Chapter Text
“Alright, listen up!” Anacostia Quartermaine stood in the lobby of the private airfield and addressed the group of students sprawled all over the furniture. “The ten of you are Fort Salem’s best and brightest. You are representatives of the school and I expect you to act accordingly!”
Anacostia glared at each of the students in turn, her gaze lingering on a blonde slouched in one of the chairs with her feet up on the coffee table. Raelle Collar promptly sat up and lowered her feet to the ground.
Anacostia continued. “It is a privilege to attend our annual inter-school contest with our Australian counterparts, and you have all earned your place here, either through your achievements in sports or academics. Do not screw this up, people!”
“Well, some of us earned our place.” Across from Raelle, a young black woman sneered while looking at a short curly-haired girl. “Others bought it.”
“Bite me, Bellweather!” Libba growled back at her.
“Enough!” Anacostia snapped at both of them. Libba was a Swythe and the grudge between the Swythes and the Bellweathers was almost as old as Fort Salem school itself.
“Now, you’re all flying out there now and myself and Principal Alder will fly out later today with your classmates who are lucky enough to spectate. Of course, we’ll be flying coach, while y’all get to take a private jet.”
The teenagers whooped and hollered. Fort Salem was the most prestigious private school in Massachusetts and could afford luxuries like chartering private jets at three in the morning to whisk their students to the other side of the world for inter-school sports and academia contests.
“Representatives from All Hallows will meet you at Brisbane airport to shuttle you to the hotel and supervise you until I arrive. “The rooms are as follows.” Anacostia glanced down at the list in her hand before rattling off the names.
“Bellweather and Craven, Moffat and Swythe, Tippet and Buttonwood, Collar and Ramshorn. Hillary, you’ll have a room to yourself until the rest of your peers arrive. You too, Byron.”
“Who’s Ramshorn?” Raelle frowned, looking to her school dorm mate for an answer — even though she knew the names of the other girls so that only left the brunette sitting next to Byron.
Raelle recognised her from a couple of her classes and around school, Fort Salem wasn’t that big, but she’d never learned her name. “Scylla.” Tally answered with a nod towards the girl in question.
Tally and Abigail had been paired together, and she’d been lumped with a stranger. At least she was cute. Raelle caught her eye across the room, and Scylla gave a nod in acknowledgment before turning back to her phone.
Anacostia ignored the fact they were all talking amongst themselves and spoke over them. “Your rooms are assigned. No switching, no mixing, no drinking and no teenage pregnancies. Is that understood? I said, is that understood?”
A chorus of yeses came from around the room after she repeated the question. Satisfied, Anacostia gave a stiff nod. “Alright then, get your asses on the plane and get yourselves a good night’s rest for the start of the games tomorrow. Good luck out their, people!”
With their luggage already loaded, the teens filed on to the private plane with their carry-on bags in hand. The inside was luxurious, with its plush cream carpet and white leather seats. There were ten in total, five rows of two, one on each side of the plane with a narrow aisle between them.
A flight attendant in a sharply pressed navy suit greeted them as they boarded. Porter and Byron were the first ones on board, claiming the two back seats.
Raelle took the next seat on the left, right next to a window. She pulled the blind down before settling. “Why are you sitting so far back, Collar?” Abigail scoffed, knowing full well why she’d chosen the seat.
“The back is the safest part of the plane in a crash.” Raelle repeated the line she’d fed her room mates for months, ever since being chosen for the inter-school games.
Abigail rolled her eyes at her while dragging Tally towards the front. Tally shot her friend a sympathetic smile. The rest of the group followed them, finding their own seats and shoving their bags into the overheard storage bins.
Across the aisle, Scylla caught Raelle’s eye with a smirk. “I take it you’re not a big fan of flying?”
“It’s my first time.” Raelle admitted, and Scylla’s smirk widened as she shot her a wink.
“I’m sure it will be painless.”
Raelle felt her cheeks warming as no doubt a blush spread over them. She bit back the instinct to reply with ‘that’s what she said’ and went with, “Thanks.”
The flight attendant made his way to the front of the cabin after sealing the doors and made the general safety announcement, asking them to turn off all electronics and to fasten their seat-belts while the sign above the cockpit door was lit.
Raelle switched off her iPhone and let her earphones dangle down the front of her shirt with a sigh. Tally had told her the worst part of flying was taking off and landing. Raelle dug her fingers into the leather armrests, hoping for it to be over quickly. She’d been terrified of flying for forever and had done everything she could to get out of the trip.
The plane started taxiing to the run way, the wheels rumbling and the cabin shaking. Raelle squeezed her eyes shut. “Hey, Collar?” She opened them again and found Scylla leaning over into the aisle, offering her hand.
Raelle extended her own arm and took Scylla’s hand with a sheepish smile. She didn’t even know this girl. “Thanks.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Scylla wore a lopsided smirk. That on anyone else might have been condescending. On her it just looked cute. “Oh, and statistically, flying is safer than driving. So don’t worry about it, beautiful.”
Raelle felt herself blushing again. It was becoming something of a habit. “Right. I’ll bear that in mind… Thanks.” The nose of the plane lurched up and Raelle’s stomach dropped. She clenched her eyes shut again and felt Scylla squeeze her hand.
It was going to be a hell of a long flight.
Raelle woke with a start, her eyes popping open as an icy chill washed over her body. All she saw was water. She coughed and spluttered as another wave washed over her; the water going in her mouth and up her nose. She floundered, trying to push herself up and slipped off whatever she’d been lying on.
The shock of being fully submerged in the water brought her around fully, sweeping away any lingering tendrils of sleep. She fought the current to make her way back to the large piece of metal she’d been lying on; a piece of the plane.
Lying there, her chest heaving with each breath and blood trickling into her left eye from a gash above her eyebrow, Raelle desperately tried to claw back her memories of what happened. All she could recall was Scylla’s hand squeezing hers at takeoff.
Remembering she wasn’t alone on the plane, Raelle frantically looked around for signs of anyone else. Bits of wreckage littered the surrounding water, but Raelle couldn’t see a single other soul.
“Hello?” She called out, cupping her hands together around her mouth to make the sound carry. “Hello? Is anyone out there? Tally? Abs? Anybody?”
Raelle was met with only the sound of lapping water in response. She let her hands fall to her lap and took a few deep breaths. Raelle couldn’t be the only one left. She just couldn’t be.
She wiped the blood out of her eye with the back of her hand and began looking around again. There was land in the distance, and it was getting further and further away as the tide swept her out.
Raelle slipped off the wreckage, at best guess a part of a wing, and into the icy water. She was a strong swimmer, but the tide was stronger and Raelle had a head wound; and possible concussion. It felt like she was just treading water and not getting any closer to the shore.
Then she spotted it.
One of the seats from the plane was floating up ahead of her, and someone was still strapped into it. Ignoring the burning in her arms and legs, Raelle pushed herself on until she swam up beside it.
Raelle felt a surge of relief swell up in her chest at the sight of someone else, but it quickly popped when she realised the other girl wasn’t moving. “Scylla?” She called out, but got no response.
Clinging to the side of the chair with one hand, while she kicked out to keep herself afloat, Raelle fumbled with her other hand to check Scylla’s pulse.
It was weak, but it was there. Her chest was rising and falling slowly. Another good sign. She was alive, which meant Raelle wasn’t alone. She let out a hollow laugh, “So much for safer than driving.”
Raelle thought dragging herself towards the shore was hard, but it paled in comparison to the sheer exhaustion of getting both her and Scylla there. The other girl still hadn’t come round, despite Raelle’s best attempts to wake her.
Airplane seats were designed to float on water, which was one point in Raelle’s favour as she pushed the chair through the water from behind with Scylla still strapped into it. Her entire body still ached from the exertion, though.
Raelle was a champion diver - it was what had bought her entry into the prestigious Fort Salem school - but the short physique that made her such a great diver also meant endurance in the water wasn’t her strong suit.
Not for the first time, Raelle wished Tally or Abigail were with her. Both were great swimmers. Tally in particular, given that she was captain of the girl’s swim team.
Raelle tried not to think about her friends, it only brought up a bubble of panic over what might have happened to them. Her sole focus had to be making it back to dry land. She’d break down over her friends later. With blood still dripping into her eye, Raelle pressed on.
She was within spitting distance of a crop of rocks when she heard someone calling out. “Hey! Hey! Over here!” Raelle paused, treading water as she clung to the back of Scylla’s seat and looked around. “Rae! Over here!”
She spotted Gerit’s head bobbing on the surface of the water by one of the smaller rocks. Someone else was draped over the rock, with smears of red running down into the water. Raelle’s chest tightened at the thought that it might Tally, but as she got closer, she realised the hair wasn’t red. It was Hilary.
She lay over the rock, unmoving, with a large gash in the top of her thigh. “Help us!” Gerit called out. “She’s hurt!” His head disappeared under the water as a wave lashed against the rocks. He reappeared, spitting and spluttering. He was having a hard time staying afloat.
“Gerit, swim towards the chair!” Raelle ordered, shouting to be heard over the crashing of the waves.
“I can’t…” His head went under again. “I can’t swim! I can’t swim!” Raelle just couldn’t catch a break. Swimming as close to the rocks as she dared with Scylla in the seat, she reached out for Gerit and pulled him towards her.
He floundered, swallowing water as his head went under a third time before he finally caught hold of the airplane seat. “It floats. Just hold on!”
“H-Hilary! We can’t leave her…”
“I’ve got her!” Said Raelle, already swimming towards the rock Hilary lay on. “Just start kicking towards the shore! I’ll catch up! Go!” Gerit looked uneasy about it, but did as he was told. Holding onto the back of the seat, he started kicking, slowly making his way towards the shoreline.
Raelle pulled herself up out of the water and onto the rock beside Hilary. The muscles in her arms screamed out in protest, clenching up with exertion. “Hilary.” She shook the other girl awake. “Hilary, I need you to wake up!” The other girl groaned, finally coming around. She screamed as she tried to lift the leg with the gash in it.
“Easy! Easy, I’ve got you!” Raelle tried to tug her shirt off, the soaking wet fabric clinging to her body like a second skin. Once she wrestled it off, she tied it around the top of Hilary’s thigh, using it as a tourniquet.
The other girl whimpered, biting back a scream through clenched teeth. She and Raelle weren’t friends, but the blonde had a begrudging respect for Hilary Saint. She was made of powerful stuff.
“We need to get you to shore.” Raelle glanced around for any pieces of wreckage large enough to use as a float, but there were none nearby.
“I can swim!” Hilary insisted, but her usual golden skin was ashen and there was so much blood on the rock and in the water.
“Yeah, right!” Raelle scoffed. She wiped at the cut on her forehead with the back of her hand. The blood had clotted. “Can you ease yourself into the water and wrap your arms around my neck?”
“Then what? You’re going to carry me on your back? You look worse than I feel, Collar!”
“Thanks. Now, can you do it or not?” Raelle snapped. The truth was, she felt ready to drop. A niggling voice at the back of her mind was telling her to lie down and go to sleep. Raelle did her best to ignore it.
She slipped back into the water, the cold vanishing any thoughts of going to sleep. Hilary followed her, splashing into the water behind Raelle before she wrapped her arms around her neck.
It took every ounce of strength Raelle had left in her, but she made it to the shoreline with Hilary on her back. Gerit waited in the shallows for them and helped her drag Hilary up onto the beach. As the couple collapsed onto the sand, Raelle scrambled over to Scylla.
She unbuckled the seatbelt from around Scylla’s waist and tried to rouse her again, holding her head in her hands. A dark red stain on the white leather caught Raelle’s attention. Scylla had a head wound.
The hair at the back of her head was knitted together with blood. It wasn’t gushing, and the other girl was still breathing, so there wasn’t much Raelle could do for her.
Raelle was exhausted and running on adrenaline and sheer will power alone. Her body screamed at her to curl up on the dry sand and sleep for at least a week, but her mind was on her friends.
“Gerit, did you see anyone else out there? Tally, or Abigail, or anybody?”
Gerit shook his head as he pushed himself to his feet and walked over to join her, out of earshot of his girlfriend as he whispered, “We have to find Tally.”
Raelle nodded, squinting out at the ocean for any signs of life. “I’m going back in-”
“Wait! Over there!” Gerit grabbed her arm and pointed further down the beach, to where the front half of the plane lay buried nose first in the sand in the distance.
Raelle didn’t wait for Gerit. She took off down the beach, finding one last reserve of energy as she tore through the sand. Gerit took a moment to check in on Hilary, who was lying sprawled out on the sand. “Go.” She sighed at him.
Gerit - who was a track-star back at Fort Salem - caught up to Raelle in no time and overtook her with ease. He reached the wreckage of the plane first. The nose of the plane had hit the beach head on and the cockpit lay crumpled like a concertina.
The tail part and one of the wings was missing, with the back of the fuselage ripped open as if someone had taken a can opener to it. Smoke poured out, making Gerit cough as he drew closer.
Raelle caught up to him, chest heaving as she bent over double and fought for breath. “We have to get in there.” She coughed, the smoke catching her too.
“Here.” Gerit pulled his sweater off and offered it to Raelle before pulling his t-shirt up to cover his nose and mouth. Raelle followed suit and tied the sweater over the lower part of her face before giving Gerit a resolute nod. They ventured inside.
The fuselage was a mess, chairs were loose and knocked over, luggage littered the gangway and loose wires sparked overhead. Light poured through the windows, but the smoke and the obstructions made it difficult to navigate their way towards the front of what remained of the plane.
“Tally!” Gerit called out. “Abigail! Libba! Anybody?”
“Tal-” Raelle opened her mouth to shout but choked on the smoke, despite her makeshift face covering. She coughed and spluttered, leaning against one of the luggage bins.
“Over here!” A voice called out ahead of them.
“Abs!” Raelle shouted, stumbling forward down the aisle. She found Abigail kneeling on the floor in front of what had been the cockpit. The door was mangled and parts of the ceiling had come away.
The overhead bin above Tally’s seat had come down, trapping her foot beneath it. Abigail was trying in vain to lift it on her own. “Help me!” She snapped at Raelle and Gerit.
Gerit moved to help her lift the bin, while Raelle checked on Tally. Her eyes were closed, but she had a pulse. “Tally! Tal!” Raelle shook her shoulder and the other girl came around with a groan.
“Ugh…”
“Tally! Tally, look at me!” Raelle cupped her friend’s face. “Are you okay? Your foot’s stuck, but Abs and Ger are taking care of it, okay? We’re all here for you… We’re all here.”
“What happened?” Tally coughed on the smoke and tugged her shirt up over her mouth.
“The plane crashed.” Said Raelle. “I’ll save my ‘I told you so’ for later.”
“Thanks.” Tally let out a nervous laugh as Gerit and Abigail finally lifted the overhead bin and the sound of metal scraping against metal filled the air.
“I got you, Tal.” Raelle reached down and pulled Tally’s foot out of the way before the others could drop the heavy metal locker. Tally whimpered, but stopped herself from crying out.
“Tal!” Gerit surged forward and wrapped his arms around her, ignoring Raelle who perched on the side of her chair. Tally hugged him back, burying her face in his shoulder.
“Let’s save the reunion until we’re outside, people!” Said Abigail.
“Wait, what about the others?” Raelle asked, climbing down from Tally’s seat.
“Glory dragged Libba out a while ago, I think we were the only four in here.” Answered Abigail.
“Hilary and Scylla are outside, further down the beach. We all landed in the water.” Said Gerit. Tally winced. Waking up in a crashed plane was bad enough, she couldn’t imagine the trauma of being sucked out of a plane and waking up in the middle of the ocean.
“Alright, let’s take this outside. We can look for the others on our way out.” Abigail, a natural born leader, insisted as she ordered the teens outside. Gerit carried Tally, whose foot looked badly bruised and swollen, while Raelle and Abigail checked for other survivors on their way.
Outside, away from the smoking fuselage, they found Glory and Libba lying passed out on the sand. Gerit gently placed Tally down beside Glory and she shook her friend awake. “Glory! Glory, wake up!”
The smaller girl roused with a groan, rolling on to her back and shielding her eyes from the sun like a drunk with a headache. It took her a while to realise where she was, and when she did, she jumped up.
“Tally! Oh-my-god-I’m-so-sorry-I-must-have-passed-out!” She threw her arms around her childhood friend as she made her apology without taking a single breath. Tally reassured her they were all fine, while Raelle saw to waking Libba.
There didn’t seem to be much physically wrong with the other girl, other than a few bumps and scrapes like the rest of them. Raelle shook her shoulder, and she came to with a start, bolting upright, almost smashing Raelle’s nose with her head.
The blonde veered back, throwing her arms out in front of her, “Swythe, it’s me! It’s okay!” Libba’s eyes were wide and unfocused as they darted from Raelle to take in the surrounding scene.
“What happened?” She asked, her voice shaky and her chest heaving.
“Unscheduled stop.” Abigail answered dryly, crashing to the sand in front of the other girl. “The plane crashed, dumb ass!” Libba’s eyes narrowed on her rival as she balled her hands into fists.
“Give it a rest, Abs!” Raelle sighed, finally collapsing back on to the sand as her adrenaline rush crashed. She felt so tired she could sleep for an entire month. Her body ached in places she didn’t know existed and her muscles screamed at her worse than when she’d qualified for nationals at last year’s school diving championships.
The sand was warm beneath her and the sun shone high overhead, but Raelle shook with the cold. Her hair and clothes were soaked through. She pulled Gerit’s sweater - also wet - away from her face and tossed it aside.
Raelle could lie there in the sun all day, but now that she knew her friends were safe, her mind went back to Scylla. She should probably check on her and she would; as soon as she could get her body to comply.
Raelle lifted her head and glanced around at the group. She counted six of them, with Scylla and Hilary that made eight. Raelle frowned. They were two short. “Hey, where are the guys that were sitting behind me?” She asked out loud, addressing no one in particular.
Gerit and Tally shared a look before Tally answered. “Don’t you remember what happened?”
Raelle shook her head. Her time on the plane was a blur. She had no idea how long they’d even been in the air. All she remembered was taking off, and Scylla holding her hand. She touched her fingers to the cut above her eye. It had finally stopped bleeding. “It’s kind of a blur.”
“One of the engines blew.” Said Libba, sitting up beside Raelle.
“Then the plane just seemed to rip right open.” Added Gerit, his head hung low. “The whole tail half fell away. Yours and Scylla’s seats hung on by a thread, and then they were gone. I don’t know what happened after that-”
“You tried to go for Raelle, and Hilary went after you. You were both sucked out the plane.” Answered Tally, worrying at her lip.
“Wow.” Raelle shook her head with a sigh. They were all lucky to be alive. Then it dawned on her. They weren’t all alive. “So Porter and Byron…” She didn’t finish her sentence. There was no need to. They were all thinking the same thing.
“What about the flight attendant?” Asked Glory.
“He was in the back, too.” Said Tally.
Abigail stood up and peered at the front of the plane. Half of the mangled cockpit stuck out of the sand, with the other half buried up to the windows. “There’s not a lot of hope for the pilots.”
“I’ll check.” Gerit walked up to one of the windows still half visible above the sand and peered inside. The head of one pilot was smashed open like a watermelon and the other lay slumped over the controls, unmoving, his eyes wide open and staring at nothing. Gerit turned around and heaved.
“They’re dead.”
“Are you sure?” Asked Abigail, moving in to look for herself. Gerit held his hand up to stop her, wiping his mouth with the back of his other hand.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
The mood among the teens was already sombre, but news of the pilots’ deaths brought it even further down. Thick black smoke still billowed out of the fuselage.
“We should move away from that. The other two are down the beach.” Said Raelle, dragging herself to her feet despite her body’s protests.
The other teens did the same, with Gerit and Abigail helping Tally up. Gerit moved to pick her up, but Abigail interjected. “I got it, Buttonwood.”
She slung Tally’s arm over her shoulder and they started walking towards the other side of the beach where Gerit’s girlfriend waited. He hung his head and shoved his hands in to the soaking wet pockets of his cargo shorts as he trudged along behind them. Glory and Libba followed suit.
Hilary and Scylla were right where Raelle left them. Hilary was sitting up, Raelle’s shirt still wrapped tightly around the top of her thigh. The bleeding had stopped. She nodded at Raelle as the blonde reached them first. “Thanks, Collar. For what you did.”
“Don’t mention it.” Said Raelle. She knelt down beside Scylla and checked her pulse again. It was much stronger than it had been. That was a good sign, even if she hadn’t woken up yet.
Raelle wiped at the cut on her head with the bottom of her tank top. The light grey fabric came away red from dried, crusted, blood. She had no idea how long ago the plane fell from the sky, or if anyone was even looking for them yet. They had to get their priorities straight.
“We should see to everyone’s injuries and then look for supplies, water, food, stuff like that. That gash on Hilary’s thigh is going to need stitched.”
“I have a first-aid kit in my luggage.” Said Tally, surprising nobody. Her mother was a worrier. She’d been dead-set against Tally flying all the way to the other side of the world in the first place.
Raelle glanced out at the horizon, debris from the wreckage and luggage floating on the surface of the water as one. She sighed. “It’s probably out there.”
Raelle kicked off her shoes and unbuttoned her ripped wet jeans before she slipped them off. She tugged off her tank top and dropped it on top of her jeans in the sand, leaving her in her sports-bra and underwear. Swimming would be easier without her clothes sticking to her.
Beside her, Abigail stripped off too. Tally started tugging her shirt over her head, but Raelle reached out to stop her. “You can’t swim with that ankle.” It was bruised black and blue and swollen to twice the size.
“But I want to help!”
“Then stay here and look after Scylla for me, okay?” Raelle squeezed her shoulder as Tally gave a reluctant nod. Gerit wore an expression of guilt and shame as he caught Raelle’s eye. Glory, who couldn’t swim, wore the same one.
“I can help.” He offered, knowing full well he wasn’t a strong enough swimmer. Raelle shook her head.
“The current is too strong. Me, Abigail and Libba will go out for the bags and anything useful we can find. That okay with you, Swythe?” Raelle asked. Libba looked a peculiar shade of green.
She turned away and threw up, heaving her breakfast up on to the sand. Raelle winced. “Okay, just me and Abigail then.”
“I can do it!” Libba insisted, wiping at her mouth with her sleeve and still hunched over. “Just give me a sec!”
“Tap in when you’re ready, Swythe. Come on, Rae.” Abigail tugged on Raelle’s arm. Raelle bit back a groan as Abigail broke out in a sprint towards the water. She was spent, but god knew how long it would be until someone came for them and her suitcase was amongst the bags floating out on the ocean.
She followed Abigail with a reluctant sigh and Tally called after them — and that was Raelle’s relationship with her room mates summed up in a nutshell. “Be careful out there!”