Frazer Lee - Panic Button

The big TV screen flickered to life behind her, reflected in the mirror. Alligator’s voice boomed out over the speakers, startling her.

“Put the headset on.”

Gwen looked terrified. So that was it, he was going to light the match, burn her death. And it was all her fault.

“Put it on.”

Reaching out fearfully, Gwen placed the headphones over her ears and sat down on the closed lid of the toilet seat. She looked up at the screen, red eyes glazed with tears.

“I can’t do what you told me…” She tried to find the words. “He’s… dead.”

“Yes, I saw that Gwen,” Alligator said without emotion, “but don’t worry, your sister has a fighting chance. You are being reassigned.”

Gwen bowed her head as Alligator continued his instructions.

“Your new target is Max,” he said.

Max stood in the corner of the cabin, over Dave’s lifeless body.

Jo was sitting on the couch near the bar area, staring at the empty seat in front of her, a haunted expression on her face.

“Will you… help me to move him?” Max asked.

Jo blanked him, staring stoically ahead.

“We can’t leave him there. I can’t… look at him.”

Jo glared at him. Now was not a good time for making such demands of her. All she could think of was Sophie and Dawn.

“You saw him. He was going to kill me if he could!”

“And now they’re both dead,” Jo said, “Why just kill her like that with Dave… gone?”

“I don’t know.”

Max sighed, and stepped over Dave’s dead body. He took a wrist in each hand and started dragging him to the front of the plane, but his own shoulder wound forced him to stop. The axe had gone deep and he was still bleeding out.

Gwen emerged from the bathroom. She looked at Jo, then Max, with tear-swollen eyes. Seeing Max struggling, she walked up the aisle, grabbed hold of Dave’s ankles and helped carry him. Dave’s back dragged on the cabin floor slightly leaving a slick of dark blood trailing after his corpse.

With some effort they lifted him a little higher, through the curtain and bundled him into the staff prep area. Gwen stood back, wiping her hands on her skirt absent-mindedly as Max tore down the dividing curtain and placed it gently over Dave like a shroud. As he stood up, Max moaned with pain as his shoulder twinged beneath his bloodstained shirt.

“Let me take a look at that,” Gwen said.

Max covered the wound with the flat of his hand. “Hurts like hell.”

Gwen pulled his hand away from the wound, took it into hers and led him away from Dave’s body.

“Come with me,” she said, pulling him towards the bathroom.

“What are you doing?” Jo asked as they passed her.

“There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom,” Gwen said.

Jo caught a shifty look in Gwen’s eyes. She looked edgier than ever to Jo, as though she were planning something. Gwen was quick to avert her eyes from Jo’s questioning gaze, shutting the door behind her and Max.

Outside, thunder rumbled as the turbulent weather system rolled in around the jet plane.

All alone in the cabin, Jo stared at the bathroom door. She felt she had no idea who the man on the other side of that door was anymore. When they’d first boarded the flight Jo had felt an instant kinship, a bond, with Max. She’d warmed to his gentle nature and apparently easygoing personality. He had seemed relaxed and unperturbed by anything, just living life for the moment. Jo guessed she was attracted to him because that was how she wanted to be in her heart of hearts — relaxed and carefree. If she was honest, she had hoped to get closer to him during the trip, much closer. But now she wasn’t so sure of her instincts. Max had killed Dave in self-defence; she knew that, but what about her attraction to someone who was still, in the eyes of the law, a murderer? Could she have even let someone like him into her life, which was all about control? Her life had to remain that way, a constant, or she’d unravel and be back at square one.

Maybe Max had simply lost his control as events unravelled around them — maybe, as he’d said, Dave wouldn’t have stopped until he’d killed him. And, in the cold light of day, Max was more important to her than Dave. She had to find a way of working with him to find a way out of the nightmare in which they had become ensnared.

Jo looked at the empty bottle of champagne on the floor and the bloodstain next to it where Dave’s lifeless body had been lying. She picked up the bottle, felt its dead weight in her hand, and studied it in quiet contemplation.

Do or die, she thought grimly, it’ll all be over soon, one way or another.

Tap water swirled into the sink as Gwen grabbed the first aid kit from the bathroom cabinet.

“Shirt off.”

Max removed his torn and bloody shirt, grimacing with pain as he lifted it over his shoulders.

“Sit down.”

He sat on the toilet seat lid, wincing.

“Hold still.”

Gwen soaked one of the plush hand towels under the tap and crouched down in front of Max. She started cleaning his wounds as best she could. The axe cut just below his shoulder had bit deep into the tender flesh between his chest and armpit. The bleeding had slowed but hadn’t quite stopped. Gwen took an antiseptic wipe from the first aid kit and pressed it over the wound.

Max groaned through his teeth at the sudden stinging sensation. As it subsided, his body relaxed and Gwen affixed an adhesive bandage over the wipe, which was already staining with fresh blood.

As she worked, she looked Max straight in the eye.

“Do you think we’re all going to die on this plane?”

Max looked back into her eyes. She looked fearful, but resolute.

“I don’t know… maybe… yes.”

As his voice trailed off, Gwen leaned forward between his legs and kissed him full on the lips. Max felt her warm body against his exposed skin, smelled her hair, her perfumed skin.

He broke away, confused.

“What are you doing?”

Gwen kissed him again, harder this time, then moved her lips across his neck and to his ear.

“Please help me…” she whispered.

Her hands were on his belt buckle now, teasing it open. Max breathed sharply as she unhooked his belt.

“If you don’t do this then my sister will die, and I can’t let that happen.”

Max took in the implications of her words and realised what she was asking of him. This was clearly the task Alligator had burdened Gwen with. It made perfect, perverted sense — force the abstainer to betray her moral code. Max’s head pulsed along with his heartbeat as her nimble fingers unzipped his trousers and reached inside.

“Do, or die,” Gwen whispered, her breath hot in his ear.

She lunged at him, kissing him passionately, her tongue finding his. Gwen kissed clumsily but passionately — she meant to do this.

Max gave himself over to her caresses, responding hungrily as all his guilt, frustration and anger turned to lust for the beautiful young woman before him. They hurriedly explored each other’s bodies, their mouths and limbs weaving together.

Loosening her scarf and unbuttoning her blouse, Gwen grabbed the back of Max’s neck as he lifted her up with him into a standing position. She wrapped her legs around him as, half-naked now; they began to grind against each other within the tight confines of the bathroom walls.

Gwen gasped as Max thrust against her. There was a hollow thud as she slammed back into the bathroom wall. She felt as though she was no longer in control of her own body. She opened up to him, inhaling the faint whiff of antiseptic from his dressing as though it were a drug. This is it, thought Gwen, I can do this, and perhaps this is how it was meant to be all along — the ultimate sacrifice .