“Brace for impact.”

Chapter 2

He didn’t say no.

That was the first victory, and at forty-two degrees of bank, I counted it the way a starving woman counts an empty plate — it was nothing, and it was everything.

“It’s simple,” I said, stepping between them, one hand on the throttle console. “You’ve got two engines mounted far enough apart that they can pull against each other. Push the right engine down a touch and bring the left up. The difference between them creates yaw.”

“Yaw,” Delaney repeated, like it was a foreign word.

“Yaw is a small lever,” I said. “It nudges the nose. And a nudge of the nose is the only thing that’s going to push back against this bank, because nothing else on this aircraft answers you anymore.”