This Time, I Won't Save You

A month before the wedding, war broke out in Karsovia. I was the captain of the last evacuation flight. Right before takeoff, my fiancé Tyler raised an axe and blocked the cabin door: "Paige isn't back yet. We can't leave!" "Where did she go?" "Captain, she ran off to loot the cosmetics counter while everything was going to hell," my first officer muttered impatiently in my ear. The shriek of explosions and the roar of bombers grew closer by the second. My nails dug into my palms. I knocked him unconscious and took him with us. After we made it back to New York, safe from the war, we had a stretch of quiet happiness. I thought he'd forgotten about that woman. But on our wedding day, he tied me down and drove his car straight at me. In the seconds before I died, I heard his snarl. "Megan Anderson—you're the one who killed my Paige. You left her behind to be blown to pieces by a rebel missile!" "She was just a girl who liked pretty things—what did she ever do wrong?" "You bitch. I'm going to make your death a thousand times worse than hers!" … When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the exact moment he'd blocked the cabin door. This time, I'd give him exactly what he wanted—let him and his dream girl keep each other company in hell. … "Megan, the rebels are almost at the airport! If we don't take off now, we'll never make it out!" I lowered my gaze and silently keyed the emergency distress code into the flight terminal. In the first minute of my second life, I transmitted our coordinates and a backup evacuation request to the nearest rescue unit. Tyler still had the axe. Last time I'd fought him head-on. It cost five passengers their lives. The explosions and gunfire drew closer. Everywhere—screaming, sobbing, desperate prayers. Several men rushed toward Tyler, trying to talk him into putting down the axe. He kicked them aside. He glared at anyone who dared approach. "Paige is on her way right now. What's wrong with waiting for her?" The man with glasses—the one he'd kicked to the floor—clutched his chest, furious: "So the rest of us are supposed to die for her?!" "The evacuation window is closing fast—the rebels will be here any minute! How much longer are we supposed to wait? We have Logan Bennett on this plane!" He pointed toward the elderly man nearby—white-haired, ashen-faced. Logan Bennett. One of the world's foremost medical scientists. The key figure in this escort mission. "So what—your lives matter, but Paige's doesn't?" Tyler's face was stone-cold. My first officer hissed at me: "Captain, talk some sense into your fiancé! There are three hundred people on this plane besides Paige!" "The entire country is about to go into lockdown—this is our only chance!" "Miss Paige boarded early—she's the one who ran back to the duty-free shops on her own!" Every pair of eyes in the cabin turned to me. Tyler whipped around to look at me too. Something familiar—something dark and vicious—flickered in his gaze. In that instant, I caught the flash of killing intent in his eyes. I drew a deep breath and made a decision entirely different from my previous life: "Tyler's right. We can't abandon any of our own." The cabin erupted in angry jeers. Tyler visibly relaxed. A triumphant smile spread across his face. "Goddammit—they're insane! They're all fucking insane!" The man with glasses cursed, struggling to his feet. Tyler's expression twisted into something feral. He punched the man back down, then slammed the axe into the cabin door. He was the maintenance engineer for the aircraft. He knew every inch of this plane. He struck the hull once—a threat—then swept his glare across the passengers. "Anyone else want to say something? Try me." ---