Chapter 2
Greenlee, however, was not as lucky. Her mind held onto consciousness with an iron grip and she watched, unable to move, as the blue ocean came shooting towards her. She had been in this dream before, she knew, and any second now would she wake up.
The actual fall of the plane took less than ten seconds, but to Greenlee it might as well have been ten hours. She was faintly aware of the screams around her, some people had even gotten up to try and jump out of the plane. The pilot desperately tried to right the plane and slow it down before the now inevitable impact; Greenlee could hear the gears grinding, the ruthless wind ripping at the cabin.
The impact wasn't at all like what she had expected. First of all, Greenlee had expected to wake up, but the roaring thunder in her ears, the sudden force that seemed to shatter every bone in her body told her that this was no dream. Secondly, Greenlee had expected, in the case of it being a real crash, to pass out or die on impact, not to feel the agonizing pressure on her body, hear the roar of the water as it tore apart the plane.
Almost upon contact with the water, the front part of the plane broke off as if it were nothing but a match. The back end of the plane, from where Greenlee was still witnessing this, was catapulted over the front, sending those unfortunate passengers who hadn't buckled up flying into the sea with tremendous force. Water came rushing in almost instantaneously and Greenlee reached up to pull the chord on her life vest, inflating it.
Greenlee, if someone had asked, would not have been able to answer why she did this life-saving action. She wasn't even completely aware of her surroundings; the sounds of metal twisting and tearing were too loud for her to even think. However, later she would realize that this simple action had undoubtedly saved her life and she couldn't have been gladder that her brain for once functioned with precision under duress.
The water rushed against her body, taking her breath and Greenlee knew for sure she was going to die. At last, her body allowed her the comforts of unconsciousness.
And for the first time, right before she passed out, she became aware of the cold hand she was still holding onto.
The silence was eerie. The water was calm as if nothing had ever disturbed its surface. He stood, as well as he could with the pain in his body, on the inflatable slide the plane had come equipped with, looking for other survivors. He doubted they'd find many - the wreckage lay torn to pieces for hundreds of feet. Looking over his shoulder he watched, hopeful, as the dark-haired man on the other end pulled someone onto the raft.
Blake Farrington sighed and turned his eyes back to the mangled cabin in front of him as he ran a shaky hand through his blonde hair. It was by some miracle that he, and Peter Marks as the other man had introduced himself, had not only survived the crash, but had also stayed conscious throughout everything. Blake had worn his life vest and, crouching down low in his seat, had managed to avoid any serious injury. When the plane, or what had been left of it, had stopped, the blonde man had found Peter already detaching the inflatable slide. Soon after they'd began to look for possible survivors.
His heart hammered in his chest, he was sure he wasn't yet over the shock of it all. Blake spotted a yellow life preserver through a partially torn side panel and went to take a closer look. The vest was inflated, meaning the person must have been alive at some point after impact, but he couldn't really get any closer without getting into the water himself.
"Peter," he called, the older man coming over to see what was going on, "I think I found someone."
Blake eased himself into water that was surprisingly warm and sparkling, and then pulled himself into part of the wreck, careful not to slice himself open on some piece of metal. He reached the life vest and took a hold of it, but the body wearing it was still restrained by the seatbelt, so he fumbled to undo it. He pulled the body towards him and if he hadn't been up to his neck in water he surely would've jumped backward.
The girl before him, albeit unconscious, was the spitting image of someone he had spent the past seven years trying to forget. Blake's hands started shaking, harder than before, and he seriously considered just leaving the girl floating here. She looked dead anyway. But then Peter interrupted and Blake winced at the unexpected voice.
"Blake, you got anything? Bring her over."
Suppressing a sigh and the horrible nauseous feeling in his stomach, he tried to pull the girl towards the raft, but felt resistance again. It was then that he realized she was holding onto the hand of the girl next to her, someone that, to Blake, was obviously dead. Blake shuddered at the thought of touching a dead body, but found no way to loosen the dead girl's grip, so he quickly inflated her life vest as well, watching as her lifeless body rose to the top of the water.
He dragged them both, by the life vests, towards and into the raft and climbed back on himself with Peter's help.
"Are they dead?" he asked, not sure whether he wanted the answer to be positive or negative.
He leaned over the first girl and brushed wet strands of hair from her face to get a better look. "Greenlee Smythe," he mumbled to himself, but then shook his head. No, that couldn't be. He hadn't seen her in almost seven years, ever since…he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. No need to get all worked up before he even knew whether it was really her.
"No, very close to it, but I believe you saved them," Peter answered and smiled at him. Blake gave a wavering smile back, still staring at the face of the one person he probably hated most on this planet.
"They've both got several gashes and bruises, but nothing I can really do about that now. It's getting dark and colder, we have to find cover somewhere before we all get serious hypothermia," Peter said, removing the life vests from the two girls Blake had saved and then turned to him.
"See that shape on the horizon?" Blake nodded. "It's some kind of island, I saw it earlier from the window. Maybe if we can make it there, we can find cover and hopefully a way to radio for help."
Blake stared off into the distance, the island seeming too far to reach. But they had no choice. He looked at the few people they'd managed to save, about ten including him and Peter. A girl with very short blonde hair was helping Peter paddle the raft, using pieces of wreckage and two people came towards him, offering their help.
Throwing one last glance at the still unconscious girl that looked so much like Greenlee, he sighed and started paddling himself.
Bianca awoke, not in a warm, comfy bed, but cold, shivering and in pain. She groaned as she shifted, feeling as if her whole body had been through a meat grinder and opened her eyes. It was completely dark and all Bianca could really see were several blinking lights near her. She tried to sit up, but decided against it as her body exploded in pain.
"H-hello?" she managed to croak out, her throat feeling dry and salty.
Then suddenly a face appeared above hers and she shrank back. It was male, but beyond that it was too dark to tell. "Hey, you're alive after all. We were beginning to worry. I'm Blake," came the voice and this time Bianca sat, slowly, but she managed.
"Uh, hey Blake. I'm Bianca. Can you tell me where we are and what the heck happened?" She rubbed a hand across her forehead, wincing when she felt a stinging sensation. She looked at the man in front of her. Through the darkness she could tell that he was young, probably in his mid-twenties and had blonde, short hair.
"Well, we're out in the middle of the ocean after the plane crashed. You don't remember anything?" he asked and Bianca's mind tried fervently to remember anything.
"No, I…last thing I remember is sitting in the plane and there were turbulences and…oh my god," she gasped, suddenly remembering something important, "Where's Greenlee?"
Blake felt his stomach tighten at the name, now having confirmation that his suspicions had been true. He smiled uncomfortably at the girl in front of him, trying not to let his dislike show. After all, it couldn't be her fault that she was friends with someone like Greenlee.
"Ah, who's Greenlee?" he asked, trying to sound innocent.
"My uh…friend," Bianca responded, realizing that in this place Greenlee was as close to a friend as she had, "she was sitting next to me. Oh god, she didn't die, did she?"
Blake wanted to lie, but he couldn't bring himself to. He forced another smile and nodded towards the still lifeless form next to Bianca, "No, she's alive. We figure she must've taken a pretty hard hit in the head, 'cause she hasn't woken up yet."
The dark-haired girl turned to look at her friend, frowning slightly and winced as she ran her fingers lightly along the large gash across Greenlee's face. Blake smiled inwardly. "Yeah," he thought, "she's gonna hate having her pretty little face marred like that. Serves her right." He could've sworn he felt the jagged scar on his back burn just a little.
Maybe there was a reason for all this, he surmised. Maybe God had finally deemed him worthy of revenging what had happened so many years ago. Maybe this plane crash was finally going to be the demise of Greenlee Smythe.
Blake smiled at the revelation.
The sand felt cool and, most importantly, sturdy under her feet. On shaky legs she walked up the beach a little ways, towards a big rock near the edge of the forest that seemed to cover most of the small island. Bianca sank into the sand next to the rock and breathed a sigh of relief. She watched as the men and the shorthaired woman worked to cut the raft into something like a canopy. The tall, muscular guy known as Peter came walking towards her, carrying the still unconscious body of Greenlee and laid her on the sand next to Bianca.
"Do you really think she'll be okay?" Bianca asked, worried that the older girl hadn't shown any signs of life beyond breathing and a pulse.
"There's no way to tell, really. With a possible head injury she should've never been moved, but it's not like we had a choice," Peter answered and stared at the unconscious body.
"I think that gash needs stitches, too," Bianca mumbled, sighing as Peter told her they had no first-aid supplies whatsoever. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"No, not really. I think we have the canopy thing under control for now. How about you and the rest of the women can clean up some and maybe find some firewood around here. Some fruits or even fish if you can," Peter answered, nodded towards her and went to join the group of men.
Bianca scowled at the way he had made it sound as if women weren't useful for anything but food and looked to her sides at the other women that had survived the crash. Directly on her right was a girl about her age, with long dark hair and very dark eyes. The girl's name was Turtle, Bianca remembered because she had thought it was very weird. Next to Turtle was a woman in her early forties probably, with dirty blonde hair, who had introduced herself as Rachel. Lastly was a thirty-something redhead with horn-rimmed glasses that she seemed to have to adjust every ten seconds. Bianca looked at the woman, who was tall and skinny, wondering why she looked so familiar.
"Amelia Herzog. Reporter for The Intruder," the woman smiled cheerfully at everyone, shaking hands and Bianca groaned. The woman looked at her, her eyes lingering on the brunette girl as if to tell her that she knew who Bianca was. "Who's your friend?" Amelia asked, trying to get a better look at Greenlee's body that Bianca was shielding.
"Nobody," the brunette said behind clenched teeth and moved over just a little to prohibit the woman from seeing her friend. Reporters were bad enough when one was conscious, but she couldn't even imagine what the reporter might do if she found an unconscious Greenlee Smythe.
Amelia was about to protest, but grudgingly followed Rachel as she suggested going to find that wood. They left Bianca and Turtle behind, to "stand watch" and the brunette shook her head in disbelief. Just ten hours ago her life had seemed so simple and now…now she was stuck on what seemed to be a deserted island with a bunch of strangers and Greenlee, of all people.
"You and her, you're an item," Turtle's voice catapulted her out of her thoughts and Bianca scoffed as the girl pointed to her and Greenlee.
"I don't think so. Where'd you come up with that idea?" She didn't want to be hostile, but it wasn't often that someone blatantly told her such crap.
"I'm psychic," the girl told her and Bianca laughed.
"Yeah? Don't quit your day job. Stay here, I'm gonna go find some water," the brunette said as she got up, shaking her head at the absurdity of what Turtle had told her all the way down to the beach.
To be continued?