefing, Mr…?”

“Arefyev.” Vadmir glared at him. “Vadmir Arefyev.”

“Mr. Arefyev, if you could wait outside.” There was a tone of command in Baron’s voice. He was clearly used to getting his own way and being obeyed without question.

“Certainly,” Vadmir said. He stepped around Baron, wrapped his hand around my upper arm and pulled me to my feet. “I’ll take Sammy with me.”

“Ow,” I said as my back twinged. “What are you doing?”

“Are you hurt?” He frowned down at me.

“A pulled muscle, in my back.”

He pressed his lips together and shook his head. He looked as though he was in pain, too. “It didn’t say in the paper that you were hurt.” He shook it and several of the inner sheets fell out. “It says the crew were all unharmed.”

“Well, yes, but I—”

“You are coming with me.” He gently slipped his hand around my waist and it felt as though he’d lifted me against the side of his body.

“I can’t just leave,” I said.

“Yes you can.” His voice had switched from hard to soft.

“This is preposterous,” Baron said, taking hold of my opposite arm, as though about to tug me away from Vadmir.

Vadmir sucked in a breath. His chest expanded against my shoulder. He stared at Baron’s fingers around my arm and anger flashed in his eyes.

“Oh, my…” Patrick whimpered and squirmed on his seat.

“You can’t take my crew member anywhere,” Baron said, then clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “We are in a meeting. She stays here, with me.” He pulled me toward him. “She’s ours, an employee.”

I winced as discomfort circled from my back to my chest. “Ouch.”

Vadmir loomed over me and pushed his face up to Baron’s. “Get. Off. Her,” he growled, “Now.”

“No, not a chance,” Baron said. “Could someone please call security? This man must be removed.”

“Vadmir, please,” I said, feeling lightheaded.

Vadmir shot out his hand and wrapped it around Baron’s wrist. His knuckles whitened. He was gripping him really hard.

Baron yelped. “Fuck, let go. This is assault.”

“Are you going to let go of my woman?” Vadmir snarled.

“No, we are in a meeting…”

“You will be in a meeting your maker in a fucking minute.”

“Shit, damn it, okay,” Baron said, releasing my arm. “Jesus.”

Vadmir released his grip on Baron, pushing him away in the process.

Baron staggered and clutched his right arm to this chest. “Assault,” he said again.

“You are right, grabbing her like that was assault,” Vadmir said. “And there are plenty of witnesses.”

“But I—”

“Oh, be a man,” Vadmir said. “She’s coming with me. She shouldn’t be here after what happened yesterday. Are you mad? All of these people need to be at home, recovering.”

Harmony passed my purse to me. “Don’t forget this.”

Vadmir reached for it and then scooped me close again. I wanted to push him away, demand that he leave and get out of my workplace. But feeling him close, hearing his voice, it was a balm to my fractured nerves and I realized how much I’d wanted him last night, to hold and soothe me. I’d thought I really never would see him again when we were crashing. He would have been the last thing I’d thought about had I died on that runway.

We reached the door that he’d smacked against the wall. A security man stood blocking our way. He had a grim expression on his face and his peaked hat was pulled low.

Vadmir stopped in front of him. He was easily a head taller than the security guy.

“You are not going to try and stop me, are you?” Vadmir said in a low, dangerous voice. “Because I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

“No.” The security guard stepped to one side. “I just need to make sure you leave.” He glanced at me. “Miss?”

“Yes, I’m leaving with him.”