Chapter 7 - The Sky is Falling
The electric prongs of the stun gun struck my chest before I could even scream.
A blinding surge of voltage tore through my body, dropping me to the floor in agonizing spasms.
My vision blurred as the backup pilot dragged my limp body toward a passenger seat.
He strapped me in tightly, using heavy zip-ties to bind my wrists to the armrests.
I struggled to regain control of my muscles, watching helplessly as he dragged Adrian's unconscious body into the seat across from me.
Vanessa was already unconscious from massive blood loss, slumped lifelessly in her chair.
The pilot ignored her completely, walking briskly back into the cockpit and locking the reinforced door behind him.
Despite the blown-out front tires, the massive engines roared to an ear-splitting volume.
The pilot was a cartel loyalist, ordered to get the plane airborne no matter the catastrophic risk.
The jet lurched forward, scraping metal violently against the concrete runway in a terrifying display of sparks.
The entire cabin shook violently, threatening to tear apart before we even left the ground.
Against all odds of physics, the sheer thrust of the engines forced the nose of the plane upward.
We aggressively broke contact with the earth, climbing into the dark, stormy night sky at a dangerous angle.
The cabin pressure immediately began to drop due to the shattered window Adrian had shot out earlier.
Oxygen masks deployed from the ceiling, dangling uselessly just out of my restricted reach.
I gasped for air, feeling the familiar, terrifying burn of oxygen deprivation creeping into my brain.
Adrian suddenly groaned, his eyes fluttering open as the freezing altitude wind whipped through the cabin.
He looked around in a dazed panic, realizing he was zip-tied to a chair just like I was.
He started screaming at the locked cockpit door, demanding the pilot turn the plane around immediately.
The pilot's voice crackled over the intercom, cold and completely devoid of emotion.
He announced that the cartel no longer needed Adrian alive since they had the flash drive in the cockpit.
He had taken it from Adrian's pocket while I was paralyzed on the floor.
The pilot stated his orders were to jump from the plane with a parachute once we reached the ocean.
He was going to leave the three of us trapped inside to crash into the freezing depths below.
I knew I had only a few minutes before hypoxia made me completely black out.
I twisted my wrists violently against the thick plastic zip-ties, feeling them slice painfully into my skin.
Blood made my hands slippery, giving me just enough leverage to snap my left thumb out of joint.
I screamed through the pain, yanking my bloody hand completely free from the binding.
I grabbed the swinging oxygen mask and strapped it over my face, taking deep, desperate breaths.
My mind cleared instantly as the life-saving oxygen flooded my starving lungs.
I unbuckled my seatbelt and stood up, stumbling against the violent turbulence of the climbing jet.
Adrian begged me to free him, crying tears of absolute terror as he promised to confess to everything.
I looked down at the man who had tormented me for years, feeling nothing but cold indifference.
I turned away from him and walked unsteadily toward the locked, reinforced steel cockpit door.
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I knew I couldn't break it down, but I remembered a fatal design flaw in this specific model of aircraft.
I pulled a small emergency fire axe from the glass case on the wall, aiming for the main hydraulic wiring panel hidden just beside the door.
