by Shade Owens
Suddenly, the plane jerked and felt unstable under my feet. Were we now floating in the water? Through the side windows, my friends tried to chase after us with seawater up to their waists.
Number 73 held his hand firmly on what appeared to be the throttle and pushed it forward, causing the plane to get even louder. We started moving fast enough for water to splash into the air beside us and for my friends to become smaller, and smaller. Holding the wall of the cockpit, I glanced at Coin who stared back, unable to speak.
With a peppy cheer in his microphone, Number 73 pushed the throttle as far as it could go and I stumbled backward. He turned his head sideways to look at us from the corner of his eye and smirked. “Preparin’ for takeoff, ladies. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.”
EPISODE 18
PROLOGUE
At first, the people resembled toy figurines. They were small and so perfectly shaped they appeared to be made of plastic.
But as the plane flew in nearer, faces began to take form. Men, women, and children waved at us with grins on their faces. There were hundreds of them, if not thousands, waiting to be reunited with loved ones.
Would they be disappointed when they realized only Coin and I were on the plane?
Leaning over Coin’s lap, I stuck my face against the small circular window and my breath fogged it up.
“Can you believe this?” I said.
Coin’s lips stretched wide, her gold tooth looking shinier than ever inside the plane. “Not really. Man, this feels so surreal.”
Then, as if being carried by a flock of birds, the plane landed so gracefully I found myself moving from window to window, trying to soak it all up. This was America—my home. How was this even possible? How had I made it back safely?
The moment we landed, Number 73 cut the engines and a crowd formed around us, gazing through the windows, their eyes wide.
Were they not afraid of us? Why weren’t there any police officers waiting to arrest us for escaping?
“Holy shit… We’re home,” Coin breathed.
“Home,” I repeated.
The second Number 73 unlatched the door, the plane filled up with air so crisp that I found myself sucking in as much as I could. No humidity or excessive heat floated around us.
Without wasting any time, I rushed to the plane’s door and stepped out, feeling like a celebrity. I raised a protective hand as cameras flashed, microphones appeared in front of my face, and voices buzzed all around.
I almost shouted at them to stop when something else caught my eye—someone else.
Mom.
“Mom!” I shouted.
She beamed, her mouth wide open, and ran toward me with flailing arms. “Oh, Brone!”
The second time she called my name, however, her voice deepened an octave.
“Brone!”
CHAPTER 1
“Brone!”
When I didn’t snap out of it, Coin shoved me out of the way with her sharp elbow and charged straight into the cockpit. She pressed her knife into Number 73’s throat, forcing him to raise his chin. “Cut the engines, now!”
In an instant, I was back inside the stolen plane that was on the verge of leaving Kormace Island.
Number 73 laughed through his nose but didn’t let go of the throttle. “Sorry, no can do.”
We were gaining so much speed across the surface of the ocean that any second now, the plane would begin to rise out of the water. Around us, the scenery blurred like a multitude of paints pouring down a slanted canvas.
Why wasn’t he afraid? Coin was threatening him at knifepoint, and yet he sat there, looking as arrogant as ever with his green headphones, a sly smirk on his scarred face, and aviator sunglasses he’d plucked off the copilot’s seat.
That’s when I realized he was the only one capable of flying the plane. He knew deep down, we wanted off this island. In his mind, we weren’t going anywhere without his expertise, which made him indispensable.
Fuck that. I wasn’t about to leave my people behind.
Gripping my knife as hard as I could, I flipped it upside down and moved toward him. The second he turned toward me with that cocky look on his face, I stabbed him clean through his forearm. He let out a scream so loud into his microphone that I instinctively tore off my headphones. As he pulled away from the throttle, I ripped the knife out, grabbed the throttle’s lever, and brought it back to its original position.
At once, the engine’s loud rumbling became a deep humming sound, and the plane started losing its speed.
“Crazy bitch!”
Pointing the bloody knife in his face, I said, “Try anything like that again and next time, it’ll be your dick, you hear me? Now, bring this goddamn plane back to shore before I lose my patience.”
With his hand wrapped around his puncture wound, his dark eyes rolled up at me—a gaze so intense I found myself stepping backward. His nostrils flared to twice their size, and his breath came out heavy.
There was no time to prepare myself. In one swift move, he lunged toward me. Coin tried to come to my defense, but he’d already anticipated her attack and threw an elbow out, knocking her square in the mouth. The blow had been so hard that her golden tooth disappeared behind a wall of dark blood, and she fell on her back, unconscious.
With his good hand, he grabbed my wrist, making me feel like a fragile mannequin constructed of dry twigs.
He squeezed so tight that I felt a snap and a radiating pain shot through my wrist, forcing me to drop my knife.
“Didn’t want it to be this way,” he growled through clenched teeth, “but you give me no choice.” Forcing the weight of his body on top of me, I fell into the copilot’s seat. My body contorted, my head squishing against the glass window.
The plane jerked from side to side as he fought to climb on top.
“Get… get off me,” I tried, but he was too heavy. I couldn’t breathe. His knee, pressed under my rib, made it impossible for me to squirm. If I moved even a bit, there was a chance one or several of my ribs would fracture.
He grabbed me by the throat and squeezed until I found my face swelling up like a balloon being filled with water. In desperation, I tried to make him stop and slapped his wrist over and over again, but it was no use.
The pain became so intense I thought my head might explode.
In a panic, I kicked out despite his knee in my ribs and felt something displace. But I didn’t care anymore. He was killing me. It was better to break a few ribs than to die. The move shifted his balance, but only a bit, and not enough for me to escape. Then, I reached for his face, trying to claw at his eyes, but no matter how hard I tried to get out of it, it wasn’t working. He was way too strong, and by the devilish look on his face, far too deep in a state of rage to stop.
He wanted me dead, and he wouldn’t let go until my body shut down.
Who was this man? This wasn’t the guy I thought I’d saved—everything about him exuded evil. Or, was he simply that desperate to return home? Desperate enough to kill me if it meant a safe return to his wife and child?
Did he even have a wife and child?
Everything blurred, and for a moment, I forgot where I was. Through the blurriness, his narrow eyes appeared. They were glazed over, almost as if he’d consumed drugs. But he wasn’t high, at least not on substances—he was intoxicated with anger.
His face, a sweaty contortion that started to lose meaning to me, no longer looked human. He breathed hard through clenched teeth, saliva dripping off his bottom lip and landing on my face.
He let out an animallike growl and pressed down even harder until my back cracked against the plane’s steel door.
“F—fucking bitch,” he said. “Trying to take away my freedom.”
With the little strength I had left, I scratched at the skin of his arm, my fingers slipping across warm blood. Whether the blood belonged to him or me, I wasn’t certain. All I could hope for now was that he’d come to his senses and realize killing me wasn’t nece
ssary. But he wasn’t calming down—he wanted me dead more than anything.
I should have let him fly the plane. At least then, I’d still be alive.
I blinked once, then twice, as his face started to blacken.
Then, out of nowhere, Number 73 threw his head back and screamed out in pain—a husky growl that vibrated through my entire body. Pushing himself off me, he turned around, and as he did so, I caught a fuzzy glimpse of Coin standing behind him with a bloody knife in her fist.
She came at him again, stabbing him in the shoulder this time. “Son of a bitch!”
She raised her knife once more, prepared to bring it down into his chest. But she didn’t get him—as her knife came down, he caught her wrist, lunged off me, and stumbled toward her.
This was it. This was my chance to attack him from behind.
Why couldn’t I get up? Out of nowhere, a loud, high-pitched sound entered my left ear, making everything around me spin in circles.
Get up, Brone. Get up.
Was it shock? Had my body already shut down? Was I dying?
When I blinked again, Number 73 was straddled on top of Coin, prying the knife from her, but she wasn’t having it. She kicked and squirmed from side to side, holding onto her blade as if it were the last diamond on Earth.
If you don’t get up now, he’ll kill her.
She needs you. Ellie needs you. Get the fuck up.
Blinking as hard as I could to regain a bit of my vision, I reached for the side of the copilot’s seat, and with as much energy as I could find within me, pulled myself up. I swayed from side to side, my hand resting against the seat’s leather for balance. In front of me was Number 73, his rounded back moving so aggressively I couldn’t tell if he was already killing her.
My left ear was still ringing, but I couldn’t focus on that.
At once, Number 73’s back straightened and in his hand was Coin’s knife.
This was it.
There was no time to waste.
Screaming as loud as I could—which was painful and came out more like a hiss than anything else—I grabbed him by his entire head and threw him backward, right into the plane’s control panels.
I wasn’t even sure how I’d managed to do that—I felt weaker than I’d ever felt in my life.
With a confused look on his face, his head rolled back, smashing into the top of the dashboard where a strip of metal ran along the width of the plane.
He pulled back and slowly reached for the back of his head, no doubt to see if he was bleeding.
There was no time to waste.
I stumbled toward him, almost falling over, and grabbed him by the face, my thumbnails digging into the skin underneath his eyes. With bulged biceps and trembling legs, I threw him sideways into the steering column.
Something cracked—whether it was the plane’s equipment or something in his skull, I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t waste any time trying to figure it out. When his head bounced back toward me, I smashed it again, and again, and again. Blood splattered across the leather seat and the cockpit’s display screens.
At last, his eyes rolled back and his head fell forward, but I couldn’t stop myself. I grabbed him by the ear for a better grip, pulled his head toward me, and smashed it into the steering wheel again. There was so much blood that his ear kept slipping out of my palm, so I grabbed at the collar of his shirt and kept yanking until I found myself barely able to move his limp body at all.
“Brone.”
The control wheel’s handle was covered in blood and slimy gunk, but that wasn’t enough for me. This son of a bitch had almost killed me and taken everything away from me.
Punching him in the face, I shouted as loud as I could, but nothing more than a painful whisper came out.
“Brone!”
I wasn’t sure how many times she called out my name before everything went quiet, but I didn’t stop until my arms went numb, and by that point, his face was nothing more than a bloody mess of missing teeth, a broken nose, and fractured cheeks.
Sighing, I fell into the copilot’s seat, feeling like I weighed a thousand pounds. As the adrenaline began to leave my body, the pain in my throat intensified. When I swallowed, it felt like nails were traveling down into my esophagus.
Where had Coin gone?
“C—” I tried, but nothing else came out.
I cleared my throat, but all it did was hurt so bad it made me jump. It was probably better I didn’t talk at all. Dragging myself up from the floor, I inched my way to the back of the plane.
The plane had stopped moving, and we were now floating on the ocean’s surface, far away from shore.
I wanted to call out for Coin, but I couldn’t. So instead, I knocked against the plane’s walls as I moved toward the passenger area, hoping the noise might draw her out.
Where the hell was she?
And then, I heard it. Although muffled, it was obvious she was crying. The plane’s cabin was dim, making it difficult to see anything. The only light coming through entered the small circular windows, so I didn’t see her at first. But then, I caught a glimpse of her short woolly hair bouncing up and down in the farthest seat at the back.
Was she injured? Why was she crying? Not once had I ever seen Coin cry.
I wanted to ask her what was wrong, but even the thought of speaking hurt my throat. So instead, I moved toward her, rested a hand on the headrest in front of her, and leaned in.
The second I saw her, I knew what was wrong. In her hands was a small circular mirror, and she stared into it with watery eyes and trembling lips.
“I know we’ve got metal to see our reflection,” she said, “but it ain’t the same. I’m… I’m right here. That’s me.”
Her desperate eyes rolled up toward me, and at the same time, she reached for her cheek—a graze so delicate it looked like she was petting the light fuzz of her face.
Poor Coin.
How long had it been since she’d last seen herself in a mirror’s reflection? It was one thing to try to see your face in a sheet of metal, on a sword’s blade, or across the surface of the water, but to gaze into a mirror and to see yourself so perfectly must have been difficult.
“I… I barely recognize myself,” she said, turning from side to side, inspecting every inch of her face. Flaring her nostrils, she grabbed the tip of her nose and raised it to peek inside, then ran a finger along her tangled eyebrows. “It’s me, but it isn’t, you know? I haven’t changed on the inside, but this face isn’t what I remember. And… these wrinkles around my eyes. What the hell is that? I ain’t old.”
Finally, she lowered the mirror onto her lap and rested her head against the window, looking defeated. Staring ahead with a blank expression, she stretched her arm and gave me the mirror. “Here.”
Although terrified, I reached for it.
Its metallic back was cool to the touch, but holding it in my hands felt like I’d plucked a piping hot plate right out of the oven. Inside, I was freaking out. Was I even ready for this? So much had happened since I’d landed on the island that I feared I might not recognize myself.
But I had to know.
Slowly, I raised the mirror, my heart beating so hard my fingertips pulsated against its little frame.
The moment I saw myself, I stopped breathing.
It was like looking at a monster.
What had happened to me? My left eye, bright blood red, looked like something out of a vampire movie. Was this Number 73’s doing? Around my throat were red marks, and up my cheek, little speckles to match. Around the blotchiness were squiggly red lines of various sizes. Burst blood vessels?
Near my collar bone was fresh blood sprinkled like paint thrown off a paintbrush. My hair, short and unkempt, looked like it had been cut by a toddler with a pair of plastic scissors.
Who are you?
Gently, I ran a finger across my cheek where Hawkins had sliced my face open. The scar had healed, but it was big and ugly.
Pulling my lips up,
I inspected my teeth. Although not rotten like some women’s teeth on this island, they’d started to yellow and were covered in plaque.
“We should bring that with us,” Coin said.
Lowering the mirror, I shook my head. “It—it.” I struggled, my voice coming out like rocks being ground together. “It’ll only spread heartache,” I whispered.
And with that, I chucked the mirror onto one of the leather seats beside me and jerked my head sideways, signaling Coin that it was time to go.
CHAPTER 2
“Push harder on that,” Coin said. “I saw him doing it. I think it controls the way you turn. No, stop turning the wheel. No, Brone, not like—okay, yeah, you got it. Holy shit, we’re moving.”
Driving the plane across the ocean water was the strangest and most exhilarating feeling in the world. If only I knew how to fly it, I thought. But as we moved across the water, the plane’s engine rumbling loudly, I couldn’t help but smile.
Despite the dead body behind me, this was the most fun I’d had in years.
“You’re flyin’ a goddamn plane!” Coin said.
I smirked sideways at her and rolled my eyes as if to say, I’m not flying it.
She smacked my back. “You know what I mean.”
We moved at a gradual pace, similar to the speed of a pedal bike. As we approached shore, I realized I had no idea how to climb back onto land. Were there wheels inside this thing? Were they out? Or could I simply drive up into the sand without any landing gear?
Coin must have been thinking the same thing as me. She hovered over all the buttons and screens as if trying to decipher some complex puzzle. In front of us, Biggie, Rocket, and Elektra waved at us, their arms above their heads and grins taking up half their faces.
Biggie clapped over and over again, no doubt mind-blown that we’d not only managed to prevent the takeoff but that we were controlling the plane.
“Number 73 didn’t push any buttons, I don’t think,” Coin said. “We should be fine. Put some power into it.” She pointed at the beach. “Who cares where we park it, as long as it climbs up on shore.”