by Alla Kar
I swim in the sound of his voice as the cries get louder. And when we hit—everything goes silent.
***
I’m not sure but I think the water wakes me. The coolness engulfs my body and I push myself upright against the edge of my seat. The scene in front of me pushes all of my lunch up into my throat and I have to turn toward the window to relieve my stomach.
The man in front of me is floating between his vacant seat and the seats in front of him that are filling with water. I can see the high heel clad foot of the woman diagonal from us floating. A soft plea escapes my mouth but when I try to move I’m trapped.
The sound of water is harsh and it sounds like rapids are hitting against us. With my arms, I try to push myself up but the buckle of my seatbelt is snagged on something. An eerie silence is hovering in my head because I know I need to turn slightly and look to my right. But when I do Beau and Jordan’s seats are empty.
With all the strength I can muster, I push myself upright and stand on trembling legs, as far as my seatbelt will let me. Several dead bodies are sitting in their seats. Some are bleeding and others look like they may have passed out—and drown.
Panic starts to set in and then I feel someone touch my side. I jerk backward and stare up at Beau. He’s beaten. Blood is faded on his shirt. Scrapes cover his arms and cheek.
When I begin to cry he all but runs to me and cups my face. His upright brown hair is half fallen but I can still see his baby blue eyes. “I’m going to get you out of here, okay?”
He begins to pull at my seatbelt. “Where are they?” I ask through a scratchy throat. He doesn’t answer me. My tears begin to cloud my vision and the water is rising up my torso slowly. “Where are they?” I ask again.
Beau reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a small knife. I have no idea where he got it since I know he had to go through security. He grunts as he cuts the seatbelt from my body.
As soon as I’m free I bound up in hopes of finding them. Him. Her. But Beau grips my waist and pins me to his hard chest. “You don’t want to see it, Bella.”
“Let go,” I yell. And I begin to fight. I have to see them. I have to save them. My limbs swing wildly but Beau keeps me in place and starts to carry me away from the back of the plane. “Let go! Let me go!”
Beau growls and swings me around to face him. A pain crosses his face as he locks his jaw. “We have to get out of here! We can’t stay in here! I’ve moved their bodies, Bella. I can’t—I can’t let you see them! I won’t. There are a couple more people outside. A kid. We need to go be with them before—,” A loud pop explodes from the back of the plane at the same time it lights fire.
I stumble backwards toward Beau and Jordan’s hat slips off of my head and into the water covering my legs. I reach down and grab it at the same time Beau reaches up and grabs three small carryon’s that survived in the baggage area above our heads. With the other hand he hooks it around my waist and begins to pull.
Loud cracks and pops echo off the plane as it’s consumed by fire. The water is climbing my torso as Beau guides me through a gaping opening where the plane has broken in two.
Beau stops me at the edge. And I see exactly where we’ve landed. There is no denying this mountain because we planned on visiting it when we got here. We’ve crashed somewhere over the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Spain. Everything that is in my stomach comes up again and I turn to throw-up into the water below us. Beau cusses underneath his breath as he tosses the suitcases as far as he can, and the rushing water pushes them far onto the shore we’ve crashed into.
When I stand back up he grabs my face and wipes his thumb over my lip. “Bella, I need you to swim for me okay? It isn’t far but the water is pretty fast. Can you do it?”
I begin to shake my head but he pulls my chin up higher. “Swim with me,” he says grabbing my hand.
He must see the fear on my face because those hard eyes soften. “Swim with me.”
Before I can agree he grabs my waist and we jump into the freezing water. I’m engulfed and plunged down into the depth. Beau’s arm jerks my own and it feels like it’s been pulled out of its socket.
The grip of his hand is crushing my hand bones but I cling onto him for dear life. When we resurface, the water pushes us toward the shore where we slide onto the gritty sand and our clothes cling to the soggy wetness below us.
Exhausted, I push myself up to a sitting position and gasp. Our plane is in three huge chunks and half of it is already burning with the exception of the front that’s already filled with water. We’ve crashed.
“We got a few suitcases from the rubble,” someone says.
I don’t look because my body won’t move anymore. My mouth won’t open and words won’t form.
“We’ve got those two up there,” Beau says pointing somewhere above us to a vast forest of trees. The second chunk of the plane sinks below the surface and my stomach sinks. We’ve crashed. It happened. An awful hiccup cry threatens my throat at the same time Beau pulls himself in front of me.
“Bella?” he asks. “Can you hear me, Dove? Are you hurt?”
Dove. The word works its magic in my chest but I can’t answer. I watch the water fall down from his damp hair as he searches my face for a reaction. Sunlight reflects off of his small black stud in his left ear but I don’t flinch as it blinds me. I stare into the light. Hoping this is the part of my dream where everything evaporates and my reality comes back.
It doesn’t come.
Chapter Two
Beau
Dead
I’m not one to sing a sad song about my life and throw myself a huge pity party. But I am accustomed to death. Three years ago my brother was sucked under water while we were surfing and drown.
Drown. He died doing the one thing he loved to do, the one thing he’d done every single day since he was twelve years old. It goes to show that you’re never safe—even around the things you love.
I can’t even be mad at God that they’re dead because I feel it’s my punishment for wanting what’s not mine. I was always scared that I would lose my best friend because I was in love with his girl but I didn’t mean lose him in death. I guess sometimes we live in a world inside our own heads that tell us even the bad can’t be that bad. But it always is.
The only calming thought I used to have was that I loved her first. But Jordan beat me to it. That thought doesn’t work anymore. Or it hasn’t in the last hour. It only makes this entire situation worse.
Now I’m with no best friend and the guilt of never confessing the truth—I kissed your girlfriend and I hurt to see you with her. Now I’m going to hurt to not see you with her.
The tall black male offering me his hand cups his other hand over his eyes and takes a long look at me before turning to look at Bella. She hasn’t moved in the last thirty minutes but neither have I. I’m sitting on the wet sand in front of her as she watches our plane burn and sink into the water before us.
All the animosity from earlier is starting to hit me again and I remember that she’s been ignoring me for two weeks. Every time I would sit at our table at lunch she would get up and leave. It frustrated the fuck out of me.
I take the man’s hand and let him help me up. “I’m Taborie,” he says offering me his left hand.
“Beau,” I say. An awkward silence settles over the three of us and then I see the little girl sitting a few feet away behind Taborie. “Is she alone?”
He slowly nods and presses his fists against the center of his forehead. “Her name is Katherine. Her entire family is gone.” The remains of my breakfast are making its way up but I force it down.
I sidestep around him and carefully walk toward the crying girl. I don’t know what to say to her. She’s still in elementary school. She looks so fragile and small against the bank of the river. A tangle of red hair is stuck to her head that’s resting against her knees.
“Katherine?” I ask taking a seat beside her on the bank.
She glances up at
me with huge blue eyes. Freckles cover her small face and tear streak down her chubby cheeks. A whimper escapes her lips. “Yes.”
God, an ache grabs hold of my chest and is suffocating me. Biting the inside of my jaw, I offer her my hand. “My name is Beau. Are you hurt?”
She slips her fingers inside of my hand and shakes her head. “My family didn’t make it,” she whispers. “They were floating in the water.” Her blue eyes lift to mine and hope fills her face. “Can you save them?”
The lump growing in my throat begins to rise and it takes all of my might to swallow the torment. Instead of answering I stand and offer her my hand to help her stand.
She reaches up and climbs to her feet. Her shirt is torn halfway down the middle and her pants are soaked. I know new clothes won’t make her feel any better but it will definitely keep her from getting sick.
“How about we find you some dry clothes, okay?” I walk her up to Taborie and he takes her hand. Taking a struggling breath, I place my hands on the back of my head. “Has anyone tried their cellphones yet?”
Taborie shakes his head back and forth. “Mine was in shatters when I woke up. What about her?” he jabs his finger toward Bella. She is lying on her back looking upward at the sky now. She still isn’t moving. Her shirt is pulled up over her ribs showing her flat stomach and the jeans—that she looked so good in earlier—are torn and muddy. The mud in her hair is drying and caking against the sides of her ashen face.
I have so many things I want—need to say to her but I push it aside and step forward. Her gray eyes drift toward mine and hold. I feel it all the way down to my goddamn toes. “Does your phone work?”
She doesn’t answer me. Her gaze couldn’t be any more empty or hollow. She’s clutching an IPod against her chest and Jordan’s cap is gently placed on her head. My gaze lingers against her tear streaked cheeks and down to her parted lips. “Bella,” I say as carefully as I can. “Do you have your phone? We need to see if we can call for help.”
A laugh erupts from her throat and she rolls to her side. Both items fall from her hands and she curls into a ball. I’ve never seen her look so young and sad. She gently rocks back and forth whispering something to herself. As badly as I want to reach down and shake the answer out of her, I don’t. Gently I kneel and reach toward her pockets and dig around for her phone but come up with nothing.
When I glaze back at her she isn’t moving, only staring at me. A look of outrage builds on her face. Before I know what’s happening she launches herself at me, beating me in the chest while she screams. “They’re gone! Dead! They’re all fucking gone!”
Grabbing her wrists, I turn back and give Taborie a look. He immediately grabs Katherine’s hand and pulls her in the opposite direction down the small bank. Bella is still sobbing when I turn around and now she’s trying to jerk her hands out of my grasp.
She slowly begins to drop her head toward the ground, but I reach out and swoop her up and into my arms. She weighs as light as she did before, but this is a completely different situation. And God I wish it was any other circumstance. Before I felt like life was finally going to give me my chance to swoop Bella off her feet and this time I feel death is going to wreck this beautiful girl I love.
The flowery smell of her perfume still lingers against the soft skin of her neck as she drops her head against my arm. A hopeless feeling washes over her face, I know because it’s the same one I’ve glanced into for the last three years. Bella is in shock and the fits of rage won’t stop easily. In the last few months my anger has dwindled down but even now I still feel hopeless. With death comes many things that we don’t want.
I walk for fifteen minutes before I find a place in the river where the water is shallow and calm. Bella whimpers when I stand her up in the cool river water. Through my dry throat I say, “Bella you need to get cleaned off. Do you need help?”
Her gaze focuses on the shallow river trickling in front of her and then back at me. The wind whips her hair around her face and I see the blush traveling up her neck. “I’ll turn around,” I say.
When I’m turned around I listen to the sound of the wind brushing the branches of the nearest trees. My hands clench at the thought of turning around and seeing her—again. The image of her in her underwear straddling my waist was the torment of my dreams for two long weeks. I’d never seen anything so beautiful in my life. The soft smile she gave me before resting her lips against mine was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen in my life.
“You can turn around.”
I turn around and she’s standing in the middle of the water and is covered up to her breasts. Her clothes are folded and lying against the sand. I take a seat beside them. The sun is shining down harshly on me and I’m just now feeling the burn. “What happened?”
My gaze drifts from the sand to her eyes. She stares at me a while before closing her eyes and running her hands over her hair. “I don’t know,” I say. “I guess the engine failed.”
Her laughter stops my digging in the sand. With her back turned toward me, I can see the outline of her breast as she rakes her hands over her hair. “The statistics said fifty-two million to one.” She whips around to face me, her eyes wide and angry. “They said we had a fifty-two million chance to one that our plane would wreck.” She laughs again but there isn’t any humor in it. “And it happened to us! “
There isn’t anything to say. What the fuck can I say? “Where are their bodies?” she asks. This time she’s closer to the shore. “Where did you put them? I want to see them.”
God—no she doesn’t. My mouth is dry when I try to swallow. There isn’t one person in this world that could make me show her their bodies. I had to get them out of there before she saw either one. Emily was missing her right arm. There was so much blood surrounding her in the seat. A jagged piece of the plane had cut right through the bone. She bled to death before I had even woken up.
And I would rather die than see her face if she saw Jordan. He looked perfectly fine when I found him in the water but he wasn’t moving. Both cheeks were puffy and purple. He’d drown in waist deep water because the crash knocked him out. No. I refuse to show her anything.
“Why don’t you finish getting cleaned up,” I whisper.
She slams her palms down on the water and screams. Sobs break from her throat again and it feels like my heart is going to break in two. “Please,” she begs, falling to her knees. The water rises to her chin when she sits and she curls her legs up to her chin. “I need to see them. There is so much I haven’t said.”
And I know exactly what she means. The guilt of making out with my best-friend’s girl has been weighing me down. It’s been weighing me down every day since. And now I’ll never be able to tell him.
Her tears break free again but I slide forward and catch her before she falls back against the sand. When my arms find her she begins to try and push me away. But I grab her across the stomach and slide her back against me. The water laps at my chest as I hold her. She finally stops fighting me. The tension in her shoulders relaxes and she slumps backwards against me.
We don’t speak. I watch the blue skies above us in complete denial that this has happened. Bella finally stops crying again and grips my wet shirt in her small hand. “Who is the little girl?” she whispers.
I can only see the top of her head but I smooth her hair down and her body begins to stiffen. And then she’s ten feet into the water and facing me. Her entire face is flushed. I lift an eyebrow and she turns her head. “We probably need to hurry,” she lies. The side of her mouth always moves sideways when she does.
I don’t ask her why she doesn’t want me near her because it’s obvious. We haven’t talked about two weeks ago and I have no idea where we stand. And I’m sure I’ll never be able to bring it up again.
“Her name is Katherine. Her entire family was killed.”
Bella closes her eyes for a brief second. “I need to get dressed.” I turn around and listen to her wet clothes sliding ba
ck onto her body. “I’m ready.”
Without a look backwards, I start walking back down the beach. A forest is directly behind the river bank and it scares the shit out of me. I can’t even imagine what the hell is out there.
“How are we going to eat?” she asks. When I glance over at her, I immediately look back. Her wet clothes are stuck to her like a second skin. Everything feels wrong. The want to run my fingers over her damp hair and kiss away that pain is torment and eating me alive. I shouldn’t be here. Jordan should.
I scratch the back of my sweaty neck and sigh. “We’re going to have to sit down and talk with Taborie. We’ve got to get a game plan going.”
Another soft sigh escapes her lips. “They’ll find us though, right?” She stops and turns to face me. The face I’ve been staring into for the past two years is broken and that makes me hurt. Her gray eyes are brilliant in the sunlight.
I give her my best smile. “They’ll find us.”
When we get back to the others, we find four more suitcases pulled out onto the bank. Taborie pulls out clothing and places them on the bank to dry. It looks like Katherine has already changed. They fall off of her but it’s a lesser chance of her getting sunburned.
“We found a few more suitcases.” Taborie stands up and points toward a pile of food against a semi-circle of logs. “We found some packaged food and I’m letting the clothes dry for us.” He glances down at a large shirt and jeans. “It looks like we’ve found some that would fit your big ass too.” His wide white smile stretches across his face.
I crack a smile—the first genuine one today—and look down at Bella. Her gaze darts from my chest to the pile of junk food sitting in front of us.
“Well,” I clear my throat. “This is definitely a start.”
Chapter Three
Bella
The little girl sitting in-between my spread legs hasn’t said one word to me since I started trying to comb my fingers through her tangled red hair.
