chapter fourteen

Tuck

Day One

I hated the thought of leaving behind the body of the man who’d saved our lives and given his own in the process, but there was really no other choice. He now lay between two massive evergreens in the middle of the field we were in, his body covered in the rocks I was able to gather, hopefully offering some protection against scavengers. It’s the best I can do for you. I’m so sorry, man. My hope was that we could find help and send a crew in to recover his body.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Charlie and Emily rummaging through their suitcases and changing into warmer clothes. Wherever we’d crashed was frigid. As I arranged the rocks around Russell’s body, I tried to determine how far we’d flown and where we might be. I’d been angry and stewing and because of that, my internal clock was likely off. But my best guess was that we were either in Indiana, or Illinois. Had we traveled far enough to be in Ohio or even Pennsylvania? Maybe, but I didn’t think so. I’d never been to the East Coast, but it was early December, and it was cold as hell, maybe even on the verge of snow, and so we definitely weren’t in Arizona or Colorado. Plus, no mountains or desert. Maybe Charlie or Emily would have a more accurate guess. I assumed they’d flown this route at least a few times. But frankly, I didn’t much feel like talking to either of them. They hadn’t so much as offered to help grab what we could off the plane. They’d stood aside and watched me do it. They were clearly useless. Unless one of them could get their phone to work.

I placed the final rock on Russell’s cairn—the best one I could manage anyway. I had balanced larger ones on top, so he was mostly covered. I turned away, the lump in my throat making it difficult to swallow. I didn’t even know the dude, but he deserved better than this. I made a mental note of the landscape here, and the direction of the sun, so as soon as possible, I could send the authorities to collect his body and bring it home to his family. He’d been wearing a wedding ring that I’d removed and put in my pocket to return to his wife.

“Nothing,” Charlie was saying, staring down at his phone and pressing buttons and then holding it up to the sky as he turned in circles. He’d done the same thing thirty minutes before when he’d taken his and Emily’s phones from the blanket I’d used as a sack to collect what I could from the plane. “It won’t even turn on.”