And then, even though I know it’s going to piss him off, I say to Nazeera:
“Warner and J were engaged.”
“What?” Nazeera stills. Her eyes go wide. Super wide. Wider than the plane. Her eyes go so wide they basically fill the sky. “When? How? Why did no one tell me?”
“I told you that in confidence,” Warner says sharply, shooting me a glare.
“I know.” I shrug. “But Nazeera’s right. We’re a team now, whether you like it or not, and we should get all of this out in the open. Air it out.”
“Out in the open? What about the fact that you and Nazeera are in a relationship that you never bothered mentioning?”
“Hey,” I say, “I was going t—”
“Wait. Wait.” Nazeera cuts me off. She holds up her hands. “Why are we changing the subject? Warner, engaged! Oh my God, this is— This is so good. This is a big deal, it could give us a per—”
“It’s not that big of a deal.” I turn, frown at her. “We all knew this kind of thing was coming. The two of them are basically destined to be together, even I can admit that.” I tilt my head, considering. “I mean, true, I think they’re a little young, but—”
Nazeera is shaking her head. “No. No. That’s not what I’m talking about. I don’t care about the actual engagement.” She stops, glances up at Warner. “I mean—um, congratulations and everything.”
Warner looks beyond annoyed.
“I just mean that this reminded me of something. Something so good. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner. God, it would give us the perfect edge.”
“What would?”
But Nazeera is out of her chair, stalking over to Warner and, cautiously, I follow. “Do you remember,” she says to him, “when you and Lena were together?”
Warner shoots Nazeera a venomous look and says, with dramatic iciness, “I’d really rather not.”
Nazeera waves away his statement with her hand. “Well, I remember. I remember a lot more than I should, probably, because Lena used to complain to me about your relationship all the time. And I remember, specifically, how much your dad and her mom wanted you guys to, like, I don’t know— promise yourselves to each other for the foreseeable future, for the protection of the movement—”
“Promise themselves?” I frown.
“Yes, like—” She hesitates, her arms pinwheeling as she gathers her thoughts, but Warner suddenly sits up straighter in his seat, seeming to understand.
“Yes,” he says calmly. The irritation is gone from his eyes. “I remember my father saying something to me about the importance of uniting our families. Unfortunately, my recollection of the interaction is vague, at best.”
“Right, well, I’m sure your parents were both chasing after the idea for political gain, but Lena was—and probably still is—like, genuinely in love with you, and was always sort of obsessed with the idea of being your wife. She was always talking to me about marrying you, about her dreams for the future, about what your children would look like—”
I glance at Warner to catch his reaction to that statement, and the revolted look on his face is surprisingly satisfying.
“—but I remember her saying something even then, about how detached you were, and how closed off, and how one day, when the two of you got married, she’d finally be able to link your family profiles in the database, which would grant her the necessary security clearance to track your—”
The plane gives a sudden, violent jolt.
Nazeera goes still, words dying in her throat. Warner jumps to his feet. We all make a dash for the cockpit.
The lights are flashing, screaming alerts I don’t understand. Nazeera scans the monitor at the same time as Warner, and the two of them share a look.
The plane gives another violent jolt, and I slam, hard, into the something sharp and metal. I let out a long string of curses and for some reason, when Nazeera reaches out to help me up—
I freak out.
“Will someone tell me what the hell is going on? What’s happening? Are we being shot out of the sky right now?” I spin around, taking in the flashing lights, the steady beep echoing through the cabin. “Fucking déjà vu! I knew it!”
Nazeera takes a deep breath. Closes her eyes. “We’re not being shot out of the sky.”
“Then—”
“When we entered Oceania’s airspace,” Warner explains, “their base was alerted to the presence of our unauthorized aircraft.” He glances at the monitor. “They know we’re here, and they’re not happy about it.”
“Right, I get that, but—”
Another violent jolt and I hit the floor. Warner doesn’t even seem to startle. Nazeera stumbles, but gracefully, and collapses into the cockpit seat. She looks strangely deflated.
“So, um, okay— What’s happening?” I’m breathing hard. My heart is racing. “Are you sure we’re not being shot out of the sky again? Why is no one freaking out? Am I having a heart attack?”
“You’re not having a heart attack, and they’re not shooting us out of the sky,” Nazeera says again, her fingers flying over the dials, swiping across screens. “But they’ve activated remote control of the aircraft. They’ve taken over the plane.”
“And you can’t override it?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t have the authority to override a supreme commander’s missive.”
After a beat of silence, she straightens. Turns to face us.
“Maybe this isn’t so bad,” she says. “I mean, I wasn’t exactly sure how we’d land here or how it would all go down, but it’s got to be a good sign that they want us to walk in there alive, right?”
“Not necessarily,” Warner says quietly.
“Right.” Nazeera frowns. “Yeah, I realized that was wrong only after I said it out loud.”
“So we’re just supposed to wait here?” I’m feeling my intense panic begin to fade, but only a little. “We just wait here until they land our plane and then when they land our plane they surround us with armed soldiers and then when we walk off the plane they murder us and then—you know, we’re dead? That’s the plan?”
“That,” Nazeera says, “or they could tell our plane to crash itself into the ocean or something.”
“Oh my God, Nazeera, this isn’t funny.”
Warner looks out the window. “She wasn’t joking.”
“Okay, I’m only going to ask this one more time: Why am I the only one who’s freaking out?”
“Because I have a plan,” Nazeera says. She glances at the dashboard once more. “We have exactly fourteen minutes before the plane lands, but that gives me more than enough time to tell you both exactly what we’re going to do.”
ELLA
JULIETTE
First, I see light.
Bright, orange, flaring behind my eyelids. Sounds begin to emerge shortly thereafter but the reveal is slow, muddy. I hear my own breath, then faint beeping. A metal shhh, a rush of air, the sound of laughter. Footsteps, footsteps, a voice that says—