“Not to worry, luv,” Beatrice chimed in. She was digging around in her large purse again. “I’ve got a fresh supply of bevvy that can get us aled up ri’ proper.” She grinned widely as she pulled out an un-opened bottle of Jose Cuervo. “’Ere we are! We’ll be just fine then, won’t we?”
“Cor, Miss Drake, you’re goin’ about this all wrong, eh?” Clara said then, drawing Annabelle’s attention from Beatrice. “It’s like when you know the big bloke in the play yard wants to clobber your brains out. You don’t let ‘im smell your fear, do you? Nah, you let ‘im know you think he’s go’ a tiny wanker, you do! Teach ‘im you’re no’ a coward!”
Annabelle’s eyes widened, her mouth dropping open. “Clara! You do not tell an airplane you’re about to get on that it has a small penis! It’ll just get pissed off at you and want to get even!”
Across the cabin, Sam’s tall form began to shake with silent laughter.
Annabelle ignored him. “It’ll go Kamikaze on us and drop out of the sky like a rock just for the chance to hear us all scream before we hit the ground!”
Cassie blinked beside her and then bit her lips to keep from smiling. She cocked her head to one side, as if considering Annabelle’s words. Then she nodded once and said, “Well, I guess you never know. Planes could have feelings-”
“Absolutely!” Virginia piped up, helpfully. “In fact, the Native Americans have long believed in animism.” She was animated, herself now, gesturing with her hands as she spoke. “It’s something children seem to know instinctively – that all things in the universe have sentience – but that we forget as we grow older-”
Annabelle didn’t have a chance to catch the rest of Virginia’s mini-lecture on the souls of inanimate objects, because it was at that moment that Jack wrapped his left arm around her upper body, pinning her tightly as he inserted a needle through her sleeve and into her right arm.
Not having expected it, she barely felt the sting. But whatever it was he gave her worked quickly. Her legs gave out and she fell into Jack’s supportive arms. Her world went black in the space of two very short seconds.
Annabelle was running, but no matter how hard she pushed, her legs would only go so fast. Or slow. They moved like bendy straws through frozen molasses, threatening to break under the pressure she was exerting upon them.
But she needed to move. She desperately needed to get away, because the plane was skating along the frozen water, rushing toward her, flames shooting out of its windows. It was screaming as it skidded along the ice, issuing forth an ear-splitting noise like a banshee or a jet engine.
Horrible. Loud.
Up ahead, a crack in the ice spread out before her. It formed a hole, leading to dark, frigid waters below. They were a sapphire blue, endless and familiar. She moved toward the hole, knowing that the plunge would hurt, but would probably save her life.
Behind her, the air grew hot. It grew very hot. The back of her neck tingled with the lick of flames. She hissed in a breath and her heart pounded hard in her chest. The heels of her feet grew hot in her boots and they began to slide on the melting ice.
The plane was only a few yards behind her.
Her right glove caught fire as it moved behind her in a running swing. She hugged the hand to her chest, but the fire didn’t go out. It spread to her left glove and the flames ate through the tips of the gloves to reach her fingers within.
A warmth became a heat, searing her fingernails off. She screamed.
Only a few more feet to the water.
Only a few more steps.
Fire edged into her vision on her left, and wrapped around her on her right. She was being hugged by it, embraced by the death behind her. Her hair caught on fire; she could smell it. Only it smelled like burning oil. Maybe it was the plane.
The scream became a mixture of many screams. Voices raised in agony – and fear.
She jumped.
When she hit the water, it wasn’t cold. It was warm. She sank down into it, wrapped in softness, wrapped in comfort. She sank more than a mile down, without having to take a breath.
She sank several miles and her boots touched the bottom.
She looked down at her hands. They were healed. Her clothes were intact.
She looked around her. The blue stretched on forever. Warm and dark.
Behind her, the water shifted, budging her forward in a small after-wave. She slowly turned around. The plane had melted ice above her and fallen through. It was now sinking through the water. She watched it, several yards away, leaving a trail of ice blue water behind it.
A vapor trail of cold and engine oil traced its way to the surface of the water, so very, very far up.
Chapter Thirty-two
“What the hell were you thinking, Jack?” Annabelle paced the distance in front of the bed in the small room. “You could have killed me or something! How do you know I wasn’t allergic to whatever you gave me? I could have died in my sleep-”
Jack cut her off before she could continue, his voice raised an octave, his temper held carefully in check. “Bella! Come to your senses. I wouldn’t give you something that could harm you; you must know that by now.” He shook his head, taking a deep breath to calm himself as he folded his jacket and placed it within his black bag. “Not so long as I drew breath, Bella, would I ever hurt you.” He turned away from her and continued working. The silence stretched between them, punctuated only by the metallic sound of gun pieces clicking against one another as Jack reassembled his weapons. Where the hell had he put his bloody bullets?
That afternoon, Annabelle had awoken, groggily and a tad queasy, to find herself tucked beneath a thick, soft blanket in an unfamiliar, if very nicely appointed room. Her vision had cleared upon wooden beams in the ceiling and she’d blinked to take in the rest of her surroundings, which appeared to be a cottage-like room, small but warm. A fire crackled in a fire place set into one wall.
There was a glass of water on the bedside table. She picked it up and sat up to take a drink without even thinking. Her mouth was so dry…
As soon as she sat up, Jack was there in the doorway. Annabelle swallowed the clear liquid as her mind raced and she stared at the man who stared back at her.
It had taken her a moment to remember what had happened, and hence, figure out where she now most likely was.
But when she did, she dropped the glass and it tumbled down the bed side to land and shatter on the hard wood below.
They’d been arguing for over an hour since. In the interim, Annabelle had managed to get out of bed and get dressed and now her black boots paced out an agitated distance on the polished wood planks in the cottage bedroom.
“You would never hurt me, Jack?” Annabelle asked then, her tone changing. “You would never hurt me? You mean… you would never lie to me or put me in mortal danger or jam a needle into my vein when I didn’t do what you wanted me to do?” She asked, her gaze narrowed, her voice barely more than a whisper.
Jack stopped what he was doing. She stared at his back.