Chapter 1: The Turbulence of Strangers
The air inside the cabin felt heavy, recycled, and almost impossible to breathe. I gripped the armrests of seat 12B until my knuckles turned ghostly white. Beside me, my fourteen-month-old daughter, Lily, released a rough, wheezing cough that pierced straight through my heart.
It was meant to be a simple flight to Chicago. An escape. A chance to breathe after the suffocating end of my four-year marriage to Ryan. But the sky had different plans. The aircraft shook violently as we hit another stretch of severe turbulence. The seatbelt sign chimed, adding an almost mocking note to the chaos.
Then there was the man in the aisle.
He carried a camera. Not a phone, but a professional DSLR with an enormous lens, and he was hovering three rows ahead, deliberately aiming it toward the window seat beside me. At first, I assumed he was simply an inconsiderate passenger documenting the frightening flight, but his attention was completely focused on the man sitting in 12A.
The man next to me had been completely silent since boarding. He wore a plain black sweater, his jaw locked into a firm, unreadable line. I had barely noticed him because all of my attention was on Lily. Her asthma, normally manageable, was worsening beneath the strain of the altitude and the violent movement of the aircraft. She was panicking, her tiny hands pulling desperately at her collar.
