Page 60 of Mile High Ruin

For several seconds, neither of us speaks.

Then she says, quietly, “I should have screamed.”

I understand immediately.

“You could not.”

“I should have.”

“He covered your mouth.”

“I froze first.” Her voice has changed. She stares at her fingers as though she’s disappointed in them. “I knew something was wrong when he walked toward me, and I still just sat there. Then when he grabbed me, for a second, I couldn’t do anything. I’ve taken training courses. I know what you’re supposed to do. I’ve handled drunk passengers before. I once helped restrain a man twice my size over the Atlantic and I didn’t freeze then, but this time I⁠—”

“You kicked him hard enough that he could barely stand.”

She stops. “That was afterward.”

“It still happened.”

“I should have done it sooner.”

“You are criticizing yourself for not reacting perfectly while a drunk man twice your size trapped you in a seat.”

Her mouth tightens.

I sit beside her instead of remaining in front of her. The mattress dips beneath my weight.

Sloane doesn’t move away.

“When I was eight,” I say, “my father locked me in a cellar for almost two days.”

She turns her head. The surprise on her face is immediate.

I rarely speak about my childhood because there is nothing useful to be gained by discussing it, and I’m already questioning why I have begun now.

Perhaps because she looks as though she needs evidence that fear is not weakness. Perhaps because I want to give her something of myself that nobody else aboard this aircraft has.

“He was drunk,” I continue. “He had been arguing with my mother, and I decided I was old enough to interfere. I was not.”

“What did you do?”

“I hit him with a chair leg.”

Her eyebrows rise. “You were eight?”

“I was ambitious.”

That earns the faintest smile.

I continue before she can lose it. “He caught me before I managed much damage and put me in the cellar because he wanted me to understand what happened to boys who challenged men stronger than them. There was no light except what came through a small window near the ceiling, and at night rats moved through the walls.”

Sloane watches me carefully. “Did your mother get you out?”

“No. She was afraid of him.”

The smile disappears.

“My older cousin eventually realized I was missing and came looking.”