Her grip eased a fraction. The ice in Micah's cup danced harder now, though the floor under his shoes had not yet truly moved, and he understood, with a cold clarity in his stomach, that the whisper was ending. The air outside was about to start shouting.
Chapter 9: The Shaking Begins
The first jolt hit like a pothole in the sky. One moment Micah was watching lightning pulse inside the cloud towers; the next, the cabin dropped a short, sickening distance and slammed back up beneath him, rattling every tray, bin, and bone on board. His stomach stayed where the plane had been. Somebody screamed. Somebody else laughed too loudly, the way people do when fear arrives before they are ready.
"That is it," the woman in 23B said, gripping her armrests. "Lord, that is it."
"Just turbulence," Micah said, though his heart hammered. "Belt tight. Feet flat. We are okay."
Then it came again — harder.
The jet shuddered sideways, rolled, and corrected with a groan Micah felt in his teeth. Cups leaped from tray tables. Two rows up, a soda arced into the air and came down across a man's shirt. Overhead bins drummed. A carry-on shifted behind him with a thud.
Sofia cried out. Micah leaned forward and saw her pressed back, both hands clamped on her armrests, her grin entirely gone. "Micah! Is this normal? Tell me this is normal!"
"Severe is a word pilots use, and this is not their worst word," he said, raising his voice over the rattle. It was the truest reassuring thing he had. "The plane is built for more than this. Way more. Wings bend. They are supposed to bend. Look out my window — see it flex? That is it working, not breaking."
She stared at the wing, which was indeed bowing and recovering, slick with rain now. Her breathing slowed by a degree. "Okay. It bends. I hate it, but okay."
In the simulator at Sky Lab, Joe had a turbulence setting he called "the washing machine," used to teach one lesson: do not chase every bump. "The air is a river with rocks in it," Joe would say. "You keep the nose where it belongs, you mind your speed, and you ride." Micah repeated it under his breath, reading the aircraft the way Joe had trained him. Engines steady. Roll correcting each time. Altitude hunting in a rhythm, which meant somebody up front was working steadily, not panicking.
"We have got good hands up there," he told 23B, who had begun to pray in a whisper. "Listen to her. She comes back every time. A plane in trouble does not come back every time."
But the storm was deepening, and Micah knew it. Rain lashed the fuselage in gusts, a sound like gravel thrown against a tin roof. Lightning struck so close that the cabin flashed white and a crack of thunder — real thunder this time, vast and immediate — rolled through the airframe. A child in row 19 started to wail. The lights flickered once, twice, and held.
Captain Mercer's voice came over the speakers in the middle of a buffet that made his words vibrate. "Folks — Mercer. We are in the rough patch I warned you about. First Officer Vasquez and I have you. Keep those belts on and tight, and please — stay seated, no matter what you need from the bins. Crew, remain seated until I call you."
He sounded, Micah thought, slightly out of breath. Working, he told himself. Anybody would sound like that, working this hard. He pressed his palm to the wall, searching for anything wrong in the jet's deep note, and found nothing but strain.
Grace's voice followed, remarkably level. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is Grace. We are going to stay strapped in together for a while. If you feel airsick, bags are in your seat pocket. Hold the hand of the person next to you if it helps. We are a cabin full of good neighbors tonight, I have seen it."
A nervous laugh moved down the cabin. Hands actually reached for hands.
Then came the worst drop yet.
The nose dipped, the floor fell away, and for two endless seconds Micah felt the raw, weightless terror of unsupported air — a book rose off a lap and hung — before the jet caught itself with a shuddering roar and a roll that pressed everyone into their belts. Screams overlapped. The lights went out for one heartbeat and returned.
Sofia was crying now, reaching back through the seats. Micah caught her hand and held on with both of his.
"Breathe with me," he said. "In, two, three. Out, two, three. Joe made me do this in the sim with the alarms on until I could talk normal. In, two, three — "
"Joe sounds — " the plane lurched " — intense!"
"He is. Out, two, three. Again."