Dane's Storm(52)

“I wanted to try to get some more pieces of carpet from the interior of the plane—or maybe a section of ceiling, but it was still attached and trying to shake it free felt too dangerous,” I said.

Audra nodded. “I thought the same thing. But I think we’ve done pretty well with what we have. It’s kept us alive anyway. How in the world do you plan to make a fire?”

I began turning toward the crop of trees where our shelter was, my mouth open to answer her question, when my eyes snagged on a small speck in the distance to our right. I halted, squinting as I turned back around. “What?” Audra asked, following my gaze. “Oh my God,” she breathed. “Is that a plane?”

My heart seized and I clomped as fast as I could to the edge of the cliff, waving my arms and shouting as loudly as possible. Audra joined me, waving her arms and yelling, too. The plane in the distance continued to circle the spot where it was, and even as loud as we were yelling, I knew that the wind was snatching our voices. The plane could have been right in front of us, and they wouldn’t have been able to hear our cries for help, but we did it anyway. Instinct?

To preserve my energy, I stopped, but continued waving my arms, and Audra, likely having come to the same conclusion about not being heard, did the same. I continued waving my arms while Audra ran back and forth behind me, as fast as she was able in the deep snow, extending the scope of our movement. But after only a couple of minutes, the plane turned and began flying in the opposite direction, disappearing out of sight. I came to a halt, breathing harshly, the frigid air like knives in my throat, hope withering and dying inside my chest.

“Fuck!” I yelled to the sky. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I picked up a handful of snow and threw it into the vast nothingness in front of me, cursing again.

Turning abruptly, I saw Audra, standing still, a look of utter hopelessness on her face. It broke my heart. I recognized that look, and for the sliver of a moment it took me back. That same look—utter desolation—day after day as she’d sat rocking in a chair in what was supposed to be our baby’s nursery. I’d walked past the door, not willing to take her pain on when I was barely managing my own. How many times had our eyes met, hers beseeching, as I’d turned away? I squeezed my eyes shut in regret, wishing I’d been stronger for her, wishing I’d been older and wiser, wishing I’d had any fucking clue how to handle the unthinkable.

I watched her now, and this time, I moved toward her rather than away, taking her in my arms and holding her. “It’s okay. We’re in this together,” I murmured. “Don’t lose hope.”

She trembled in my arms, but clutched me, her head burrowed into my chest. She had always responded to physical affection, always melted into me when I’d comforted her that way. Sharp fingers of guilt clawed at my insides for what I hadn’t done then, combining with the stark disappointment of seeing that plane disappearing into the clouds.

“Fuck,” I murmured again, the word holding a world of weight.

After a minute, she looked up at me, so much sorrow in her eyes. “They flew away. They didn’t even get close to where we are. Why?”

I looked over my shoulder to the distant place the plane had circled, trying to recall the events leading up to the crash-landing, my eyes homing in on a lone cliff that I suddenly remembered had seemed to come out of nowhere. “Because that’s where the black box is,” I whispered, my voice deflated, knowing I was right. “That’s where the tail came off. And now it’s way back there, probably buried under ten feet of snow. And they think we are too.”

“Will they land and check it out? They will, right? And they’ll see it’s just a part of the plane and that they need to keep searching?”

I blew out a foggy breath. “I don’t know. There might not be any place to land safely. And if they don’t see signs of life, they might assume we’re dead.”

Audra let out a small, choked gasp. “So they’ll stop looking? Just assume we’re dead and wait for the snow to melt to confirm it?”

“I hope to God not, but that’s why we need to try to make fire. They can’t see us from far away, but they’ll see smoke. As long as the cloud cover isn’t too thick.” I took her hand. “Come on. I’m not sure if this will work, but what do we have to lose?”

We trudged back to our shelter in the snowy woods and I directed Audra to look for as many dry sticks and leaves and pine needles as she could. There likely wouldn’t be much with the amount of snow we were in, but we needed to collect all we could.

I had to walk a little deeper into the woods to find low, dry branches that were easy enough to snap off since we’d used so many of the ones near our shelter to create the door. Once I’d collected an armful, I dropped them on the ground near where we were sleeping, deciding on a spot about ten feet from the door of our shelter. If I was successful, the fire would be close enough to warm us, but not so close that we’d have to worry about jumping sparks. Plus, there was a large rock—about knee high—and a couple of trees behind it, that would hopefully shield some of the wind. I cleared the snow from the ground and then gathered several rocks to form a circle—what I hoped would be a good firepit. If not, it’d just be a pit of failure and despair that we’d have to look at as we crawled out of our rock shelter each morning until we . . .