Chapter 2
His head is throbbing and he can’t feel his legs.
No, that’s not right. He can feel them, but it’s a buzzing sort of numbness that throws a veil over his limbs. His face flames hot, and it’s hard to breathe, but all that means he must be alive.
Nothing hurts when you’re dead, and right now everything fucking hurts.
Theo blinks cautiously, startled to find the world turned upside down.
He struggles out of reflex at being restrained in his seat, hanging with the floor mere inches from his face, and his body folded up like a piece of paper.
There’s nowhere to go until he finds the belt buckle.
He fumbles for it blindly and hits the button only to slam headfirst into the hard ground, half covered in pristine white snow.
He groans, rolling over onto his side and flexing ice-cold fingers and toes to make sure nothing’s broken.
It is eerily silent.
No people screaming.
No whistling of the plane engine.
No Nora gasping into his shoulder while squeezing his hand.
Nora.
He has to find her. Drunkenly, he crawls to his knees, thankful that everything still seems to work through the burning numbness, and scans the wreckage for her.
It’s enough to take his breath away when he finally gets his wits about him and takes in the full damage.
Half the plane is gone, ripped away and deposited who knows where.
There’s a giant hole where the pilot’s cabin and first class used to be, leaving the middle, where he was seated, open to the elements.
He whips his head around, searching the space beside him for Nora and finding nothing and no one.
The whole seat is missing. Right along with the back half of the plane that seems to have joined the front.
All that’s left is this middle section, sliced on both sides like a piece of sushi, but mostly untouched.
All the seats he can see clearly are empty, and fuck, that woman he just met was in one of the empty spots.
He sinks down on his ass, having trouble processing the fact that she’s dead now. He just spoke to her. She was just here.
He was deciding that he liked her smile, scolding himself for having any thoughts about her at all, because her friend is marrying his brother, and that’s a complicated can of worms, plus…no one like her would ever be interested in him.
None of that matters now. She’s gone. He should have given her the compliment lodged in his throat from the moment he saw her. It would have sounded something like ‘you’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen’ in a vaguely mumbled mess because if there’s one thing he’s lacking, it’s game.
If he knew they’d be in a plane crash hours later, he would have said it anyway.
Her death shouldn’t affect him as much as it is.
He doesn’t even know her, but damn if his throat doesn’t close up while his eyes prickle.
She was kind to him. Decent, even through a hint of annoyance.
Not many decent people in the world, none that he’s met anyway.
She also had no idea who he was, or who his father was, and that was a definite point in her favor, considering he’d love to divorce himself from his entire family.
She’s gone. Everyone else is, too. He is in a plane crash alone and maybe his brain is turning in too many circles, stunted by the shock of the situation, and that’s what allows him to fixate on things like how beautiful her eyes were and how much he enjoyed the sound of her voice, instead of the fact that he is completely and utterly fucked.
Then, someone groans and rustles under a pile of metal. A flash of dark hair jolts him from his all-encompassing shock and sadness. He rushes to lift the door off her, cursing in relief when Nora is in one piece, still buckled into her seat that tore off the bolts and slammed her across the plane.
She’s on her side, with so much blood covering her face that he can hardly tell if it’s hers or from some other source.
“Hey, hey, it’s me. It’s Theo. Open your eyes. Talk to me.” He unbuckles her belt, unprepared for how quickly she slumps over, but he catches her before she can hit the cold ground.
She’s half in his lap, gasping for breath when she mumbles his name. Blinks a few times and instantly starts to flail. “I’m blind! Oh god, Theo, I’m blind. I can’t see!”
He’s got no idea if that’s true or not, but suspects it’s the blood in her eyes that’s masking her vision.
They don’t know each other well enough for this.
He hasn’t got a clue how to calm her down.
How to do the right thing in a situation that’s so far out of his league for someone who barely makes conversation in a normal setting.
Now, he’s got a terrified woman in his arms, and there’s no one here to do shit about it except him.
He grabs her before she can head butt the seat in front of her and holds her tightly to prevent the thrashing.
Offering up stupid nonsense like ‘everything’s fine’ and ‘you’re okay’, which could be giant lies for all he knows.
Instead, he tells her she’s probably not blind, only swimming in blood.
Not the best way to phrase it, but she’s barely listening to the words, only how he says them.
Calm, even though he’s sacred as hell. Gentle, because she needs someone to be gentle with her right now.
It takes a few seconds, but gradually she stops panicking enough that he can take her face in his hands and carefully wipe the blood from her eyes with the edge of his shirt. Then she frantically wipes her own face to finish off what he started, and her tears do the rest.
“I can see you,” she whispers, frozen in place, overcome with emotion he isn’t ready for that quickly transforms from panic into something that looks like unexpected joy. “We’re alive.”
“We’re alive,” he agrees, eyes fixed on hers, only inches apart, both of them smiling like idiots all of a sudden because what should have killed them…didn’t.
They thought this was the end. Even through a hefty amount of dazed shock, the reality of their unexpected second chance is enough to have them briefly elated.
It’s not long before he realizes they’re too close and he’s still got her face in his hands, invading her space.
He quickly lets her go, breaking eye contact as the bitter cold catches up to him all over again.
“Are you okay? Anything hurting? You’ve got a small cut on your forehead, those always bleed like crazy. ”
Nora shakes her head, glancing down at her stomach in confusion, where there’s a tiny metal rod poking right through her skin, soaking it crimson. “I don’t feel it.”
“Shit. Stay right there, don’t move. I’ll see if I can find something to patch that with.”
He’s gotta clean and dress it. Pull the rod out of her stomach before infection sets in, but it’s a long shot that he’ll find anything in what’s left of the baggage to help.
He rifles through a few carry-ons, finding a couple of snacks he puts aside and lots of junk they can’t use.
Frantically tosses the rubble he can lift from one place to another until something red and white catches his attention, peeking out from under two bodies that are crunched together.
He hesitates. He’s never seen anyone dead before, unless he counts his granny in her casket when he was twelve, and then his mother shortly after.
Now he’s surrounded by death, but he’s never been squeamish.
No reason to start now. Nora needs him to be strong and help her when no one else can… and there is absolutely no one else.
Maybe not for miles if what he suspects holds true.
Theo digs a hand down deep and pulls up a mangled first aid kit, holding it up like a prize before moving back to her side, where she’s applying pressure to her wound as best she can.
Her long, delicate fingers shake, and her skin is pale, the tips of her ears and nose starting to pink from the harsh chill.
“My hero,” she says, a little sweet, and a lot tired.
“Can I see? I’ll be careful.”
She watches him with wide eyes while clutching her stomach.
He wouldn’t want anyone digging around in his wounds either. As far as he’s concerned, that’s how you leave yourself open to something even worse. Showing anyone a weakness is an invitation for more pain. Trust no one. Except they have no choice but to trust each other, at least enough to survive.
Reluctantly, she relents, pulling her blood-encrusted hand away to give him a better look.
“The good news is, it doesn’t look deep. Got you right through the skin and out the other side.”
She exhales heavily. “That’s good. I like my internal organs intact. It still hurts like a bitch, though.”
“I have to pull it out. I think it’s shallow enough that it’ll be fine to do that.”
“You think?”
He hesitates. “I think. That’s the best I can do right now.”
“Aren’t we supposed to wait until help gets here? Removing it could make it worse.”
He bites his lip, not wanting to say something so depressing, but she deserves the truth. “I don’t know how long it’ll be until help gets here. I can only see snow out there. Nothing else. There could be a town right over the mountain, or it could be hours away.”
She swallows hard, nodding her agreement, the space between her eyes creasing. “Okay, do it.”
The rod skewering her is no bigger than a drinking straw, but it’s gotta hurt, and he’s about to make it worse before it gets better. “Take a deep breath.”
She mouths a silent scream when he quickly pulls it free on her exhale, only letting herself make a sound when he douses it with peroxide from the kit, and she can’t resist cursing enough to make a sailor blush.
“I wasn’t serious,” she says finally, leaning her head back while he applies the bandages, breathing heavy. “About all those crash scenarios. I wasn’t serious.”
There’s a hint of resigned, broken humor in her voice, and he snorts. “Yeah, me either.”
“Thank you for helping me. Are you okay?”