When Javi pulled his head back inside, his face was pale.

“What?” Molly asked, then sniffed the air. “Is that …”

“Fire,” he croaked, just as the whuff of an explosion came through the air, along with a blast of heat.

The airplane rocked beneath Molly’s feet, sending her staggering across the cockpit. She grabbed for the copilot’s chair to keep her footing, and the device slipped from her hand.

“Everyone out!” she cried. “Head for the slide!”

In a mad scramble, Oliver, Akiko, and Javi pushed their way out of the cockpit door. Molly knelt to retrieve the device, but it was wedged beneath the navigator’s seat. She clawed at it, finally managing to yank it free and stumble from the cockpit. Pain bloomed in her bird-bitten right shoulder, and dizziness swept through her as she stood.

The first-class cabin was a jumble of pillows and blankets, askew from the moments the plane had been set rocking. The remains of dinner were strewn on the floor—dishes, plates, salt and pepper packets, tiny bottles of Tabasco.

The scent of a fire filled the air, as oily and sharp as kerosene.

Jet fuel.

“Abunai!” came Akiko’s voice, as clear as a bell through the roar.

Molly ran into the next cabin and found the other three at the emergency door. Akiko had her arms spread across the door to keep the others from jumping.

Oliver turned to Molly. “The slide, it’s deflating!”

“The engine was throwing off fragments,” Javi said. “Must have put a hole in it!”

Molly waited for a moment as her dizziness passed, then said, “We can fly down. Everybody huddle up!”

The four of them crowded together at the door, arms around one another. The whole wing glowed, and a column of smoke was rising in the darkness. The heat pummeled Molly’s face like an oven with an open door.

She realized that Javi had a pillowcase under one arm, which bulged with the shapes of silverware and tiny bottles.

“Seriously?” she cried.

“If this plane burns, we might never taste Tabasco again!”

“Whatever. Jump on a count of three—away from the wing!” Molly switched the device on, and weightlessness hit. “One, two …”

They jumped raggedly and wound up spinning around one another in the air. Their angle was too high, and as they were coming down a breeze caught them.

Not a breeze—the intake of the spinning turbine.

The three of them began to drift toward the burning engine.

“Make us heavy!” Oliver cried.

Molly stared at the ground, thirty feet below. “Too high!”

Javi swung his pillowcase and shouted, “Third law!”

He flung the sack hard, straight up into the air, and Molly felt its gentle push downward. As they neared the burning engine, the heat grew. Javi threw his flashlight skyward, pushing them still lower …

At ten feet up, she switched the device off, and they all went crashing down.

A thud went through Molly when she hit the ground, and her arm exploded with pain. A fresh wave of dizziness struck her.

She blinked it away. The scorching wind was still building, dragging her toward the fire. The engine whined and sputtered, its spinning turbine pulling air into the engine, which burned fuel, which powered the turbine—the cycle wouldn’t stop on its own.

In fact, it was getting stronger! Molly saw Akiko, the smallest of them, skidding across the ground toward the engine.

“Abunai!” Akiko called.

Oliver grabbed her, but then he was being pulled in as well.

Behind them, the pillowcase full of Tabasco fell from the sky and was sucked into the engine. It was vaporized in a flash.

Molly reached through the blistering heat for the device, a few feet away. She stabbed at the buttons—

Double gravity hit, flattening her to the ground. Akiko and Oliver dropped as well, not skidding anymore, but the fire blossomed …

The air that fueled it was growing heavier, Molly realized. Denser and more oxygen rich!

Ignoring the crushing weight that made her injured shoulder scream, Molly managed to stab the buttons again, setting the device to low tech.

The weight lifted, and at once the spinning turbine began to sputter. The shriek of metal against metal dropped in pitch as the engine ground to a noisy, ragged halt.

Jet fuel still burned, but it was no longer fed by a roaring wind. She and the others beat a hasty retreat toward the jungle, until the blistering heat finally faded.

They collapsed in the undergrowth, Molly panting, her lungs scorched. The kerosene smell of jet fuel clung to her, and her face and arms still carried the fire’s heat.

Her shoulder pulsed with pain.

“Okay,” she said when she could talk again. “Playing with settings: bad idea.”

“Told you,” Oliver said.

Molly stared back at the plane. A skyscraper of smoke now towered above it, disappearing into the mists above. The fire’s roar was a gentle rumble almost lost in the buzz of glowflies around them.

“We only had one dinner in first class,” Javi moaned. “And all my Tabasco’s gone!”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Molly said. “But it saved us from a fiery death.”

“Yeah,” Javi said. “But we don’t have an anti-bird fortress anymore.”

Molly glanced at her wounded shoulder—the bandage had been knocked askew. Out here in the darkness, the wound’s green tinge was actually glowing, casting a green pall on the skin around it.

She looked up to find Javi staring at it, too, and tried to smile.

“It doesn’t hurt. Much. I’m more worried about that bird.”

“At least we’ve got a fire to scare it away,” Oliver said, pointing at the plane.

But a moment later the flames sent a final whuff of heat across Molly’s skin, and the fire began to sputter and die, its fuel expended.

They were silent then, and Molly felt the jungle’s darkness swallow them.