Chapter 4

The lead attendant fell apart, clinging to the rest of us as we scrambled to calm an entire plane of furious people.

But there were close to a hundred passengers on board, all of them in an uproar, and nothing we said could hold them back.

A few big, loud men came at us and backed us straight into a corner.

"What is wrong with you attendants? You can't even keep an eye on one brat? Now that this mess has happened, tell us what you're going to do about it!"

"Exactly! Every one of us has somewhere to be, plans to keep. The flight's delayed now, so everything we had lined up is ruined."

"Give us a solution, fast! And go find that brat's parents!"

"Right, what good does an apology do here?"

...

The lead attendant was near her breaking point too. She recognized the boy at once as my cousin. I'd reported the connection before boarding, so she told me to go handle it immediately.

The scene was already this chaotic, yet when I reached Nelson and the aunt, the two of them were still watching like it was somebody else's show.

I didn't call out to them by name, only used my service address, and it made Nelson slam his cup down in a rage.

"Teresa Gilbert, you actually have the nerve to come to us? That boy is your cousin too. You didn't watch him properly, so how is that not on you?"

The aunt jumped in with a sneer, neither of them having the faintest idea what it costs to have an emergency exit blown open.

"That's right, Teresa. You're the attendant, and you're our niece. As close as we are, it was you slacking off, you who failed to do your job, you who didn't warn us ahead of time, and now you're pinning it on us?"

I'd known they would say exactly this.

In my last life, these same words left me speechless, got me mobbed by these passengers, trampled until my spleen ruptured.

I barely clawed my way back to life, and then my grandmother squeezed our whole family until we had no way to live, and in the end all of us were poisoned to death.

This time I would never let that tragedy play out again.

I fed them polite lines on purpose, baiting them into condemning themselves. Once they'd worked themselves up and let it all pour out, I'd bring out my proof.

"Ma'am, you must be joking. I've followed every professional standard, served with full care, and done my work carefully. Nothing you're describing ever happened."

"Ha."

The aunt gave a cold laugh, completely unbothered.

"Who's to say? There's no camera on this plane. How can you prove what you said, what you did? Clearly you just didn't do your job."

"Right."

Nelson chimed in behind her.

"She's the one who dropped the ball. She's been careless with everything since she was little, and now that she's grown she's learned how to put on an act and wriggle out of blame. She thinks she can talk her way into pinning this on us?"

"I'm her uncle. I watched her grow up. You think I don't know what kind of person she is? She loves nothing more than slacking off!"

Before that side of it was finished, Madison broke into wailing sobs across the aisle.

She stamped her feet in fury, clawed her own makeup off like a madwoman, and started throwing herself around, screaming that she wanted to die.

"I don't want to live anymore! I don't want to live! I just posted that I was about to land at the beach, and now the plane can't even take off. If I don't make it, I'll be humiliated to death!"

"I brought several outfits to shoot photos at the beach! I had the timing all worked out. If I get back even a day late I can't do the seven-day free return, so who's going to cover that loss?"

She cried, screamed, and made her suicide show, then copied her brother and slid down that emergency exit too, trying to kill herself.

But the chute has a high safety rating, and she's on the heavy side. Not only did she fail to kill herself, she snapped a bone and now lay on the tarmac like a dead pig, unable to move.

Nelson and the aunt escalated it right on cue, seizing my arm and demanding I answer for it.

"Teresa Gilbert, you take full responsibility. Every bit of this is your fault. Don't even think about running!"

They gripped me until it hurt, and I threw them off hard and said I was calling the police.

"The police? Go ahead, call them! When the officers from the station get here and you've got no proof you're in the clear, let's see whose fault they pin it on!"

I called the police right there in front of the whole plane, determined to blow this wide open.

"Hello, I need to report a crime. Someone is maliciously slandering me!"

I shot Nelson and the aunt a glance. My hand was actually shaking with adrenaline by then.

"Yes, I have proof I'm in the clear. I recorded the whole thing on a body cam..."

At those two words, body cam, the aunt's face changed.

Nelson got scared too, sneaking a look at me, then at the aunt.

Then the two of them lunged at me like they'd lost their minds...