“Keep it level, Malachi,” I said, placing my hand on his shoulder. “Just like your father showed you.”

“My dad never showed me how to fly a Triple Seven in a storm, Grace,” Malachi said, his eyes locked on the tiny glowing artificial horizon.

The wind began to howl against the windshield, a high-pitched scream that grew louder by the second.

The rain started, hitting the glass like handfuls of gravel thrown by a violent hand.

Down on the floor, Thorne let out a low, dry chuckle.

“The storm will do the rest of the work,” the doctor said from the dark galley floor.

Gerald kicked the doctor’s shoe. “Shut up.”

The standby airspeed indicator began to fluctuate, the needle bouncing between two hundred and eighty and three hundred knots.

“We need to climb or descend to get out of the clouds,” Malachi said, his voice cracking with the onset of puberty and fear.

“Which one is safer?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Malachi said. “If I go down, we might hit the ocean. If I go up, we might stall.”