Mark announced our departure over the airport frequency in his usual lilting tone, laughing at the end. His voice sounded louder as he released that button and talked only to me. “Get ready for the ride of your life, Leah. Later tonight, that is. The flight will be fun too.”
My head jerked back against my seat as he accelerated suddenly. My stomach turned over and over as I processed what he meant: we would have sex later because he’d taken me flying. I wished I hadn’t marched straight from an argument with Grayson and Molly and Alec into Mark’s hangar. But what else was I going to do, go home?
The plane sped past the huge hangars on that end of the runway, past Mr. Simon’s hangar. Alec had joined Grayson and Molly at the upright poles in the middle of the field. Grayson and Alec shouted at each other. Alec shoved Grayson. Molly tried to separate them, her ridiculous heavy work gloves hovering between them. They all stopped and watched the Stearman take off.
Mark took his hand from the stick and waved to them. There was no cabin in the biplane. Goggles and a small windscreen were the only things separating us from the open air. So the boys might have heard Mark as he shouted, “I’ve got your girlfriend, f**ker!”
And then we were in the sky, zooming upward at a banner-towing angle. When I piloted a tow plane, I needed to fly at this angle to get the banner off the ground quickly. There was no reason for Mark to be flying this way, unless—
“I wanted you to feel some G’s!” he said into the mike. “Now, step one. Survey the area for tractors, combines, cows. We don’t want to hit anything when we’re down near the ground. Cows will f**k you up. Take a look.”
I was surprised he wanted to give me this demonstration so close to the airport. Other planes would be taking off and landing. But this was what I’d wanted, right? To feel a rush? I sat straighter in my seat and craned my neck to see past the lower wings. Rows of cotton flashed beneath us fast as strobe lights, unbroken all the way to the forest. “I don’t see anything,” I said.
“Step two,” he said, “dive dive dive!”
My stomach stayed at five hundred feet as we plummeted toward the ground. I gripped the sides of my seat and was very glad he couldn’t see me in the seat directly behind him. I realized now that he’d asked me to look for obstacles just so I would be scared when I saw the ground rushing to meet us.
“The switch to release the chemicals will be here,” he said, pointing to the instrument panel with one hand. I wished he would keep both hands on the stick, at least while we were plummeting. “You’d flick it right about here, then pull up.”
At the very last second before we tunneled into the dirt, he jerked the controls. The plane flattened its trajectory. We skimmed along five feet from the tops of the plants.
“Mark.” My voice sounded shaky in the mike.
He chuckled. “Yes, Leah.”
“Do I need to get this low,” I asked, “or is it just you?”
He laughed more loudly. Maybe it was the effect of the headphones, but he sounded a touch insane. “It’s not just me. You’ve got to stay near the crops so the chemicals don’t drift. It’s weird but when you spray herbicide on people, they call my uncle’s office to complain. And now you’re probably thinking I need to pull up again before I hit those trees.”
I was, in fact, thinking this as the dark forest rushed toward us.
“This takes practice, Leah. We’re going to die now, right? That was the last second we could have saved ourselves and we missed it, right? Count to three.”
“Onetwothree!” I shouted.
“You counted too fast.”
I kept my eyes open as the forest loomed. I didn’t want to die with my eyes shut.
“And now we pull up.”
I was in the midst of a reflex to cover my face with my arms to protect myself from the impact when he nosed the plane up, tracing the outline of an oak tree.
The plane soared in a circle over the forest. Broken pieces of his cackle came through the headphones as his voice triggered the mike to switch on and off. After he’d collected himself, he asked, “Sick yet?”
“Yes,” I said. “Mark, I’ve changed my mind. I’m really sorry but I don’t want a relationship with you. I just wanted to fly. And if I can’t have one without the other, please take me back and put me down.”
Static sounded in my headphones, then silence. Static, silence. He was breathing hard.
“Mark.”
“What did you say?” he asked, voice dripping sarcasm. “That you’re ready to go again? I heard you the first time.” He dropped the plane to zoom way too close along the highest branches of the trees.
I felt faint. All the warnings I’d heard about Mark over the past week rushed to my mind. That he was crazy. Dangerous. Used his plane as a weapon. Shouldn’t be trusted to fly with passengers. Had fallen in love with me and didn’t want to let me go.
“Mark, please,” I said, pilot voice cracking.
“I said we’d go again, Leah.” His words were so loud that I reached up to pull my headphones away and save my hearing. “Let me straighten her out and then—”
I was glad I didn’t get the headphones off. The next second, the front of the plane exploded, the noise earsplitting even through the headphones. I ducked under the debris coming at me: the top of a tree, part of the propeller. I heard it crash across the tail behind me.
We’d cleared the trees now, but the terrifying noise hadn’t stopped, only changed. With part of the propeller gone, the huge, heavy engine knocked around up front, threatening to tear the plane apart.
“Mark!”
He said nothing.
The plane was sinking fast.
“Mark!” I shouted. “My airplane!” Fists shaking, I pulled back on the stick, gaining as much height as possible so I’d have farther to fall. That way I’d have more choice about where I crash-landed.
I couldn’t move much because I didn’t dare take my hands off the controls, and I was unprotected in the open air. But I leaned as far forward and to one side as I could, twisting to look at what had happened to Mark. He was slumped over in the front seat—too far over. On the front instrument panel was a bright smear of blood.
I was on my own.
nineteen
“Mayday mayday mayday.” I announced over the radio that I was making an emergency landing. That was just a courtesy message telling other planes to get out of my way. Nobody answered, of course. There was no tower, no authority, no one to save us.