Virginia ran past the bar. To the fuselage, Brandon behind her. She stepped past drawn curtains and saw Jake in the center aisle. Lightning flashed, coming through the small windows—rays of bright light splashed over Jake and the man he was holding.

Virginia moved to the aisle, crouched, fast.

She reached down and took off her high heels, leaving them, moving down the aisle. She didn’t look back at Brandon. She could feel him behind her. She knew he was smart enough to stay low.

Then she heard a humming noise, low, bass.

Coming through the floor—it felt like the wheels of the plane were retracting. She looked back to Brandon. Their eyes met and they both realized. The larger plane was nearing. The humming gained intensity and the rain started beating harder at the same time. The plane had to be close. Virginia looked past Jake in disbelief. The sight of the open end of the plane, seeing the rain fall down like nails, toward the earth below.

The earth below. It seemed foreign to her, something she hadn’t been paying attention to. They were up here, at twenty thousand feet now. Soon, they’d be on the floor. That’s when a loud explosion sounded from the front of the plane, probably from the cockpit.

Jake turned around and saw Virginia.

Virginia didn’t look back toward the cockpit, just ran forward, toward Jake.

She got three steps when the plane lost control.

The ground slipped out from under her feet. The plane began spinning. It spun around completely, a full revolution, with Virginia suspended in the air, in the middle of the fuselage.

Then she caught herself against the ceiling and was pinned, held in place by gravity as the plane continued spinning. Luggage, people, loose items, all spinning like loose change in a dryer, full-power cycle. Virginia grunted as she tried to move, crawl, struggle against the g-forces. Then, something happened—the wings, wind resistance, the storm, the way the plane was falling, whatever it was—the plane stopped spinning. The ceiling was the new floor, and Virginia got to her feet. Brandon was laid out behind her, unconscious it looked like. His body was contorted in a weird way, might have broken some bones.

She dropped to her knees beside him. The plane was shaking beneath her, rocking side to side. And they were beginning to descend. The plane slanting forward at the nose.

She grabbed his wrist for his pulse. Jake was opening overhead bins, which were now at his feet.

Brandon was still alive.

But the plane was tipping forward.

His body would start sliding in a few moments, in the wrong direction. There was no way she could pull him across the floor. She was too small.

She needed Jake, but she also needed Jake to get a parachute.

She shook Brandon’s head. “Brandon!”

He didn’t respond.

“Brandon! Wake up!”

She looked to Jake, saw that he’d found a parachute and was approaching. She saw three men beyond him, getting to their feet in the center aisle. They had guns.

Virginia aimed past Jake, fired three shots.

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The three shots were muffled by a loud burst of thunder.

The men went down, as if in a silent movie, blood spilling over the smooth ceiling. The blood running the long ways down toward Virginia.

“Leave him,” said Jake, making eye contact with Virginia.

Virginia’s mind flashed to Carmen, but she knew it was different this time. She hadn’t promised to save Brandon, and he’d agreed to give a ride to these terrorists anyhow. Jake would have a difficult time pulling Brandon up to the tail. The slope was steepening by the second.

“We have to go,” Jake yelled over the cacophony of chaotic sounds. “There’s no time.”

The plane tilted far enough that Brandon’s unconscious body began sliding down.

Virginia got to her bare feet, lots of traction on the plastic ceiling.

Good.

She nodded to Jake.

They had to go.

Brandon would die, but there was nothing they could do.

Oddly enough, Virginia’s heart didn’t speed up one bit.

Jake led the way, running toward the back of the plane. It was like a treadmill with an incline. The incline increased from moment to moment, but Virginia could tell they would make it.

Her feet splashed through the bad guys’ running blood, and they jumped over fallen bodies as the bodies slid past.

Jake had the parachute in one hand and his pistol in the other. Virginia had her gun in one hand. They ran past a warlord who jumped out at them, trying to take the parachute.

He missed, slipped on the ceiling and tumbled backward.

Two bodyguards near the tail, coming out from behind seats, discombobulated. Virginia shot one in the head. Jake shot the other and the body flew back, out the end of the plane, and was sucked into the storm, out of view, instantly.

Jake and Virginia were almost to the open end, to the back of the plane—now the top. Because the plane was going to be vertical in the next few moments.

Virginia could feel it, though.

They would make it.

But then something happened, and somehow, against the odds, she noticed. Her necklace came undone. She saw the locket fall down her body and hit the floor and begin sliding back. Jake continued running. She stopped. Turned. Reached.

She slid down the plastic a few feet and barely caught the chain.

Gripping it tightly in her hand, she rose and ran after Jake.

He hadn’t turned back.

She pushed hard, against gravity.

Knowing and feeling she still had a chance.

She caught up to Jake.

And they reached the end of the plane when something changed and the floor slipped out from under them once more. They leaped—the plane spinning around them. As the spinning gained intensity, they passed the extremity of the hollowed-out fuselage, and were no longer passengers of Flight VA1132. They were in the storm, drenched instantly, lightning tearing into the sky.

They fell apart from each other.

Jake strapped on the parachute as he fell.

Virginia calmly attached the necklace around her neck, making sure it was secure. Then she took in the view and took in a deep breath.

Here she was, probably seventeen thousand feet high, in her drenched red dress. Barefoot. Falling through the air over the jungles of South America.

She closed her eyes as the noisy plane died away, as thunder erupted, feeling almost like a cushion, drowning out her already-muted fears.

Virginia didn’t fear the storm so much as she feared the failure of the mission. If she failed, she had nothing left. Which is why it was important to survive the storm. She would need to remain calm. She would remain calm.

Her hands were extended out to the left and right, falling stomach-down.

Didn’t feel cold.

Didn’t feel fear.

Only felt that they had work to do.

She fell like this for a few long moments, then opened her eyes, looked to Jake. He was thirty feet away, buckling the parachute to his body. Virginia would angle to him soon. They had plenty of time.

And so she took it all in.

Powerful beams of lightning cracked down towards the earth, reaching for the tens of thousands of trees below, tiny green dots, swaying around.

Her hair was drenched, flying back away from her face. The rain was falling on her just as much as she was falling into it. It almost seemed like it was coming up towards her.

The ground had seemed foreign to her before because it was something she hadn’t anticipated. As much as she hadn’t anticipated this storm, she knew she was already in one, she’d been in one for a long time. And she would much rather bravely face storms like this than the kind in her mind. At least out here, in the middle of the terror, she had peace of mind in navigating the terror.

Preferable to a calm night at home.

She watched the plane falling faster toward the ground, far out of the way. The other plane was nowhere to be seen. She thought of Chad, Brandon, and Carmen.

Only for a moment.

Then she thought about Jake. He was going through a lot for her. He’d effectively lost his job at the CIA—had thrown away his career.

Then she thought of Shannon.

Virginia’s heart began beating faster.