Chapter Text
Sam Lawton could finally relax. Well, as relaxed as one could be after everything he’d suffered in less than a month.
But the upside was that he no longer had to worry—he’d regained his life, or rather, he’d bought himself more time. Soon he’d be in France, working his dream job, living with the woman he loved—and who loved him back.
Nothing to fret about.
At least, that’s what he thought.
“Can I have the window seat?” Molly asked, smiling up at him. “Please?”
“But…”
Sam hesitated. He always chose the window seat—not for the view, but simply because it was his habit, every single time. Breaking that pattern churned his stomach more than he cared to admit. But Molly’s smile… he could never say no to her.
“All right,” he finally relented.
Sam lifted the overhead bin doors and began stowing their luggage when something else caught his attention.
“Qu’est-ce c’est!? Qu’est-ce c’est!?” came a panicked, agitated shout from a young man in the aisle. “The damn plane is going to blow up!”
That was enough to jolt Sam to full alert—anyone shouting that the plane was about to explode would. But there was something in those desperate cries that sent a chill racing down his spine.
He slowly slid into his seat, gripping the armrest with his right hand. Molly looked back at him.
“You okay?” she asked. Sam felt a sharp pain in his thumb; when he opened his hand, he saw blood beginning to seep between his fingers. “Sam?”
He ignored her and glanced at the rest of the passengers, who were all staring at the panicking teenager in the aisle. Another young man in a white shirt, who seemed to know the first, was now arguing with him.
“Molly…” Sam murmured, making a motion to stand. Molly lifted her gaze to watch the two teenagers shouting at each other.
“Get off the plane!” the first boy screamed as flight attendants tried to restrain him toward the exit. “Get off the plane! It’s going to explode!”
“Let’s get out of here,” Sam said, and Molly didn’t need to hear it twice—she was already on her feet. Sam pulled their bags from the overhead bin and together they practically sprinted down the aisle, through the jet bridge, and into the terminal.
“This can’t be happening again, can it, Sam?” Molly asked, panic nesting in her chest and making her heart pound.
Sam didn’t answer—he was too terrified to think straight. He knew he should feel fear, but he couldn’t find the right word for the knot in his gut. It was as though something was out of sync, like a loose cog in a machine that had always run smoothly. A shiver ran down his spine, and when he looked up, he saw a brown-haired girl who’d followed them off the plane. Her mysterious gaze met his for a moment, and Sam shook his head and hurried on into the waiting area.
The teenagers were still shouting at each other as security stationed them apart; the two adults who’d disembarked with them were talking in low voices, and another boy had dashed through the tunnel to join the one who’d warned about the explosion.
“Sam—” Molly tugged him from his daze, gripping his arm so he’d focus on her. “Do you think it’s what we’re thinking?”
“I… I don’t know,” Sam replied, as he and Molly slipped to the edge of the seating area for a discreet view of the boy with the vision. “But we can’t leave.”
They sat in two chairs side by side, Molly clinging to his arm and leaning in as close as she dared. Sam, however, was bouncing his foot on the floor, anxiety racing through every thought. He even licked the blood from his wounded thumb—horrible taste, but any distraction was welcome.
Ahead of them, the boy was being comforted by another student and an adult woman—by their respectful tone, Sam guessed she was their teacher. He caught snatches of their questions:
“Was it a dream? What did you see? Did you feel anything?”
A wave of déjà vu crashed over Sam. He still remembered Olivia asking him those exact questions on the way to the precinct for his interview. The hum of passengers, the flickering lights overhead, the distant squeal of a luggage cart—all converged into an overwhelming cacophony that made him blink rapidly.
The boy began explaining to his friend and the teacher what he’d seen. Sam caught every word: how Alex had witnessed the plane ignite, how it split apart, and finally how it exploded. Beside him, Molly squeezed his arm—no matter how much they wished it was just a panic attack, it all hit too close to what they’d experienced a month ago.
“Go to hell, Carter!”
One of the boys’ shouts snapped their attention back forward just as the boy with the not-so-“supposed” vision lunged at Carter, and they tumbled to the floor in a fight. Sam stood up on instinct, and Molly was practically pulled to her feet by him.
Tensions in the group were sky-high—shouting, pushing, more shouts… and then…
“My God!”
A window shattered with a deafening crash that sent everyone in the waiting area reeling. Molly screamed and dove into Sam’s arms; he held her tight, eyes fixed on the broken panes, where faint embers from the plane’s blast still flickered.
The plane. The damn plane had exploded midair.
And that boy had seen it.
“This can’t be happening,” Molly whispered, her voice trembling. “This already happened, Sam. You already got out of it.”
Sam swallowed hard. His mind was fuzzy from the sudden sensory overload, but one thought broke through the haze—one that made his blood run cold.
“Molly,” he said, meeting her eyes, “if we escape that means…”
Molly looked at him, pleading, as if she didn’t want him to finish.
“It means we’re on the list now.”
And that was the second worst feeling Sam had ever experienced.