Page 28 of Unlocking Ruin

“More like a body swap.”

He pushes up from his seat.

“Where are you going?” I shout, my voice cracking. But he’s already vanishing down the aisle.

My terror rockets into overdrive. By the time he returns, I’ve nearly passed out from hyperventilating. He kneels, but he’s so tall he still looks down at me.

“I’m going to unbuckle you and⁠—”

“No!” I blurt out. “I want my seatbelt.”

“I will unbuckle you so you can sit up. I have pain meds and Xanax for you.”

“That’s not what I ordered, Doc! I specifically said a body swap.”

“No can do, Rylan.” He reaches for my seatbelt.

“Please!” I beg.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” He states this with such conviction that I manage to regain control of my eyes and look at him. My heart, on the other hand, is still racing.

“Why should I trust you?” I pant. Is it me, or did that concave ceiling just move closer?

His shoulders drop. He sets down the bottle of water and two pills on the polished side table. Grabbing his phone, he touches the screen and opens an app.

“That’s my…”

“Your house? Yes.”

My soul sinks deeper into my body. “How long have you been watching me?”

How the heck did he get past my Wi-Fi encryption? I get alerts for everything on the network. I should have seen those cameras.

“A while,” he answers with no remorse. He touches the screen, and the video jumps back two hours.

I watch in horror as four masked men sneak around the back of my house and break inside.

“That is a kill team, Rylan. And they don’t kill with bullets. They torture slowly, getting every drop and use out of you.”

He slips the phone back into his pocket. “Consider me your white knight. You owe me.”

He reaches for my seatbelt and unfastens the one around my ribs, freeing my arms. Instinctively, I latch onto him. He braces, expecting a struggle, but instead finds me clinging on like a castaway to a lifeboat.

“You really have never been on a plane?”

I shake my head; my face feeling queasy-green. “If God wanted us to fly, he would have given us wings.”

“He did, but the devil traded them in for us,” he mutters as if he has a deep understanding of what losing something as magnificent as flight means.

He comes closer, and I am forced to cling tighter to him like a shoestring, knotting myself to him. I’m not letting go.

“That’s why we crave it now: heights, redemption.”

“I share none of those cravings.”

“What is it you crave, Rylan? What’s your deepest, darkest secret?”

“To escape you,” I fire back. His eyes drop to my hands. My nails dig into his shirt, grazing hard muscle beneath.