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T minus 7 minutes
Think. She had to think. Kennedy hadn’t gotten into Harvard for her social graces or athletic skills. She had a brain somewhere beneath that skull and head of thick hair. She could figure this out. Come up with a plan.
The last thing she wanted to do was alert the fat man to anything suspicious. If he found out the girl had signaled for help, who knew what sort of trouble she’d be in? But how did the authorities handle situations like this in the middle of a flight? It wasn’t as if Kennedy could simply call 911 and ask the dispatcher to send a few squad cars down to rescue an abducted teen. How had he gotten her on the plane in the first place? Weren’t the TSA agents supposed to have an eye out for that sort of thing?
She had to let one of the flight attendants know, but she had to do it so the father — no, the abductor — wouldn’t notice. Which meant that as soon as she was done in the bathroom, she’d have to walk down the aisle, right past Selena. She’d have to act so natural it would make Willow and all her theater friends applaud her performance if they knew what was going on. Then she’d give the note to Tracy in the back of the plane.
The plan would work. It would have to work.
Finding she no longer needed to pee, she exited the bathroom on unsteady legs. She’d already resolved not to look at Selena. Not to draw any further attention. She’d walk right by as if she didn’t notice her there. If only her body would stop trembling.
She held onto the back of a seat for support and fixed her eyes on Ray, still bent fastidiously over his pile of math tests. Willow was most likely right. He was probably too much of a nice guy for her, if nice guy meant a respectable working man who had responsibilities that prevented him from partying hard seven nights a week.
He glanced up from his papers. “Hey there.” He knitted his brows together. “Are you all right?”
Kennedy tilted her head up. “Just a little motion sick.” It wasn’t necessarily a lie.
He gave her a sympathetic frown. “Try some Ginger Ale.”
She tried to keep focused on him, but her legs grew even more unsteady when she saw the man in the Hawaiian shirt leering at her.
“Is she the one?” he snarled at the teen.
Selena’s eyes were wide with fear. Kennedy bit her lip. She tried to ignore his angry glare and focused on Selena, who winced as Hawaiian Shirt dug his fingers into the flesh of her arm. “That the one?” he demanded again.
Selena’s eyes were sorrowful. Pleading. She gave a slight nod.
Kennedy’s body sensed the danger before her gray matter could create a single coherent thought. The result was nearly complete paralysis. A surge of epinephrine raged throughout her system, begging Kennedy to flee, but there was nowhere to go. The aisle was too narrow. A step closer and she’d be within the abductor’s reach.
She froze, while Ray the nice-guy math teacher cocked his head to the side like a curious puppy.
It was all the time Hawaiian Shirt needed to lunge out of his seat and grab Kennedy’s arm. “Give me that paper, you piece of trash.”
Tiny snippets of her self-defense lessons sped through her mind, reflexes that came about three seconds too late. She yanked her arm back. He only tightened his grip. She wrenched her hand down, trying to twist his forearm. He threw his body weight into her but didn’t let go.
Kennedy knew she should call for help, but her breath had been startled out of her.
“Hey! Let go of her!” Ray bolted out of his seat and flung himself against Hawaiian Shirt, trying to grab his arms from behind.
A shrill screaming pierced Kennedy’s ears. “Help!” Selena covered her head with her arms to shield herself from the scuffle. “Somebody, help.”
Ray let out a loud oof as Hawaiian Shirt punched him in the gut. Kennedy realized she was free and tried to distance herself but ended up tripping on Selena’s arm rest. She fell, clawing at the man who yanked her to her feet.
“Hold it!” An authoritative voice cracked through the cacophony.
More noise. More punches. She was so startled she couldn’t even tell if she was hurt or not.
“Freeze.”
Kennedy couldn’t see who was talking. She could hardly even focus on who she was supposed to be fighting off. She found herself pounding her fists against someone significantly smaller than the fat man in the Hawaiian shirt. When her eyes finally focused, she saw she was beating Ray, who held her by both shoulders and was telling her she was safe.
Kennedy’s whole body quivered uncontrollably. The stress, the trauma, the anxiety she’d ignored during the fight raged through her system with the energy of a nuclear explosion.
“It’s ok,” Ray repeated as humiliating tears slipped down Kennedy’s cheeks.
He held her a little closer, as if trying to offer reassurance without making it an official hug. “You’re safe,” he whispered and nodded toward a mustached man in a dark business suit who was about to cuff Hawaiian Shirt’s hands behind his back.
“I don’t even know that man,” Selena was sobbing. “He told me he’d kill me if I didn’t go with him.”
Tracy wrapped her arm around the crying girl and ushered her to the front of the plane.
Kennedy reached out her arm for something to steady herself on.
“Easy,” Ray said. “Here, let me walk you back to your seat.”
“She was being kidnapped.” Kennedy’s brain refused to focus on more than one face at a time. She fought her way past the nauseating dizziness looking for Selena.
“It’s ok,” Ray assured her. “She’s going to be fine. Everything’s going to be just fine.”
Kennedy sucked in a choppy breath and thought that maybe in a few minutes she could believe Ray’s assessment of their situation.
Something buzzed, and the captain addressed the cabin. “Well, folks, it looks like we had a little excitement back there. The good news is we’ll be landing in Detroit in about twenty minutes. Let’s show the flight attendants and air marshal on board our appreciation for working well under pressure to keep everybody safe.”
Subdued applause sounded throughout the cabin until Hawaiian Shirt guffawed. “Safe?” He let out a soul-haunting chuckle. “That’s what you think, chump.”
He swung his head back until his skull smacked into the air marshal’s face. Kennedy instinctively clutched Ray’s arm as the man in the SVSU sweatshirt jumped into the aisle. In one swift motion, he grabbed the pistol from the marshal’s holster, raised it above his head, and brought it down on his skull. A grotesque thud sounded above the hum of muffled cries.
The man in the sweatshirt kept the gun held high in the air. “This is your captain speaking. I suggest you buckle up.”