by Clara Kensie
“He’s not going to answer.” I’m breathless as I grip the armrest. “Javier sabotaged the plane and waited for you to fly it. He’s got the tattoo. He killed Lily.”
Clenching his teeth with the effort, Ash pulls back on the steering yoke. We glide, slowly, gracefully, riding an air wave, and he whoops with victory.
We’re going to be okay. He’s going to land the plane, slowly, softly, safely. He can do it. Ash will save us.
The radio buzzes with static, and suddenly Javier’s panicked voice fills the cabin, coming in and out. “Morrison—sorry—had to do it—said he’d destroy me—threatened my daughter—had to do it—so sorry—”
And then the plane rocks from side to side, the wings dipping sharply. My ears pop painfully. My stomach flips. Ash swears and pulls on the yoke again, yanking it, but we plummet.
This is it. I’m going to die, again.
I feel my jaw open wide, and I know I’m screaming, but I can’t hear it. Slowly, Ash turns his head and yells something, but no sound comes from his mouth. My fingers ache from digging into the armrests. The intense rush of air pushes me back against my seat, crushing my ribs.
Five hundred people die in small plane crashes every year, and this year Ash and I will be two of them.
Please, please let my dad survive, Joey needs him, please, please, please.
We’re gliding, falling, plummeting, screaming, slow and silent.
The wings of the plane brush over treetops, and Ash dives at me. I can’t hear him, but I see him shout Get down! I see his terror as he grabs me, bends me, pushes my head between my knees and covers me with his body, and I can’t see, can’t hear, my lungs hurt, my head hurts, my ears hurt, my heart hurts, it’s my eighteenth birthday and I don’t want to die today, I don’t want to die this way, and there’s a tremendous, slow, silent crash as the plane hits the ground and then there’s
nothing.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Lily ~ Eighteen Years Ago
Through a tunnel of muffled sound, I heard deep panting. I couldn’t see much, and it hurt to move. Pain surrounded me, suffocated me. My head was bleeding, split open, I could feel it, and the pain radiated outward, encompassing everything. Diana was crying, panicking, pleading with someone who was standing over me, close, breathing hard. Did the ambulance come? I didn’t remember hearing sirens. Why was the guy yelling at Diana? Why was she screaming no, no, please no?
“Di?” I tried to say, but it came out as a gurgled groan. I choked on blood. Using all my strength, I pried open my eyes. One opened a tiny bit. One wouldn’t open at all.
A fist was hovering above me, trembling, clutching the pink diamond paperweight that Diana had given me a few minutes ago. Gems are precious, friends are priceless.
Under the fist was a tattoo of two crossed hatchets.
“Will?” I begged. “Is that you?” Blood soaked my face, stinging my eyes, blinding me, and my plea came out garbled. “I’m hurt. Help me. Please.”
“I don’t want to do this,” the voice rumbled, “but you left me no choice.” He panted furiously, once, twice, like he was gathering courage, summoning adrenaline, and he raised the paperweight.
Oh my God. He wanted to kill me, he was going to kill me, I needed to run, hide, protect myself, but my body wouldn’t move. No, no, no, no, no, no, please, please—
He erupted in a primal, animalistic howl as he slammed the paperweight into my head, then he did it again
and
again
and
again.
As I slipped away, the hatchet moved slower, like it was moving through water. But the pain never receded, and though it slowed with each second, the hatchet never stopped. I heard the sickening crushing sounds as my skull caved in, I heard the blood as it spattered on the fireplace hearth, and then, as the blows rained down one after another, everything grew quieter, and darker.
I was dying, again. Lily Summerhays was dying.
I love you, Mom. I love you, Dad. When I come back, in my next life, I promise I’ll do everything right.
“You left me no choice!” my killer roared again. He howled, and the pink diamond paperweight and the crossed-hatchet tattoo came at me with one last smash, and
everything
stopped
and became
nothing.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Ever ~ Present Day
Crickets chirp.
This tells me three things:
It’s night time.
I’m alive. I did not die.
I’m still me. Ever Abrams.
What about Ash? Is he alive? I survived, but did he?
What about my dad, in the hospital in Quincy? Is he in surgery? Is he alive?
I try to move, but I can’t. “Ash?” I croak. It takes all of my strength to say that. All of my strength to open my eyelids. All of my strength to turn my head.
Dim moonlight illuminates the cockpit. I can only see Ash’s silhouette, slumped over in his seat, chin to chest. The dashboard is dark. The windshield is cracked like a spider web. We’re surrounded by tall trees and foliage—we landed in a forest. The plane’s wing on my side is broken, angling us slightly to the right. Crickets chirp endlessly. The air smells like dirt and grass. It’s cold.
No one has come for us. No wailing sirens, no one shouting our names. Did no one witness the plane fall from the sky? Or are Javier and Paladino covering up reports of the crash? Maybe they assume we’re dead. Or maybe they’re on their way to finish the job.
“Ash,” I say again, then cough. It hurts. My chest, my head.
Ash doesn’t move. Is he breathing? Slowly, painfully, I reach across to put my hand on his shoulder. I go statue-still, waiting, hoping, praying. Finally, I feel a small movement: he’s breathing. Shallow, slow.
I put my hand on his neck to feel for his pulse. Like his breath, it’s shallow and slow. His neck is sticky and wet, and my hand comes back bloody.
I twist, slowly, and find the lock for my seatbelt. I press it, but the belt won’t retract. I’m stuck in my seat.
My head hurts. I feel for blood, but the only place I’m bleeding is from a cut on my cheek, which is swollen. The side of my head is tender. It must have slammed against the side of the plane when we crashed. My neck hurts too. Whiplash. My ribs are sore. Gently, I press on them. Nothing broken, I don’t think, but definitely bruised.
I move my arms and legs, wiggle my fingers and toes. No broken bones, and my circulation is good.
I’m fine. If it weren’t for the jammed seatbelt, I could walk away from this plane crash in one piece. Ash saved my life. But did he save his own? “Ash,” I croak again. “Please wake up.”
No answer.
I need to call 911. I need to call my dad. I need to call Mrs. Yost and check on Joey. Keith has probably called me a million times, and Courtney too, angry that I went off with Ash. The contents of my purse are scattered all over the floor of the plane, but where’s my phone? Did it slide under my seat? I try again to unlock my seatbelt, but it won’t click open. I feel around on the floor with my foot. It touches something flat and smooth, and carefully, slowly, I nudge it closer, closer… That’s it. I can just reach it with my fingertips. I grab it and turn it on.
The screen is cracked. It won’t even light up.
I reach for Ash again, ignoring the blood to feel his pulse. It’s slower now, much slower than it was before. I put my hand on his chest. He’s hardly breathing.
I shake him, as much as I can trapped in my seat, but still, he doesn’t wake up. I emit a panicked whine as adrenaline seizes me and I pull at the seatbelt, howling and tugging, jabbing the lock, again and again and again, and finally, finally, it comes loose. I wiggle out of the seatbelt and scramble to Ash, feeling for his pulse again. “Ash.”
It takes a long time, but finally, there’s a tiny, weak pulse. Then nothing.
“Ash, breathe! Wake up!” The plane has us at a slight angle, and I can’t get him out of his seat t
o do CPR. “Ash!” I hit his chest as hard as I can. His head wobbles upon impact, blood dripping from his mouth, but he doesn’t wake up.
A great sob escapes from my throat as I beg him to please wake up, please, please, please don’t die. I grab him, bury my head into his chest, and weep. He’s dying. He’s close, I can tell, and there’s nothing I can do to save him.
And then I realize… it’s okay. He’ll be okay.
I lift my head. Gently, I kiss his cheek. “Don’t be scared.” I don’t know if he can hear me, but I don’t want him to be scared, because there’s nothing to be scared of. “If you die, you’re going to be reborn right away, into the next baby that’s born closest to where we are, wherever that is. You’ll have a new life, and a new family, a family that will love you so much. As much as I love you now.”
He’s breathing so slowly. Is he breathing at all? I move my fingers to his pulse. So slow.
I smooth his hair, caress his cheek. “You know how I know that you’re going to be reborn right away?” I whisper. “Because it happens to me. Every time. I remember my past lives. My past deaths, really, just the last moments. I was Lily Summerhays before I was Ever Abrams. I was born a few seconds after she died. That’s how I knew about Principal Duston. It wasn’t a conversation I overheard between him and Miss Buckley. That was a lie. I saw his tattoo, during the scholarship interview, and the person who killed Lily had that same tattoo. That crossed-hatchet tattoo was the last thing I saw—the last thing Lily saw—before she died. Until I saw it at the interview, I didn’t know that Principal Duston had that tattoo, and I didn’t know that your father didn’t. And now I don’t know if it was Principal Duston who killed Lily, and I don’t know who killed Miss Buckley, maybe it was Paladino, or Javier, or all three, but now they’re trying to kill us and it looks like they’ve succeeded. Ash, I’m so sorry.”
My voice cracks. I’m getting off track. Closing in on panic and despair. I want to soothe him, not make him feel worse. I calm myself, then kiss him again. I murmur, “Before I was Lily, I was someone else. And someone else before that. And on and on, for hundreds of years. When I die, I’ll soon be someone else. You too, Ash. Your next life is going to be amazing. If we both die tonight, here, we’ll be reborn close together. We’ll be together in our next lives. I promise. I’ll love you in our next lives as much as I love you in this one. So it’s okay. Don’t be scared. I love you.”
I kiss him again, then watch him. No response. His eyes are closed and he doesn’t move.
I place my hand on his chest, right over his heart. I put my lips on his neck, right over his pulse.
I wait for his lungs to expand and contract. I wait for his heart to beat. I wait for his pulse.
And I wait.
And I wait.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Ever ~ Present Day
There’s wind in my hair. Crickets chirp. No light penetrates my closed eyelids. The wind is gentle, slow, soothing, warm. Like a caress. And then it whispers, “Ever.”
A warm breeze on my neck. The wind touches the top of my head, the gentlest kiss. “Ever, wake up,” it says.
Slowly, I open my eyes. My fingers hurt from gripping Ash’s shirt over his heart.
“Ever,” the wind says again, low.
I bolt upright in disbelief. “Ash?”
He’s alive, he’s alive. The moonlight illuminates him leaning back in his seat, hair tousled, dried blood on his chin. My sudden movement jostled him and he grimaces, but it turns into a small relieved smile. “Hey, beautiful.”
I immediately start bawling. “You’re alive?”
“Apparently,” he says. “So are you.”
“I thought you were dying. I thought I was dying. It felt the same.”
“Same as what?” he asks.
He didn’t hear my earlier confession, or if he did, he doesn’t remember. I don’t know if I’m relieved or disappointed. “Nothing.”
He grimaces again as he shifts in his seat, trying to push himself straight. “You okay? Any injuries?”
“Um…” I wipe my eyes and take inventory. “Bruised ribs, I think, and I hit my head. Your mouth is bleeding.”
“Yeah, I bit my lip. It was a hard landing.”
“All that blood from a split lip? No internal bleeding?”
“Internal bleeding, I don’t think so. Internal screaming, definitely yes. That was pretty scary, even for me.” He cringes again. “I pulled my arm from its socket too. Can’t move it.” He looks away, out the window, and curses to himself. “I can’t believe Javier sabotaged the plane.”
“He was forced to do it,” I say.
“He told me to take this specific plane. ‘Take the Piper,’ he said. If it was just me, that’s one thing. But you were with me! He told me to take the Piper and then he stood there and watched you get into the plane with me and let us fly off, knowing…” He punches the dashboard and flinches in pain. “I fucking trusted him.”
Everyone Ash has ever trusted has eventually betrayed him. Even me, when I went back to Keith. Well, I will never betray him again. I put my hand on his leg to comfort him, and he doesn’t move away.
“Someone made Javier do it,” I say. “It had to be Paladino. Javier said the guy threatened his daughter. That’s Paladino’s M.O.—threatening little kids.”
Ash closes his eyes and sighs heavily. “No one’s come for us, which means Javier must have contacted the airfield in Quincy and canceled my flight plan. We were flying over the forest when we went down, so it’s possible no one saw the crash. But more likely, Paladino is covering it up.”
“That’s what I’m thinking too. We need to get help.” Except for the moonlight and stars in the black sky, all I can see out the window are the trees surrounding us. “Can we get out of this plane? Can you walk? What time is it? I wonder where we are.”
He chuckles, then winces again. “Yes, we can get out of this plane, yes, I can walk, judging from the stars’ position it’s around 10 p.m. and we’re not too far from Ryland. We were only in the air for a few minutes and were heading back when we went down.”
He tries to open the door but falls back into his seat with a groan. “You’ll have to do it.”
I twist toward the door and pull the latch, gritting my teeth against the pain in my ribs. The door is too heavy to lift, though. It won’t budge.
“The hydraulic cylinder must be busted,” Ash says. “Damn it. We’re stuck. Here, switch with me. I’ll push it open with my good arm.”
“No, I got it. Hold on.” I swivel in my seat, place my feet flat on the door, and push. Push. It takes all my strength and I hurt my ribs even more, but the door finally lifts. I pull myself up and out, then carefully help Ash.
Standing next to the downed plane, surrounded by forest in the cool moonlit air, Ash and I evaluate each other, checking for injuries, making sure the other is okay. He uses his good arm to put his bad hand behind his head, then takes a deep breath and arches his back. He roars, his shoulder pops, and I scream.
“What are you doing?” I cry.
“Had to pop my arm back into its socket,” he says, slowly lowering it. He rubs his shoulder, then grins. “It’ll be sore for a while, but at least I can move it again.”
“Come on. Let’s get out of here. Paladino and Javier are probably looking for us.”
Together, we trudge as fast as we can through the trees, leaving the plane behind us. It’s dark, and cold, and we’re in the middle of a forest somewhere in Indiana.
As we walk, I catch Ash looking up at the sky. “Wishing you were up there right now, living on Mars?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Even with everything going on, I’m kind of happy here on Earth right now.” His hand slides into mine, and it’s warm.
He’s beautiful and terrifying, fearless and vulnerable, invincible and wounded, powerful and gentle. My gaze locks into his inky black eyes. My heart is beating so fast, my breath comes in quick bursts from the exertion of trampling thr
ough the woods, and from something else. I grab him and kiss him. His cheek, then his forehead, then his neck, and damn that split lip, because I want to kiss him everywhere.
I finally stop and rest my forehead on his chest. We breathe together. “You saved my life,” I say.
With his good hand, he lifts my chin, and with his thumb he caresses my cheek, then my lips. “And you changed mine.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Ever ~ Present Day
Using the stars as a map, Ash navigates us away from the downed plane. “Ryland is northwest of here,” he says. “But the nearest highway is east. Route 21, I think.” Keeping me under his good arm, he pushes onward through the woods toward a field. “Let’s head east, but we should zigzag our path in case Paladino’s looking for us.”
The cropped jeans and black ballet flats I’m wearing are not meant for trudging through forests and fields in the middle of the night. Ash insists I wear his jacket, saying that our quick pace is enough to keep him warm. But when I start shivering uncontrollably despite his jacket, he decides I’ve had enough, overruling my objections. Across the field is a barn and a few sheds. We make our way over and find a shed that’s unlocked, so we hide inside it. He puts his arms around me and kisses me with slow, gentle kisses until I fall asleep.
The sun wakes us up in the morning. We both feel better after the rest, and after a half hour walk, the sound of car engines and wheels whirring on pavement tells us that we’re finally close to the highway. We approach a sign that informs us that Mabel’s All U Can Eat Waffle Junction is a half mile away.
Soon Ash and I are sitting in a corner booth at Mabel’s, cupping mugs of coffee to warm our hands. My head throbs where I hit it in the crash, and my ribs are sore. The dried blood itches from on my cheek and I wipe it off with a napkin. Under the florescent lights, I see that Ash’s lip is bruised and cut, but not split. His black hair is wind-whipped, and I don’t even want to think about what mine looks like.