“How is she?”
“From what I heard, she’s good. I’ll stop in and see her after I get a little sleep. Get the fury over with.”
“What brings you here?” Kit asked.
“Well, as you know, I’ve been going on social media looking for people that got the warning in time. But it’s hard. Because they really only show up on your newsfeed if you follow them or are friends, so I decided to start searching keywords.”
“That’s a good idea.” Kit nodded and took a drink. “You found something.”
“I did. I was talking to Eb, typing in the word ‘plant’ but had a typo and ended up typing ‘plane.’ Apparently, two days ago, when it all went down, there was a plane. Here, I looked it up on my phone and did a screen shot of the posts.” She handed the phone to Kit.
Kit read the post. “Guess vacation is over. Got word we can’t land. Air isn’t safe.” He looked at Cass. “Wow.”
“Yeah. Swipe to the next picture. That’s the next post.”
Kit did. “Landing in Arizona. He doesn’t say where.”
“He doesn’t.” Cass took her phone. “But someone else does. I started searching the terms airline and other words. About two dozen people were posting from that plane. They landed on a highway. They said eighty-nine. Near or past Willow Springs.”
“That’s only two hours north of here,” Kit said. “So they’re just sitting on the plane.”
“Last post I could find is they weren’t leaving until they were told they could. But that was three days ago and nothing has been posted since.”
“Maybe their phones died or they lost connection,” Kit said.
“Or they left,” suggested Cass.
“Or,” Kat spoke up, “they all died and suffocated on that plane.”
Both Kit and Cass looked back at him.
“What?” Kat said. “If the pilot doesn’t power down, conserve power to circulate air once in a while, they would have died of carbon monoxide poisoning if they stayed sealed in there. Plane’s not gonna have power forever. They were probably too scared to leave.”
Cass lifted her phone some. “From what I read. Yeah. It looked it.”
“You’re telling me because you think we should do this?”
Cass nodded. “Since Eb said you are also on the committee for search and rescue, I do. I want to go though, Kit. I want to do something besides go stir crazy in this town.”
“Cass, you never leave anyhow.”
“There’s a difference between having a choice to leave and being stuck.”
“She brings up a point,” Kat said.
“Thank you for your input,” Kit said sarcastically. “So just take a ride up there?”
“We don’t know what’s up that way,” Cass said. “We should grab one of our scientists in case we see anything. Preferably the one that’s a real doctor in case someone needs help.”
“That’s a good point.”
“I mean, they may have left the plane. There are a lot of villages unregistered up that way—they could be untouched like us and those plane people could be fine.”
“Maybe at one of the rest stops,” Kit added. “Or…” He looked back at Kat. “Like my son said. They could be dead.”
“We won’t know unless we go.”
“Shit,” Kat cursed. “I mean shoot.” He stood up. “Looks like our search online is over.” He put his phone on the table. “Signal’s down again.”
“Let’s plan this,” Kit said to Cass.
Cass couldn’t agree more. That was the whole reason she went to see Kit. It was something she wanted to do and couldn’t explain why. It was a glimmer of hope. Now it would be one of the few chances they had to find survivors.
Their connection to the world, their short-lived blessing was gone, pretty much like everything else outside of Griffin.
18.
THESE EYES
Lena didn’t really want the tea, but her mouth was dry and she needed something in her system. Niles was in the room when she woke and after asking her how she felt, he proceeded to tell her about her condition.
Lena didn’t care.
She barely had the strength to get up and use the bathroom. Ada came and helped her with that, brought her a cup of tea, and helped her back into bed.
Her throat hurt when she swallowed.
It was stupid to try to hang herself. There had to be better ways. One more permanent.
She lifted her phone, looking at the pictures of her children and family. That was all she had, when the phone was gone, so would be the pictures.
“Now, I’ll stay,” Ada told her. “But I know you aren’t wanting company.”
Lena shook her head.
“Your friend will be here soon. Very soon. I hope you’ll have her and… Cass is on her way here.”
Lena looked up.
“She said you probably don’t want to see her.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to see her?” It was hard to talk, her voice was raspy.
Ada opened her mouth but refrained from saying that Cass was the one that saved her, just in case Lena didn’t know. But there was something Lena wasn’t aware of, and Ada felt she should know. “No reason. But just so you know, Cass may be someone you want to talk to.”
“Because of her children and parents?” Lena asked
“I wasn’t aware that you knew.”
“Eb told me before… before I found out about…” She didn’t finish her sentence; she just lowered her head and wiped her eyes.
“They’re good people, Lena. Both handled the situation differently. If you need to talk, they’re the ones to talk to.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll leave you be and send up Cass when she arrives.”
Lena pursed her lips. It was hard to do anything but frown. Once Ada left the room, she tried to get into a comfortable position, but everything hurt and she was still a little woozy from the sedative.
She stared at the pictures, back and forth with a swipe of her finger. Each one hurting her a little more. She knew she had videos and saved voicemails but she wasn’t ready for those yet.
A single knock came at the door and weakly Lena called out, “Come in.”
It opened slightly and Cass peeked inside.
The moment she saw Cass, Lena remembered and knew what Ada said. Instantly, the grief turned to such a vile anger, Lena didn’t recognize it within herself.
“I’ll leave you alone if you want,” Cass said.
“Cass, I’m a nice person, but right now I really don’t want to see you.” Lena kept her gaze down.
“I get it. I do. I’ve been there.” Cass stepped inside, staying by the door. “Just know I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry about what happened to your family. I’m sorry I took away your choice last night.”
“It was my choice.”
“I know. Like I said, I was there. I was angry when someone stopped me. I don’t think people who want to live have any idea what it is like to want to die.”
Slowly Lena looked up.
“But just because you want to die, doesn’t mean you should. It took me a long time to realize that Kit saved my life and didn’t just stop me from dying.”
“Kit? The cop?”
“Yeah, I was bad. I didn’t make any attempts on my life because I was certain I was going to die anyhow. Hell, I should have I was impaled by a piece of that truck. Right in my chest. Then I didn’t. I spiraled out of control fast. Lost everything else and everyone else I held dear because I was selfish in my own pain and grief.”
“There is no way I’ll ever get through this,” Lena sobbed.
“You’ll never forget it. I won’t lie. You’ll learn to live with it. Learn to live with the days it all comes back. You want to hear nothing right now and I will not even attempt to tell you anything that will remotely try to make you feel better.”
“Nothing will.”
“No, it won’t,” Cass said. “Again, I’m sorry for taking away your choice. But, Lena, I’m not sorry you’re alive.”