“He was trying to contact air traffic and couldn’t get through. No one was answering. That was right before the engines failed. It’s very possible no one knows where we are, or even that we went down.” Plus, something weird had happened. Everything on the plane had very suddenly shut down. And I had wondered about an electric storm because of the lightning. But would that have caused fires on the ground too? I couldn’t see any now, but I’d seen them from the airplane window. It was like something specific had happened to both the sky and the earth. Whatever it was had knocked out all the plane’s systems. And if that was the case, no help would be coming. We were on our own.

“I don’t know,” Charlie said, “waiting here seems like the smarter option. Who knows what’s—” he waved his arm around the mostly empty field save for a few scattered trees “—that way, or that way. We might get lost.”

“We’re already lost,” I said, picking up my duffel bag. “But suit yourselves. Good luck.”

“Hey!” Emily said. “You have all the food and water.”

“I’m the one who got back on that plane and collected the food and water,” I said, my jaw tight. Still, I wasn’t going to leave them to die, even if Charlie had lied about me and Emily had willingly believed his lies. That stuff seemed insignificant at the moment. I opened my duffel bag and tossed them each a bottle of water and a handful of the individual-sized snack bags from the minibar on the plane. Then I rezipped my bag and headed away.

“Wait!” Emily said. I halted, turning again. She shot a glance at Charlie, hesitating, as though she was waiting for some form of permission from him.

“I’m losing daylight,” I gritted out, anger suddenly warming me like an internal fire. Good, I’d stay angry. My nose felt like a damn ice cube.

“It’s just…” She shifted from one foot to the other. I glanced down and noticed that she was wearing a pair of hot pink heels. “I think we should stay together,” she said in a rush of words punctuated by puffs of white vapor. “Strength in numbers. There could be predatory animals out here.” Her eyes darted around and then back to Charlie.

Charlie’s gaze shifted around too. “Maybe you’re right,” Charlie said. “There could be a town or something over that hill. It’s impossible to see from here.”

I’d honestly been looking forward to ditching them. But… God. What if she died out here? What would her parents say if they knew I’d just left her to fend for herself? I looked down to Emily’s heel-clad feet once more. “You can’t walk in those.”

She followed my gaze. “Oh…well, these are my most comfortable heels and all I brought.”