Chapter Eight
KCOS 090520Z 0906/1012 VRB18G30KT 2500 SHRA TSRA BKN050CB PROB30 TEMPO 0913/0915 VRB25G45KT 1200 +TSRAGR BKN012 BKN040CB
I tap the stylus on the screen of my tablet, scrolling between the weather apps. Two reports just to tell me about the weather conditions in Colorado, yet both contradict each other.
The throbbing headache I’ve had since last night still rages and pulses just like my mood. I let my head fall back against the headrest and close my eyes, thinking about the forecast.
For the next thirty hours in Colorado, there’s variable gusting wind with rain showers and thunderstorm rain. There is a thirty percent chance that the gusting wind will pick up to 45 knots between one and three p.m. with heavy thunderstorms, rain, and hail.
Fucking great. Nothing I haven’t handled before, but the final part of the report has my eyebrows pinching together, the headache intensifying.
Broken clouds at 1200 feet and a cumulonimbus at 4000 feet.
In other words, there’s a chance—albeit a small one—that there could be one massive-as-fuck thunder cell sitting over the airport we’re heading for. A thirty-hour projection for what could happen from six this morning until twelve tomorrow afternoon. But no guarantees.
I open my eyes and lean forward, staring at the fueler from the window. I’ve requested enough for the flight out plus a little extra like always, but maybe I should ask for a bit more… No, fuck it. It’s not like I’m going to hang around when I get into the Colorado airspace anyway. Simply land, let Miss Cartwright disembark, refuel, and be off again as quickly as possible so I can get home and find the nearest bar to drown out the image of the last time I saw Fiona every time I close my eyes.
What does she even want? She hasn’t been in contact for most of my life and now she decides to reach out? Fuck that. She wasn’t interested in me as a child, so she sure as fuck doesn’t get to know me as a man.
“Morning, Wyatt,” Phillipa calls into the cockpit door as she walks past, her voice light and melodic. The small slice of sunlight through the dark cloud that is my mood.
“Good morning, Miss Cartwright,” I say, getting to my feet and greeting her from the doorway. “We will be on our way as soon as the fueler is done.”
She smiles and shrugs off her coat before dropping into her seat. “Not a problem. The longer it takes us to get back to the rink, the better.”
I frown, cocking my head to the side. “Practice not going the way you want?”
She sighs, long and exasperated. “You know when you’ve been doing something over and over, but you just don’t seem to be getting any better?”
I swallow a snort. If only she knew how long it took me to understand Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts without looking up the abbreviations and acronyms. The report is like code a hacker would use to break into a mainframe and render it obsolete.
“Well, that’s me. Not to mention, my whole body is killing me with all the extra overtime I’m putting in,” she says, leaning onto the side of one leg, bringing the other up to rest her foot on the seat, and starting to rub her calves. “Focus on the Grand Prix final, Pippa,” she mutters to herself, resting her cheek on her knee.
“When is it?” I ask. She lifts her head, a knot of confusion on her brow. Clarifying, I say, “The final.”
“The second week in December.” She winces as her fingers dig into her muscles. “Then nothing until the end of January.”
“I didn’t realize your schedule was so busy.”
She smiles. “Lifestyle of a professional athlete. And it doesn’t help that I come home most weekends too.”
That’s when I notice the dark circles under her eyes. I don’t know much about professional athletes, but I do know they won’t stop pushing until they’re the best. And even then, most still don’t think that’s good enough. But concern over the woman in front of me is not something I can voice. What do I know? I’m just her pilot.
“No moon boots this time?” I ask instead.
She laughs, shaking her head. “No, Evan stole those from me as soon as we landed.”
My jaw clenches at the mention of her partner, an unwarranted reaction that only serves to sour my fragile mood even further. Squaring my shoulders, I thumb toward the open plane door, my tone clipped as I ask, “Are we waiting on him again?”
“No, he flew back commercial to Denver yesterday. His brother wanted to catch a gig of some up-and-coming rock star or something, so he left early.”
A light tap hits against the metal frame of the door, and I turn to look at Jeffery, his yellow hi-vis jacket shining brightly in the early morning sun as his head pops forward. “All fueled up, buddy.”
“Thanks, man,” I reply, checking over the figures on his receipt and scribbling my initials next to them.
“Safe flight.” He spins and jogs down the stairs, then hightails it across the tarmac like his ass is on fire. I like Jeff, the dispatcher at Westchester, a hell of a lot better than Colin. Chatty Colin with the inappropriate comments about Miss Cartwright. A surge of annoyance cascades down my spine as I realize I’ll soon be face-to-face with him in a few hours.
Phillipa pulls her earbuds out of her pocket and pops one in as I finish the last safety checks and close the door. “Ready for take-off, Miss Cartwright.”
As we reach cruising altitude, the sky is like a clear blue sea, and the weather radar on the onboard computer mirrors what I can see outside of my window. The odd wisp of cloud, like cotton candy, floats by, creating blobs of white on the hills of Pennsylvania, leading to the wide-open plains of the Midwest.
From this high up, the landscape is endless. Up here, I’m not bound by the constraints of my thoughts. Up here, I’m free.
Or at least I should be.
My leg bounces incessantly as I flick the autopilot button and settle into the flight. Drumming my fingers on the armrest, I stare across the horizon, shifting in my seat a second later and then looking around the cockpit. Glancing at the instrument panel, I check and recheck the readings, noting that nothing has changed since the last five minutes I looked.
“Fuck’s sake,” I mutter, itching the back of my neck. I continue up and dig my fingers into my hair, the pressure ebbing some of that inside my head. I thought as soon as I was in the air, the melancholy and tightness in my chest would have shifted. Instead, the soft hum of the engines, the vibration of the powerful jet under my control, and the vast expanse of the space before me, are doing nothing to help my frayed edges.
This isn’t me. I don’t wallow. Or overthink. Life is too short to worry about the past or the what ifs of the future when you are powerless to change any of it. Roll with the punches and all that.
I shouldn’t have walked—stormed—out of my dad’s house last night, barely giving him a chance to explain why he’d mentioned my birth mother’s name. It wasn’t fair to him. It’s just that Fiona is like waving a red rag in front of a bull—an unstable male bull with mommy issues way into his thirties.
My teeth ache as I think about her again. Only pain and misery follow that woman. My childhood isn’t exactly one I like to reflect on. Not right now, anyway. What man wants to sit in a confined area with no escape and assess why his mother didn’t want him, not once, but two times before reaching the age of six?
Flicking the noise-canceling button on my headphones, I mute the standard sounds emanating from the plane, forcing myself to focus on my job and not my fucked-up past. Reaching for the tablet mounted next to me, I download the latest weather conditions and scroll across the screen, each coded data describing what I already know. Cloud cover, visibility, wind speed… nothing massively different detailed in the report from this morning.
I rummage around in my flight bag, tugging out my logbook with a long sigh. It’s the one aspect of my job I despise and never manage to keep up with, but at least it will keep my mind busy. Opening to the most recent page, I launch my roster app and start transcribing the flights I’ve completed in the last four months.
As monotonous as admin tasks are, they serve their purpose. The hours slip by, we eat up miles in the sky, and I haven’t thought about last night for at least two of them. I’m zipping up my bag, putting the journal away, when I glance at the weather radar, noticing patches of green and yellow.
My gaze darts to the window at the darkening sky, the clouds rapidly getting thicker the closer we get to Colorado.
As the plane lurches, hitting unstable air, my stomach clenches. Turbulence causes the entire jet to drop about fifty feet, but to Phillipa sitting in the cabin, it will undoubtedly feel like thousands. My hands dart to the yolk, even though it’s still on autopilot, and my attention snaps back to the weather radar, the new bright red and yellow lights depicting a storm cell growing and moving with greater intensity than the forecast could have anticipated.
Thirty percent chance, my ass.
Thirty minutes. That’s all I need to descend and land, and then I can ride out the storm on the ground before flying home. But in the distance, hovering near where I need to go, is the partially developed thunder cell, all dark and gray and expanding as it reaches the troposphere.
I dial into the automated recording for Colorado Springs airport on the radio, the mechanical, robot-like voice relaying the information for landing. Saying a small thank you that the runway is still open, I push a headphone off one ear, raising my voice but keeping it as calm as possible as I call out, “Miss Cartwright?”
“Wyatt,” she cries, and I flick my gaze up to the mirror installed in the middle of the deck, just like in a car, noticing her hands curled tightly around the armrests. “What’s happening?”
“Don’t worry, everything’s fine. But if it’s not already, I need you to buckle your seatbelt.”
The plane shakes violently, and she screams, her eyes squeezing tightly shut as the turbulence worsens. The instrument panel in front of me flashes as the autopilot adjusts, tweaking its settings. Repositioning my headphones, I change the radio frequency again, tuning in for Air Traffic Control.
“This is November-Three-Niner-Juliet-Lima,” I say, holding down the push-to-talk button for the microphone attached to my headset and giving my tail number. “Experiencing some really bad turbulence up here. Have there been any other reports in this area?”
Static crackles in my ears as I strain to listen for a response. Seconds tick by before a male voice replies, “It’s expected. We’ve had several reports of moderate-to-severe turbulence at all levels.”
I curse under my breath, the confirmation that no matter what I try to do to avoid it, I can’t—shit weather at all altitudes.
“Roger.”
The red lights continue to take over the weather radar, mimicking the storm outside as it expands. From my window, I can see the top of the cloud forming a mushroom, punching through the first layer of the Tropopause, the image before me similar to the explosion of an atomic bomb. If I wasn’t the one flying the plane or the fact that the entire thing continues to dip and dive sporadically, I’d have pulled out my phone and snapped a picture for Bowie.
Another air current engulfs the jet, and the muffled screams from the cabin smack me in the chest as I risk more glances at Phillipa. She’s coiled in on herself, her shoulders hunched forward, her head tilted down, her expression hidden by the long curtain of brown hair that sways in time with the plane.
Rain lashes against the windshield, the drops banging so loud that I can hear them through the noise canceling. The clouds roil and roll together as the thunder cell gains momentum, and with each mile covered, visibility reduces until I can practically see nothing. My heart races as quickly as my eyes scan the distance, looking for anything to signal ground. Finally, I catch a small dot, barely visible below, in the vicinity of the Colorado runway.
After getting clearance, I prepare for landing. My attention ping-pongs between the landscape outside and the onboard computers, my pulse hammering as the runway approaches. We drop altitude, and the plane shakes less the closer we reach the ground. My breaths are slow and steady, contrasting my wildly beating heart as the clouds break.
“Almost there,” I mutter, my fingers aching with my grip on the yolk. “C’mon, you son of a bitch.”
We shudder violently, almost like we’ve just slammed into an invisible brick wall, as a gust of wind smacks into us. Phillipa’s scream is petrified, loud enough to break through my headphones as the plane drops, worse than before, the energy we had mere seconds ago now gone. The autopilot disengages as the onboard computer calls out, “WIND SHEAR. WIND SHEAR. WIND SHEAR.”
Alarms blare around me, adrenaline floods my veins, and my hands tense as I push the throttle. The engines roar as we swoop upward, my arms taut as I fight to keep control to climb out of the erratic winds. My gaze flies to the mirror again, finding Pippa folded in two, her head buried in her knees. I want to shout out to her, to reassure her that we’re going to be okay, but the weather outside batters against the metal frame of the plane, rendering anything I could say pointless.
“November-Three-Niner-Juliet-Lima,” I yell into my microphone. “Missed approach. Need to go around.”
“Roger, November-Three-Niner-Juliet-Lima,” Air Traffic Control says, calm and steady. “We need you to take up the hold, though. The plane behind you has also had to go-around.”
“Fuck. Okay, how long before I can try again?”
There’s a pause. “Delay unknown.”
My jaw ticks, and I glance at the fuel gauge, which is already close to my alternative supply. If I get a slot and try again, only to experience the same thing, I won’t make it to the alternative airport. The fuel I’ve already burned on my first failed approach has already cost too much. The last thing I want to do is declare a Mayday.
“I need information on the closest airfield. I need to divert.”
“Not granted, November-Three-Niner-Juliet-Lima,” the voice replies. “All airports in the closest area have closed their runways.”
Dread fills my stomach as the only two options I have become apparent. Fly somewhere else and hope I have enough fuel or try a second landing… and if that fails…
“Get me the coordinates for an alternative I can get to,” I snarl as lightning crackles across the sky.