Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Trinity
“My bag!”
I can’t make sense of anything. The nose-down position of the plane means we have to climb up to get out of the plane, and the smoke is making it hard to see. My medication is in my bag, but it’s not within reach.
“Fuck your bag, get over here!” Lincoln barks.
He’s reaching through the smoke for me, and I take his hand. He pulls me over my seat and we climb over the next row. I’m dizzy, either from the crash or my own anxiety. I try to steady myself by putting a hand on the plane’s wall and taking a deep breath. The smoke I’m inhaling makes me cough and feel even worse.
“We’re getting the fuck off this plane,” Lincoln says fiercely.
I crouch on the back of a seat as he turns the handle to the nearest door and tries to open it. He’s working against gravity, and it doesn’t budge. He takes a step back and throws his weight behind it, ramming his shoulder into it. The door moves a few inches before slamming closed again.
“There’s something blocking it,” he mutters.
It’s getting harder to breathe. Silent tears stream down my cheeks and drip off. I’m just a few seconds away from getting hysterical. Did we just survive a plane crash only to die of smoke inhalation?
“Emergency exit in the back.” Lincoln gets there quickly in the small plane, my heart in my throat as he turns the handle and pushes.
The door opens. I let out a sob as he reaches down for me. There’s nothing for me to hold on to, so he has to pull me up on his own. He practically shoves me out the door, which is fine by me. Anything to get out of the plane.
I suck in a big gulp of fresh, freezing air as I climb out, holding on to the door opening. Now I can see that we crashed in a forest, the plane landing in a massive pine tree. There’s nothing but open air around me.
“Get to the ground!” Lincoln orders. “This thing could blow at any second!”
No time to worry about the potential pitfalls—I jump. My arms instinctively fly up to protect my face from the scrape of branches on the way down. It’s only a few seconds before I hit the hard ground on one foot, then land on my hip. Everything hurts.
It takes me a few seconds to be able to inhale fully, but I’m alive. I roll onto my back, horrified by the flames I see through the opening where the plane’s windshield used to be.
Something that looks like a dark blur flies out of the airplane’s exit door, followed by something red.
I get to my knees, planning to stand up, but as soon as I try to bear weight on my left ankle, pain shoots through it and I drop back to my knees. That’s the one I landed on.
My bare hands can’t handle being on the scattering of snow on the ground for long, so I kneel upright, pain shooting through my hip. I see movement in the tree the plane is lodged in—it’s Lincoln, dropping from one branch to another.
He lands on the ground with both feet, then stands upright. The moment his gaze lands on me I hate that I’ll have to admit I jumped.
“You need help getting up?” He comes over to me, a hand extended.
“I hurt my left ankle.” There. I didn’t lie.
“Here, I’ve got you.”
He puts an arm around me, supporting me so I can hop. I cry out with every movement, my entire body sore.
“I’m gonna get you to a safe distance and then I need to run back for the survival and first aid kits.”
“That’s what you threw out of...ow...the plane.”
“Yeah, and there was a moving pad too. Figured we could use it.”
Use it. Because we’re stranded in Alaska and it’s bitterly cold.
“What about Chris?” I lock eyes with him and his shoulders drop.
“If he wasn’t already dead before we crashed, he is now.”
I know he’s right, but it’s still horrifying. Chris was just alive, and now he’s gone. Lincoln and I were lucky to live through the crash, but we’re in the middle of nowhere.
“Someone will know where we crashed.” I say the words out loud, though they’re meant to reassure me more than anything. “Chris put in a flight plan and they’ll know where we went off course.”
An image of our smiling pilot in his Hawaiian shirt makes my heart sink. I’m still too stunned to really feel any of this yet.
“Right.” Lincoln glances down at me. “Sorry about this.”
“Wh--”
He bends and sweeps me into his arms, my breath whooshing out as my feet leave the ground. My ankle bounces as he jogs and it feels like someone’s pounding on it with a sledgehammer.
“Put me down! Dammit, that hurts! I jumped out of the plane and I might have a broken ankle.”
He gently deposits me on the ground, giving me a puzzled look. “You jumped out of the plane?”
Before I can respond, he stands up and turns around. “I have to get the stuff. Don’t move.”
I shake my head because I couldn’t move if I wanted to. I close my eyes, reminding myself we’re going to be rescued. I don’t have any medication to calm my anxiety right now, but my therapist would tell me this anxiety is okay. This is my body’s natural response to what’s happening to me.
A minute later, Lincoln returns and drops the supplies on the ground. He gets down on one knee and looks me over. “Where are you hurt?”
I groan and mutter, “Everywhere.”
He creases his brow. “Is anything bleeding?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Lift your arms.”
I do, and he pats down my arms and sides, then does the same to my legs. “What hurts the most?”
“My ankle and my hip. That’s where I hit the ground.”
“Can I take a look?”
I balk at his suggestion. “It’s bitterly cold; I’m not taking my clothes and boots off. Help will be here within a few hours, we just need to stay near the plane and keep warm until then.”
A flare of aggravation passes over his face. “It’s going to be dark soon, and they probably don’t know exactly where we crashed. We need to plan for the worst.”
I scoff. “Then we should probably start digging a couple of graves.”
My dark joke doesn’t hit. He glares at me. “I’m doing everything I can to help you, don’t give me a shitty attitude.”
I hold my arms out to gesture at our surroundings. “Our plane just crashed in...are we still in Alaska?”
“Yes,” he snaps.
“Alaska in January. It’s fucking freezing, we have no food or water and I can’t walk.”
“You can’t walk because you jumped out of the plane .”
“You said to get out! That it could blow at any second!”
“That doesn’t mean jump and blow out your ankle.”
I scowl at him. “Well, this is my first plane crash. I didn’t know what to do.”
He sighs heavily and closes his eyes. “We’re not gonna fight. I’m sorry. It’s really important that we keep our cool and help each other through this.”
His apology deflates my anger. “I’m sorry, too. I know it was dumb of me to jump.”
“No, it wasn’t. I was yelling at you to get out. We’re not bringing up that subject again. It’s done. What matters is that neither of us is bleeding out. We’ll be okay until help arrives.”
I nod, rubbing my hands together. Now that the shock is wearing off, I’m really feeling the icy temperature.
Lincoln grabs the survival kit. “Let’s see if there’s anything in here we can use.”
“Maybe a flint to start a fire.”
He sets the case between us and we both scan the contents. It has a flint, three water purification straws, flares, emergency blankets, a flashlight, a knife, nonperishable food, rubbing alcohol and a few other small things.
Just looking at it makes my heart race. I check myself. We won’t need most of it. The flint will help us make a fire to keep warm and the flares will allow us to signal help when it’s close. We’re surrounded by snow, so we can’t run out of water. Everything will be fine.
“Do you know how to use a flint?” I ask Lincoln, grabbing it.
He meets my eyes, his expression grim. “I grew up in an apartment in Columbus. I don’t know shit about the outdoors.”
“That’s okay. I used to hunt and fish with my dad before he died. I know enough to get us by. We’ll need some dry wood. Look deep inside some of the bigger pine trees for dried branches we can use to get the fire going.”
He meets my gaze and nods. There’s a crashing sound in the direction of the plane, like a part of it falling to the ground, and I tamp down the rise of panic inside me.
We’re going to be okay. Help is on the way.
Eight hours later, I’m freezing despite all efforts to warm up. We have a fire going and Lincoln insisted I wear his parka. I have the hood tied so it covers as much of my face as possible, and I have an emergency blanket on my legs, but the cold is soaking into me from the ground.
Lincoln is wrapped in the emergency blanket, my pink-plaid cashmere scarf wrapped around his head and ears. We’re both huddled by the fire. He’s sitting and I’m curled up on my side.
There’s a howling in the distance, but this time, I don’t even flinch. The first few times, I turned my back to the fire, watching to see if anything would try to approach us, but now I’m just too tired.
My ankle is so swollen it’s painful to have my boot on, but I can’t take it off due to the cold. The rest of me aches slightly less since I took some ibuprofen from the first aid kit.
If I can slip off to sleep, maybe I’ll wake up to help arriving. No more worrying and enduring the icy temperatures. Lincoln doesn’t look like he’ll be able to sleep, so he’ll let me know if any animals approach.
It’s been so many hours since we crashed that help has to be coming any minute now. Surely this ordeal is almost over.