Page 18 of Mistletoe and Mayday
“Altitude dropping. Flaps at fifteen. Come on, come on,” she speaks to the plane like it’s alive.
“This is fine,” she says, eyes locked on the instruments. “This is totally fine.”
Her tone makes it clear nothing is fine. Yet her hands remain steady, adjusting knobs and levers while I sit here, useless.
I close my eyes. The ring box digs into my hip where I shoved it in my pocket. The irony burns. I came to Alaska togive Rebecca the perfect fairy tale, and instead, I’m about to die in a cargo plane with a pilot who thinks snow globes are aviation equipment.
I find myself fixated on the way she keeps glancing at that ridiculous snow globe between instrument checks. The plane shudders again. A cookie flies past my head.
“Want one?” she asks, somehow steering with one hand while offering me her snack bag with the other. “Sugar helps with terror.”
I stare at her. “We’re about to die, and you’re offering cookies?”
She shrugs. “We’re not about to die. And if we were, do you really want your last meal to be nothing?”
If anyone had told me this morning, I’d prefer finding my girlfriend in bed with another man to my current situation, I would have questioned their sanity. Yet here I am, hurtling toward the ground in a metal coffin piloted by a woman who just offered me cookies while we plummet to our deaths.
The altimeter’s spinning numbers blur into a red smear. Each tick downward matches my heartbeat, a countdown to impact I can’t look away from. Until Bailey’s voice cuts through my spiral.
“Brace position.”
The playful pilot from moments ago vanishes. Her voice carries the kind of authority that bypasses thought and goes straight to action.
“Head down, arms behind your neck.”
I follow her instructions, my suit creasing as I fold into the crash position. My last glimpse before tucking my head shows a wall of evergreens rushing toward us, their snow-covered branches reaching up like hungryfingers.
“Any last words?” The question floats from the pilot’s seat. “Besides, ‘I should have eaten the cookies’?”
My forehead presses against my knees, and I mumble, “Should have checked before coming to Alaska.” Should have checked the hotel. Should have checked her story. Should have checked everything.
The plane slams into something solid. My body lurches forward until the seatbelt snaps tight, digging into my collarbone and ribs. My jaw locks shut with such force that pain explodes through my skull.
The windshield fills with white, then green, then white again as we careen through the trees. Metal screams against wood. My vision fractures into kaleidoscope fragments—instrument panel, Bailey’s hands, swirling snow.
A sharp crack pierces the air, like a gunshot, but deeper. Metal groans. The snow globe rolls past my feet.
My body moves before my brain fully registers what's happening. One moment, I'm frozen in the crash position, the next, I'm lunging across the small space toward Bailey as the plane settles with a sickening crunch.
“Get down!” I shout, throwing myself half over the pilot's seat, one arm instinctively shielding her head as something heavy slams into the fuselage above us. The impact sends vibrations through the metal frame, and a shower of snow cascades over the windshield.
Bailey stiffens beneath my makeshift protection. Her green eyes widen, not with fear but surprise. For a split second, I'm close enough to see gold flecks in her irises and smell something faintly cinnamon beneath the acrid scent of electrical burn.
The world stops spinning with a final shudder. My ears ring in the sudden silence, broken only by the tick-tick-tick ofcooling metal. I’m still folded, muscles locked so tight they’re cramping.
“Uh, what are you doing?” She sounds more confused than grateful.
I realize my position—practically sprawled across her, one hand gripping the back of her seat, the other curved protectively around her shoulders. The crisis moment has passed, and I'm still hovering over her like some ridiculous action hero.
“I was...protecting you.” The words sound foolish even as I say them.
Bailey raises an eyebrow. “From a plane crash?”
Heat creeps up my neck. “Instinct.”
“Well, you can get off me now, Prince Charming,” Bailey says. “Unless you're really attached to that position. I mean, it does wonders for the core muscles.”
I straighten, wincing at the protest in my neck. Every breath feels like sandpaper in my throat, but I’m breathing. We’re breathing.
