1
AVERY
“Sebastian!”
I scream as a deafening explosion suddenly tears through the small private jet. We lurch dangerously, mid-air, and to my horror, I see flames out of one window, the right wing crumpled and going up in smoke.
“Hold on!” he yells, covering me with his body, protecting me as the plane shakes and dips.
“What do we do?” I cry, as Sebastian stumbles back into the pilot’s seat.
“Sit down and buckle up!” he yells at me, trying to get control of the plane again. “We have to do an emergency landing!”
Oh God. I do what he says, fumbling with the belt in panic. I can see the dark mountains rearing up ahead of us, the snowy forests barely lit by our flashes of light. They’re coming too fast. Too close. “Sebastian!” I scream again, as we plow into the forest, the sound of crunching glass and metal deafening as the crushing impact sends me reeling.
And everything goes black.
“Avery. Avery, wake up.”
I moan in protest, eyes squeezed shut and my head pounding.
“Come on, Avery!”
Sebastian’s voice is too loud, and now something is shaking me. My eyelids flutter, letting in light that’s too bright, and I groan, trying to turn away.
It hurts. Everything hurts.
“Go ‘way,” I mumble, needing to sleep again. God, sleep, it’s all I want. Just to drift off, gently, into the haze of darkness beckoning me—
CRACK.
Someone slaps me across the face. Hard.
My eyes fly open, and I gasp in shock. “What the hell?” I demand, finding Sebastian leaning over me. His jaw is bruised. His eyes are dark as he grips my face in both hands.
“Avery.” His flash of relief is gone so fast, I could be imagining it.
“I can’t believe you just slapped me,” I blurt, my head still ringing.
“You needed to wake up. Now you are. Are you hurt?” He asks briskly, releasing me.
“I…” I look around, taking in the crumpled metal and broken glass around me. The jet is on its side in the snow, the windows of the cockpit smashed, and snow billowing in.
I shiver, with shock—and the cold.
“Focus,” Sebastian barks. “Are you hurt? Can you stand?”
I swallow hard, trying to pull myself together despite the fear and confusion whirling in my mind. The explosion... Our crash landing...
We survived.
“I’m OK, I think,” I venture. My head is still pounding, and I reach my hand up, wincing when I brush against a cut near my hairline. I pull my fingertips away and see blood.
Sebastian immediately examines it. “The cut’s not deep. You’ll be fine.”
Fine.
It’s not a word I’d use right now, crash-landed somewhere in the Swiss Alps, alone with a man who was just pledging to make me suffer.
Destroy me the way I’d destroyed him.
Now, Sebastian unbuckles the belt digging into my stomach, and offers me his hand to help me up.
I hesitate. A few hours ago, I revealed his darkest secrets to the world—that he was responsible for the car crash that killed his father and another driver. He was led off in handcuffs, his reputation ruined, removed from his billion-dollar company like the monster he is.
I took everything from him.
And Sebastian Wolfe isn’t a man to just forgive and forget, no matter how dire our situation is right now.
He gives a bitter laugh, seeing the reluctance in my stare. “Fine.”
Sebastian turns away from me and climbs through into the cabin, leaving me alone in the wreckage of the cockpit.
Fuck.
There’s no way out of this, not without him, so I pull myself upright—
Bad idea.
The world spins. I have to grab the back of my seat to steady myself, until finally, my dizziness passes, and I awkwardly climb back after Sebastian. He’s rummaging through the wreckage, and I take in the destruction, standing on what was the jet wall. The small cabin is like a disaster zone; pieces of a doll’s house flung around. All the windows are broken and the side of the plane where the explosion happened is gone. I peek out of the gaping fuselage and take stock of our surroundings.
Snowy mountain peaks. Thick forest. An icy blue sky.
That’s it. As far as the eye can see: white, and dark green, and glaring sun. There’s nothing else in sight.
Nobody else.
“Where are we?” I ask, as fear claws, cold in my chest.
“The Alps.” Sebastian replies, not looking up. He’s heaving the leather seats up, searching for something in the mess of metal and glass.
My feeling of disorientation grows. “Switzerland?”
I try to remember the little flight path map from takeoff. Lake Como to London, over the mountains. We’d only just hit cruising altitude when the engine exploded; we couldn’t have gotten far.
“What are you looking for?” I ask, rubbing my arms with my hands. I’m freezing.
He doesn’t answer, rifling through the overhead bins now—which aren’t overhead anymore, they’re on the ground.
“What are we going to do? What caused the crash?” I continue with the questions, growing more and more panicked when he doesn’t answer. I wish I knew where my phone was. I’d left it in a seat, and it could have ended up anywhere during the landing. “Have you called for help?”
“Here.”
Sebastian finally turns to face me, and he’s holding out a coat. The thick red parka looks huge, and I snatch it out of his hands without hesitation and pull it on, thankful for the immediate warmth.
“How long will it take for rescue to arrive?” I ask as he finds my suitcase and shoves it over to me.
“They’re not coming. Do you have any boots?”
His words are matter-of-fact. I freeze in place, staring at him.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, my heart pounding in fear again.
“Boots. Shoes. Anything you can walk in—better than those,” he adds with a sneer, nodding at the flimsy sandals still strapped to my feet.
When I don’t move, he scowls. “Avery, we don’t have time for this. Get dressed, as warm as you can. We have a long hike ahead of us.”
“Where to?” I exclaim, gesturing out at the endless snowy vista. “There’s nothing there! No,” I say, determined. “I saw a documentary once, about a plane going down. The people who went wandering off into the wilderness didn’t make it. We should stay here and wait for rescue.”
I heave a seat upright and sit myself down with a stubborn glare.
“I told you.” Sebastian clenches his jaw. “No one’s coming to find us.”
“Of course they will,” I argue. “There’s a black box! We’ve disappeared from radar! They already know we’re in distress, and when the plane doesn’t arrive in London as planned, they’ll come looking—”
“And they won’t find us!”
Sebastian’s yell echoes in the wreckage of the cabin. I flinch back, watching as he drags a hand through his hair, full of tension. “They won’t find us, because I planned it that way.”
“I don’t understand…” I stare at him, trying to make sense of it.