Chapter 2
IVY
Beep…
Beep…
Beep…
Is that my alarm? Did the battery die again?
Just my luck.
Mom always told me to get a different one, but my apartment gets so many power cuts, and my trusty battery-operated alarm has saved my bacon more than once. No one can replace her.
She continues to beep so I try to blindly reach for her to snooze the warning and gain five minutes extra, but my arm is heavy. Something tickles along my forearm and warm pain twinges in the crease of my elbow.
Am I going to be late?
No… no, that’s not right.
When I open my eyes, I’m met with a dark ceiling lacking the light-up stars I stuck there during my last spurt of decorating.
Fuzziness clings to the corner of my vision, and everything blurs like I’m trying to peer through thick morning fog.
I blink, but the darkness remains for a few long seconds.
The next time I open my eyes, the ceiling isn’t as dark but the stars are still missing.
Did I take them down?
No… I haven’t been home in weeks because…
Because…
To my right is a large window draped in white slat blinds angled just enough that I glimpse the real starry sky outside. The moon is high, the sky is clear, and the stars twinkle softly as if trying to draw me out of this thick slumber.
My arm still feels weird and heavy. My throat is dry like it’s been stuffed with cotton, so when I try to swallow, everything pulls and scratches so sharply that I choke. A ragged cough reaches my ears, and it’s not until the third one that I realize that sound is coming from me.
Suddenly, an unfamiliar face floats over the top of me. Kind green eyes scrunch at the corners and her lips part, but her words struggle to reach me like I’m underwater. I watch her speak, following the slope and curve of her lips while cough after weak cough escapes past my equally dry lips.
My tongue hurts.
The face vanishes and the thick sludge invading my mind slows all of my thoughts. What happened to my alarm?
Another cough and the woman is back, pressing something between my lips and this time, I do hear her when she talks.
“Drink.”
So I do. My lips seal around the straw and with a few sucks, cool water floods my mouth and soothes my aching throat with each swallow.
Thirst rises like a feral wave inside me and I drink faster and faster.
With each gulp, the fog clears from my vision and the sludge melts from my mind, leaving just a dull ache lingering in my forehead.
I drink until the straw is abruptly pulled away from my lips, leaving a few droplets clinging to my lower lip.
“Careful,” she says. “Too much too soon will make you sick.”
Sick?
Sleep melts away and more of the dark room comes into view as the nurse—because she’s clearly dressed like a nurse—pulls away from my bed and sets the cup of water down on the plastic table stretching across my bed.
The room’s so dark that the only light, other than what’s coming from the machines to my left, comes from the door that sits half open behind the nurse.
“I—” Talking burns, and I dissolve into another flurry of coughs.
The nurse’s face crumples with sympathy, and her cool hands suddenly wrap around my forearm. “Take it easy,” she says softly. “You’ve been unconscious for four days.”
Four days?
What happened?
“I… where am I?”
“You’re in Mercy Hospital in New York,” the nurse explains. “I’m Janet. I’ve been looking after you. Don’t try to move yet, okay? It will take you a little while to get your bearings. Do you remember what happened?”
Slowly, I shake my head, trying to connect her words to the emptiness in my mind.
“Ivy, you’re one of the survivors from the Alpine airplane crash.
Do you remember being on the plane? They think you hit a pocket of dead air and ran into engine trouble, so the captain tried to make an emergency landing.
He did pretty well for a while but the crash was…
” Her brows pull tightly together as if something on her mind forces her to stop talking.
“You survived, but you’ve had surgery. You had a lot of internal bleeding but we’ve fixed that right up, don’t you worry.
You have a deep head laceration that’s been stapled closed and you broke your ankle, but you’re mostly in one piece. ”
Every word brings back memories like the crack of a whip.
The shuddering plane. The screech of metal and the screaming passengers. That sick feeling of weightlessness as the plane plummeted. A sea of terrified faces gazing at me for answers as we fell out of the sky like a rock.
How am I alive?
“I… the plane crashed?” I croak, each word burning the back of my throat.
“It did. A terrible mess, but that’s not important right now.
What’s important is that you’re alive and while recovery will take some time, you’re going to be okay.
” Janet pats the back of my hand, but there’s something she’s not telling me.
Sadness hides in her eyes and her smile is similar to the smile I give passengers when reassuring them while hiding the truth.
“What’s wrong?” I croak. “How bad was it?”
Janet pats the back of my hand once more and her smile wavers at the corners. “I’m not… not sure I’m the best one to tell you this.” She lifts her head and glances into the darkness of my room, but just as she turns back to look at me, the door behind her opens further.
“She awake?” barks a nasally voice.
Janet spins on the spot, keeping one hand on my bed. “Yes, but she’s just woken up and she’s groggy. I’m not sure how well she’ll be able to answer your—”
“Get out,” the nasally voice demands. “Now.”
“But Officer—”
“Out,” barks another voice, this one higher-pitched.
Janet flashes me a sympathetic glance and departs from my bed. As she passes the new additions to my room, her voice hardens. “If she pushes that button, I’ll have security toss you out on your ass.”
Neither of them responds.
What is happening? How am I even alive after something as horrific as a plane crash?
Struggling to wrap my head around Janet’s words, I brace both hands on the bed and shift my body.
Tightness pulls across my abdomen, my head throbs, and despite there being no pain, the weight of the cast around my broken ankle immediately irritates me.
“Ivy Meyer?” The nasally man stands beside my bed while the other stranger stands at the foot of my bed with both hands leaning heavily on the railing.
“Uh… yes. Yes, that’s me.”
“Are you sure?” snorts the man at the end of the bed. “If she doesn’t know her own name, then what’s the point?”
“She knows,” replies the nasally man, sending a sharp glance back at his partner. His dark, beady eyes lock onto mine and a chill steals across my shoulders. Something about the emptiness in those depths is chilling, but it’s like I’m trapped, unable to look away.
“Ivy Meyer, you were on board Alpine flight 216, correct?”
My brow twitches. “Yes.”
“Do you know the statistics of surviving a plane crash?” Nasally doesn’t sound like he’s talking to me.
“I dunno,” replies the whinier one. “Eighty percent?”
“Give or take. Do you know the statistics of surviving a crash that kills ninety-five percent of the people on board?” Nasally finally looks at me.
“I… I’m sorry, who are you? What… what is this about?”
“I’m Carl, that’s Joseph. We’re detectives investigating the plane crash that killed almost everyone… except you.”
Except me?
My mouth falls open while the machine beside me betrays just how fast my heart’s started to race. “I… me?”
“And a handful of others,” Carl says nonchalantly. “But passengers don’t really count, do they? They’re not the ones with knowledge of the planes and the flight routes and all that stuff, right?”
Everything out of his mouth might as well have been in another language with how little sense he’s making. “I don’t understand.”
“It might be the drugs,” Joseph says with a yawn. “A hospital like this is sure to have the fancy fucking drugs.”
“Let me lay it out for you.” Carl leans closer and the stale scent of cigarettes suddenly enters my nose.
“A lot of people died and you survived. It’s our job to find out how that happened.
Now, we’re not the ones in charge of finding out how the plane went down, but we do have to find out what we can about the people on board.
So I need you to tell me everything you remember. ”
“I don’t… I’m sorry, you’re not making any sense. Wasn’t it an accident? These things… these things are always accidents, aren’t they?” It has to be. There’s no one way someone could cause an entire plane to crash like that, could they?
“You tell us,” says Joseph.
Slowly, with trembling words and a still burning throat, I detail everything I remember about the turbulence, but halfway through explaining how I knew the plane was really in danger, with us falling out of the sky, Carl interrupts.
“What aren’t you telling us?”
I freeze and tension pulls painfully through my mind like a rubber band. “I… what?”
“We found the drugs,” Joseph says with a small smirk.
“Now listen. We’ve already questioned the other survivors and ruled them out, and while there’s a small chance that those drugs could have been placed there by someone else, it’s strange that you survived.
You, with knowledge of what’s on board, coupled with the suspected sabotage, paints you as our prime suspect. ”
A strangled, shocked laugh bursts out of my mouth as I struggle to keep up. “I’m sorry… what?”
Carl grabs my hand and with a flick of his wrist, cold metal cuffs suddenly seal around my wrist as he handcuffs me to the bed. “We know you’re involved, Ivy. We just don’t know to what extent, and until we know everything, you’re not going anywhere.”
No, no… this is some kind of nightmare. It has to be.
My heart races faster and faster as the hot sting of tears crawls up behind my eyes. Unable to speak, I reach for the emergency button beside my bed but before I can touch it, Carl jerks it out of reach and it lands on the floor.
“No, we’re not done here.”
“What is this?” I gasp. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! Yes, I found the drugs. Tasha and I found them, and we were going to report them to the captain when we got into difficulty in the air, and then I woke up here! I don’t know what you want from me. I don’t understand!”
“Oh, so the plane crashed after your colleague found the drugs? Were you trying to cover your ass?”
“No!”
“Unless it was intentional. You wanted to crash the plane and destroy the product, and what better excuse would you have than someone else finding the stash?”
“No, that’s not—”
“Listen here, we know what this is!” Carl grabs my forearm, jerking me forward so hard that the cuffs cling loudly on the steel frame along my bed.
“Two days ago, your mother was raped and beaten, and your father was tortured and killed. You know what that sounds like? A Mob hit. A revenge hit because you fucked up and destroyed their product, so we’re your only hope of making it to the end of this week alive. ”
“What?”
Carl spoke so quickly that some of the words out of his mouth don’t sound real.
“My… what?” Gazing up at him, pain erupts in my chest and a weak sob drags out of my mouth. “My mom was… my dad is… no, no, that can’t be… no, you’re lying. You’re lying!”
“We’re not lying,” Joseph states. “You fucked up and your family paid the price. We’ve seen it a thousand times before and it’s your own fault for getting in bed with the Mafia. Organized crime is never the way, Ivy, and now you’ve got to live with your mistakes.”
“No, no, no, you’re lying! You’re lying! Get out of here, get out of here! I want to see my mom! I want my mom! Get out of here!” Unimaginable pain spears through my chest as if my ribs are tearing me open from the inside. There’s no way Dad is dead. No way Mom is dead. This isn’t real.
I’ve woken up in some twisted nightmare. There’s no way this is real!
“You can see your mom after you tell us the truth!” Carl yells, suddenly grabbing me painfully by the shoulders. “She’s in a coma and she might make it, so tell us who you work for and maybe mommy dearest won’t need to know her daughter is the reason her husband is dead.”
“No, you’ve got it all wrong! I would never—”
“Enough.” A third voice, deep like velvet with a touch of gravel on the end, suddenly rises up from the dark corner of my room.
Joseph spins around and reaches for his belt while Carl’s grip on my shoulders tightens enough that my bones creak. Tears flood my eyes and pour down my cheeks and suddenly, I’m sobbing, fighting to free myself from the cuffs keeping me tied to the bed.
“The fuck?” Carl snarls.
He melts out of the shadows like he’s a part of them. Deep blue eyes, light brown hair that sweeps down to frame his face and curls slightly at his square jaw. He’s a full head taller than both Carl and Joseph and the shadows sweep around his broad shoulders as he walks forward.
“Who the fuck are you?” Joseph demands.
“I said enough,” the stranger demands, his voice rumbling through the air like quiet thunder. “I won’t repeat myself a third time.”
“We’re officers of the law, you don’t get to—” Joseph’s words stumble to an abrupt halt when the stranger shoves what appears to be some kind of business card in his face.
“Yo, the fuck are you doing?” Carl demands, finally releasing my sobbing form.
Joseph suddenly takes a wide step away from the stranger and looks at Carl. “Dude. We gotta go.”