Chapter Nine I Don’t Care That It’s Statistically Safer Than Driving
Adelina
I have a confession to make: Planes and I do not a happy couple make.
There’s plenty to complain about. The food, the cramped quarters, the fact that flying is an incredibly carbon-intensive mode of transportation.
And let’s not forget the fact that we’re thousands of miles above ground in a flying metal tube.
Logically, I understand the physics that backs this up (a combination of lift, weight, drag and thrust), but that doesn’t stop the little voice in the back of my head from screaming at me: GROUND GOOD.
FALL BAD. WHO’S EVEN DRIVING THIS THING?
“Should I call the flight attendant to give you some Sleep-eze?” West asks with a light chuckle.
He’d spent the last hour flipping through the list of provided movies but ultimately settled on watching the flight map like some sort of psychopath.
Right now, the little plane symbol is hovering just over Calgary.
“Quit hogging the armrest,” I grumble, doing my best not to focus on the slight tremor that passes through the cabin.
The flight has been mostly smooth so far, but even the smallest of bumps and jolts is enough to make my stomach clench.
I think the chicken wrap I had at the airport might have been a little funky.
“May I remind you that you called dibs on the window seat?” he asks.
“So?”
“You can’t have the window and the armrest. It’s called etiquette.”
I pin him with a glare. “Just be glad I’m not one of those assholes who takes their shoes off on planes.”
He grimaces. “That would be awful, but the issue still stands.”
With an exasperated huff, I concede the armrest in favor of reaching for my backpack, which I’ve shoved beneath the seat in front of me. I pull out my laptop, lower my flimsy seat tray and set to work. If nothing else, it will be a good distraction from thoughts of plummeting to our deaths.
I’ve always enjoyed the process of coding.
It started with my very first computer science class in ninth grade where Mr. Harker taught us basic HTML.
My classmates thought it was as confusing as it was boring.
But for me, it was as if someone flipped a switch inside my brain, or like one of those sappy old romance movies where a man spots a woman from across the room and instantly knows she’s The One?.
I was overcome with the need to learn everything there was to learn with an almost frightening fervor.
It wasn’t long before I graduated from front-end development learning HTML and CCS to back-end development with Python, C#, C++, Java and JavaScript (and yes, they’re all different).
I even studied cobol and fortran, since many banking systems tend to use these older languages, though I’ve had little excuse to use them with how I run my operation.
Talking to Mom had always been an impossible task, but talking to computers…it felt like there was a mutual understanding between us. Not to mention the added bonus that if I got something wrong, the code didn’t yell at me until I cried. I’d take an error message any day.
Mou gwai jung.
Something soft tickles my cheek. At first, I think it might be the air blowing in from the vent above, but a quick glance to my left and I find West leaning in close enough so I can feel his breath. He leans over, studying the lines of code I’ve written as if he’s discovered an alien language.
“Whatchya workin’ on?” he asks, sounding deliberately obtuse.
This is the guy I agreed to work with on one of the most dangerous jobs of my criminal career?
Great.
I’m suddenly caught between laughing and slapping him, so I settle for lightly checking him with my shoulder, shoving him back over the invisible border running down the middle of our shared armrest. “I’m building a program to use against Berruci. A virus.”
“How does it work?”
“It’s complicated. You wouldn’t understand.”
“That’s why I’m asking, Ms. Choi.”
I look at him then. Really, truly look at him.
He’s…not hard on the eyes, I guess. Handsome in a classic sort of way, with an air of Old Hollywood charm.
If we were strangers who had passed each other on the street, I probably wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a lineup or give a helpful description to the cops, though I suppose I wouldn’t have been above helping myself to an appreciative second look.
He doesn’t appear intimidating or suspicious.
No visible tattoos or piercings or the kind of bulky, threatening physique that would make a woman uncomfortable if she found herself trapped with him in a confined space (like on an airplane, for example).
Very guy-next-door. The type to help a little old lady cross the street, spend his Sundays hiking out in the woods or something as swoon-worthy as saving kittens from a tree.
When I take too long to respond, West smiles and I suddenly find myself staring directly at the sun—warm and brilliant enough that my cheeks start to burn.
I wonder if he knows just how disarming he can be, if he uses his breeziness to get through a person’s defenses as his weapon of choice.
It’s almost…hypnotizing, that smile of his.
For a moment, and only a moment, it makes me feel like everything will be okay.
“If you wanted a staring contest, you could have just asked me,” he says, breaking me out of my thoughts. “Or are you looking for an excuse to stare into my beautiful eyes?”
I look back at my laptop screen. “Your eyes are okay at best.”
“But you were looking.”
I groan and try to pray away the migraine knocking against the inside of my skull. “How long is this flight?”
“Four more hours until we land in Toronto, and then another seven and a half or so to Paris.”
“Yay,” I grumble dryly.
“You could have made this easier on us, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“If it was so easy for you to give that nice lady a seat upgrade, you could have done the same for us.” West shrugs his shoulders. “Unlimited champagne plus generous legroom and it wouldn’t have cost you a thing. Hell, I’d bet you probably could have figured out a way to charter us a private jet.”
“No.”
“No?” he echoes.
“I don’t do this for personal gain,” I clarify. “There’s no need to go overboard.”
I’m not sure how it’s possible, but I swear West grins even wider. “You must be fun at parties.”
“I don’t go to parties.”
“Of course you don’t. Too busy dwelling in your parents’ basement, right?”
“I resent that stereotype, and you know for a fact I have an apartment.”
“Ah, yes. The one with the flimsy locks and no doorman. You should really consider moving to a more secure building.”
“You’re the last person I want advice from.”
West shakes his head. “I understand. Common sense isn’t a flower that grows in every garden.”
“Did you read that off a bumper sticker?”
“A fortune cookie, actually.”
“A man of culture, I see—”
The plane jolts. It’s so sudden and violent that a passenger somewhere up front yelps.
The seat-belt sign lights up, followed by a few quick clicks as people fasten their seat belts.
(They should have been wearing them the whole time.
Did they not pay attention to the safety demonstration?) I hold my breath and wait for the rumbling to pass.
It doesn’t.
The entire plane shakes with a vengeance, rattling around like we’re somehow traveling over a bumpy gravel road rather than several thousand feet up in the air.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the pilot’s muffled voice sounds over the speakers. “It seems we’re hitting a bit of a rough patch.” Yeah, no kidding. “Please fasten your seat belts, stow your trays and remain seated.”
Several thoughts cross my mind as I hurriedly put my laptop away and tighten my seat belt like a seventeenth-century corset: 1) What are the odds of a plane dropping out of the sky? 2) Does turbulence normally last this long? 3) Could I have avoided all of this and just stayed home?
Something warm caresses my palm. I force my eyes open and find that West has taken my hand. Or maybe I took his? Either way, I’ve got him trapped in a white-knuckled vise. He doesn’t throw me off. Doesn’t ask me what the hell I’m doing. Instead, he patiently holds on and makes no effort to let go.
“One in eleven million,” he tells me calmly. “You have a much better chance of being struck by lightning. I’m not sure how long turbulence lasts, but we’ll get through it. And yes, you absolutely could have avoided all this, but then you’d be missing out on an adventure of a lifetime.”
I blink up at him, shivering from either nerves or the cold or both. It occurs to me, then, that I must have had my meltdown out loud. I should be grateful for his comfort. It’s a nice gesture. Sweet, even. The polite thing would be to thank him for being so understanding—
“You better not use this against me,” I say like the emotionally constipated asshole I am.
West simply smiles. That infuriatingly dashing, wonderful, disarming smile.
I’m really starting to fucking hate it.
“And where’s the fun in that?” he asks.
I’m usually well-equipped with a snappy comeback, but whatever I have to say dies on my tongue when the plane takes an all-too-sudden drop. We’re in free fall for only a millisecond, but it’s enough to send my heart flying up into my throat.
What will Lily think, I wonder, if she learns that I died in a fiery crash?
She’ll want to know why I was on my way to Paris and will undoubtedly sift through my things for some trace of an answer—and that poses a certain kind of danger.
What would she be able to glean from my search history?
Would she discover the truth about who I was and what I chose to do? Would she be proud or horrified?
By some miracle of aviation, the plane levels out. The roar of the engines is a low hum in my ears as an uneasy quiet falls over the cabin. I release West’s hand only once I’m convinced we aren’t going to plummet out of the sky.
“See?” he says, sounding much too chipper for my liking. “Not so bad. It’s like a roller-coaster ride.”
“I hate roller coasters.”
West laughs. “Color me surprised.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek. Either he has nerves of steel, or he’s full of it.
The rest of the flight to Toronto is smooth sailing, but I don’t mind the way West keeps his hand on our shared armrest.
Within reach, just in case.