Page 5 of Royal Guard

One of her feet clipped an overhead luggage bin and she spun sideways... and jerked to a stop. Her leg had wedged between two seats. But the wind was sucking at her, clawing her free, and her leg was sliding between the smooth leather. First her hip was gripped, then only her thigh, and she was slipping faster and faster. “Kristina!”she screamed, terrified.

Caroline is twenty-two, the same age as me, and she’s been my maid since we were both teenagers. We’ve grown up almost like sisters. When I was fifteen and someone spiked my drink with vodka at a party, it was Caroline who got me out of there safely. When she was sixteen and knocked over and chipped a Ming vase on a visit to the French President’s house, I lied and said it was me. She’s the one person who tells me things straight, who doesn’t bow and scrape. She’s my only true friend. And now she was going to diebecause someone wanted to killme.

I started to wriggle out from under my rescuer. He looked down at me, horrified, and grabbed my shoulders. “No!”

I twisted, breaking his grip and slithering out from under him. Immediately, the wind clutched at me, threatening to grab me and suck me straight out. I grabbed hold of the nearest seat and checked Caroline. Oh God, her leg was slipping between the seats: they only gripped her calf, now.Very cautiously, I got to my knees.

That was a mistake. The suction got ten times worse. For one horrible second, my knees actually lifted off the ground.

I slammed myself face-first, flat on the floor, heart thumping. Then I started to wriggle down the aisle towards Caroline. When I glanced back, the man who’d saved me was trying to crawl after me. “No!” I yelled over the ear-splitting screech of the wind. “Stay there! I’ll pass her to you!”

He stared at me, face taut with worry, then reluctantly nodded. He’d realized the same thing as me: the suction got worse, the closer you were to the hole. He needed to stay where he was, so he could haul Caroline to safety: I’d never be able to pull herandfight the wind.

I checked Caroline again and my stomach lurched. Her leg had slid through the seats to the ankle. Only her foot wedged her in place. I moved as fast as I could, but the air was thinner here: I could feel myself getting light-headed and every movement felt like an Olympic effort. Oxygen masks had dropped from the ceiling, but they hung tantalizingly out of reach. If I risked standing to grab one, I’d likely be sucked out. Igritted my teeth and kept going, bracing feet and hands against the seats, trying not to think about the howling, sucking hole or how it would only take one slip—

There.I’d made it. I reached for Caroline’s leg—

The wind twisted her slightly and her foot slithered through the gap—

I screamed and shot forward and suddenly all I could see was the back of a seat. I was mashed up against it and I couldn’t see Caroline at all.I’ve lost her!

Then I became aware of the burning pain in my fingers. My arm was buried between the seat backs, right up to the shoulder, and I couldn’t pull it back. Something was pulling on my hand. Two of my fingers had curled tight around something thin and soft that bit into my skin. I gripped it even tighter and then braced my knees on the seats andheaved.

My arm gradually emerged. And when it reached my hand, I saw that I’d hooked my fingers around the ankle strap of Caroline’s shoe. Using both hands, I grabbed her foot and pulled her in, then wrestled her over the seat and down to the floor where the wind was tamer. We lay there for a moment, panting. If I hadn’t reached for herright then.If she’d been wearing different shoes….

I helped her out from between the seats and up the aisle until my rescuer could grab her wrist and pull her to safety. When she was safely behind him, I let out a huge sigh of relief. Then I started pulling myself towards him, bracing myself on the seats so that I didn’t slip backwards. I was shaky and exhausted but I could do it. His outstretched hand was only a few feet away.

And that was when the pilot must have decided we weren’t descending quickly enough, and pushed the nose down into a steeper dive.

The floor tilted crazily under my feet.

I grabbed for a handhold, but my oxygen-starved muscles were weak and slow. I fell backwards, tumbling head over heels. The wind grabbed me.

And I was sucked out through the hole and into the dark sky.

5

GARRETT

I wastedprecious seconds staring at the hole. Behind me, the blonde woman was wailing, yelling Kristina’s name over and over again.

Think!Not what I’m good at. But I had to think of something because if I couldn’t, she was dead. And I wasn’t willing to accept that.

I thought about the explosive the assassins had used. This must have been the plan all along: kill the Princess, then escape by blowing the door and jumping out.

Which meant the assassin I’d fought, the one who’d jumped out, had been wearing a parachute.

Which meant the other one must be wearing a parachute, too.

I half-slid, half-scrambled down the aisle, my heavier body, making it easier for me to fight the wind. I hauled myself over to where the old guard and the young guard had restrained the other assassin. They were pretty much sitting on him, the only waythey could pin him down and still have hands free to cling onto something themselves. Both of them were staring in horror at the hole. “Move!”I snapped.

They were too shell-shocked by what had happened to argue. I wrestled the assassin onto his front. Bent over him and strained my eyes against the wind. Was it just a backpack, or…. Please be right, please be right—

Yes.A parachute.

I pushed a knee into his back to pin him down, undid the buckles and wrestled the thing off him. He let out a yell of pain as I bent an arm the wrong way in my hurry, but I really didn’t give a damn. I got to my knees so that I could pull the parachute on. As soon as I took my weight off the assassin, the wind snatched him away. He shot across the cabin, pinwheeling in the air, and disappeared through the hole.

I stood up and ran, still fastening the parachute’s buckles. Within a few steps, the wind took me and feet left the ground. As I was sucked towards the hole, I curled myself into a tight ball.

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