Page 26 of Friendly Skies
“I swear,” Rachel said, and both Darius and Michael nodded. There was no need to say more. Michael and Rachel debated breaking out the air sickness bags and passing them forward in case people needed them while Darius returned to his brooding.
On top of everything going on with the flight, Darius was still working through his discovery about Luis’ feelings for Andrés and mulling over how he could have been so blind to the truth. Why couldn’t he get it through his head that Luis only wanted him as a friend? Twelve years should have been enough time to recognize and accept that however much he might love his best friend, Luis didn’t feel the same way. The weather and the passengers’ moods seemed to reflect Darius’ thoughts and inner turmoil, and that comforted him somewhat, made it feel more real.
He was also grateful his and Luis’ carefully aligned schedules had gotten thrown off because it meant he had time to workthrough his feelings and decide what to do. Darius wouldn’t be back in LA for another four days, while Luis would return from Brussels in five. They’d have one day of overlap again before Darius was headed back to Tokyo. He could do that. He could keep everything outwardly the same for a day while he worked on putting his heart back together. After all, he’d been pretending for twelve years now; this really didn’t change anything between the two of them.
The ding of the call button interrupted Darius’ thoughts.
“Same row as before,” he said. Of the three of them, he was the only one with a view of the passengers.
“Wouldn’t it be great if we could put them in stasis?” Michael asked. “Like they do in sci-fi movies?”
Both Darius and Rachel chuckled, but Darius looked up the aisle and frowned at some movement he saw in that row from the passenger on the aisle. He couldn’t name exactly what concerned him about the way the woman was shifting in her seat, but something wasn’t right. Even as he watched, a passenger across the aisle from her reached up and pressed the call button.
“I think someone needs help,” he said, even as the plane shuddered and rocked from side to side. “I’ll go check it out.”
“Be careful,” Rachel said as Darius unbuckled his seat belt and stood up.
If the pitch and roll of the plane was bad while he was sitting down, it was even worse when he was standing—or trying to—on his feet. He took a step forward, his foot coming down sooner than he expected as the floor rose, and he lurched against the bathroom door.
Darius put out a hand to steady himself, took a deep breath, and stepped forward again. He gripped the seat back of the last row, then reached for the next seat on the opposite side, trying to keep himself anchored and from falling over. The greater dangerwas that if the plane suddenly lost altitude, he’d slam into the ceiling as the floor dropped out from under his feet. He could wind up with a concussion or worse, depending on how hard he hit.
Keeping the woman in row thirty-one in his sights, Darius slowly made his way up the aisle. He’d almost reached her when she screamed and tried to stand up, but her seatbelt was still fastened. She screamed again and clawed at the buckle.
The chatter from the other passengers stopped as everyone’s focus shifted to the woman. Out of the corner of his eye, Darius saw cell phones lifting, cameras pointed in his direction.
“Ma’am,” Darius said, using the strong and commanding voice he’d been taught. “Ma’am, I need you to remain in your seat.”The metallic snick of the buckle releasing gave Darius a split-second warning, and he paused as the woman scrambled to her feet. Still two rows away from her, Darius could smell the alcohol, and his brain clicked into safety mode as he quickly assessed the woman standing in front of him. She was white, older, maybe in her sixties, with graying brown hair cut short and close to her head, possibly five foot six, and around one hundred and fifty pounds. In a Krav Maga match, she’d have been easy to subdue, but this wasn’t a sparring ring, and there were people sitting in every seat between them.
Darius held one hand up, as much of a calming, placating gesture as he could make without risking his balance. “Ma’am, please return to your seat,” he said, still using his strong voice.
The woman turned to him, her eyes unfocused and darting from side to side as she stepped into the aisle and faced him.
Darius was still assessing everything he could about her demeanor, her movements, the location of other passengers. They were on a 787 with a three-four-three seating arrangement, and it was a full flight with few empty seats except in the back. He noticed one of the business class attendants step through thecurtain that divided coach from the more expensive seats, but he didn’t know who it was, his attention focused on the woman.
“Is anyone traveling with this woman?” Darius asked, keeping his voice as low and calm as possible while still making himself heard.
In his peripheral vision, Darius saw several heads shake.
“Are you okay?” Darius asked the woman.
She shook her head back and forth and kept shaking it, a tremor running up her right side.
“Do you need help?”
This time, the woman held still, watching him intently. Darius scanned the passengers, praying for an air marshal to be on board, even though it was unlikely since their lead FA hadn’t said there was.
“Can you tell me your name?” he asked her.
She shook her head, eyes still focused on him, shoulder hunching forward. Darius had a moment of annoyance at himself for not checking the passenger manifest. He looked over the woman’s shoulder to the other flight attendant, taking note that it was Jason. They nodded at each other.
“Ma’am,” Jason said, “it’s not safe for you to be standing up right now.”
“Don’t touch me,” the woman screamed.
“No one’s touching you,” Darius said. Behind him, he sensed movement in the galley, heard the quiet murmur of Rachel’s voice, and knew she was communicating with the cockpit.
The plane shuddered and pitched again, the floor rolling beneath Darius’ feet, and then there was a bang and a lurch upward, as if the plane had hit a speed bump, and the woman screamed again.
“Don’t touch me.” She pointed her hand at Darius, and he saw a flash of silver that made his breath catch in his chest. The woman had a metal steak knife in her hand.
