The people who were surrounding us, who heard me screaming that to him, all retracted their legs, since they were doing the same. Even Elena who was a bit under us and heard me, did that, since she also had her legs like that. It's instinctive.
Dragan's breathing against me grew more exasperated, as he began to curse in Dutch, English, and French, scared. "I'm here. It's fine. You are fine. We got this," he helped me before, it's my turn to help him. And the second my headphones flew from his neck, my reflex acted faster and I grabbed it with my right hand, then I grabbed the right riser again, making sure my headphone wasn't going to fly again.
Guess his parachute held it on him before. I'll ignore the fact that Dragan's head is against my breasts this whole time, because a kid can have a dream moment in this whole near-death situation. At least I smell good.
"Feet and knees together. Knees slightly bent. The balls of your feet to the ground. Don't land standing, you will get hurt," I screamed at Keith and everyone around who could hear me, once in English, another time in Dutch. "Don't fall on your back either, if you don't want to fucking die like Gwen Stacy did!" I screamed again, and to my dismay, Dragan laughed against my chest.
"It's not the best time for a Spiderman reference, Zee."
"Couldn't help it!" I told him in Dutch. After a second, I swallowed. "Here we go!" I screamed and got into position for the landing. Uncle and Cecylia had already landed a bit far from me, and Elena was landing with Yury in her arms, as I finally touch the ground with Dragan in my arms and he let out a little squeak. On my side, I could tell when Keith landed too.
Cursing under my breath, I felt tears rolling down my eyes, my heart skyrocketing, "Your heart is going insane, Zee," Dragan cried. "Calm down, I don't want you to die like dad did."
His words made me cry more and I struggled to breath, to speak, "I won't… I'm good… we are good…" Then I hugged him tight against me, still holding my headphones in one hand. "We are alive. Alive."
"Dragan, my baby!" Elena screamed. "Zofya! Where are you?"
Pushing the chute from us, I felt the rain falling around us and I quickly put my headphones around my neck, under my hoodie that was still on me. Then I began to take the equipment from us, feeling my legs wanting to give up, but I held it, then I put Dragan on the ground. "We are here!"
Before I could register Elena running to hug her son, in tears, I was surprised by uncle Krystian and Cecylia who grabbed and hugged me at the same time, and though it was hard to register everything, I could tell they were crying.
"What took you so fucking long?" Lia yelled, in tears.
"I was avoiding depressed boy from killing himself," I hugged her.
"How could you think of anyone else in that damn moment?" Uncle yelled exasperated, "You got us desperate when we looked back and you weren't behind you. I thought I was going to have a heart attack, Zofya. Fuck, don't do that ever again!"
"Oh, I definitely don't plan on ever going through a plane wrack in my life," I groaned, then I let out a scream. "I can't believe our plane fell."
"It didn't fell!" Keith yelled at me, and I noticed how he was taller than me now, all in black, pale skin, curly golden hair, forest green eyes. "Don't make it worse than it was."
Throwing all of my things on the ground, I pushed Cecylia away with uncle and walked to where he was, then, I punched his left eye, nose, grabbed his shoulders and kneeled his ribs, and he fall down on his knees, whining in pain. "Not yet," I kicked him twice on the belly, then I drew a deep breath and punched his right eye. "Now I feel better," I grabbed him by his hair and forced him to look at me, pushing my hoodie aside so he could take a look at my face. "This was for what you did back there, you lil piece of shit."
"Fuck," he groaned. "Did you save my life just to beat me up?"
"Yes?" I said matter-of-factly and he laughed. "Are you insane?"
"I deserved it, but fuck it hurts," he touched his face with his hands. "Thank you, Zofya," he finally spoke in Dutch, "for saving my life. For snapping me out of it when I was panicking, and for beating some sense into my mind."
I arched my eyebrows, "You are a bloody jerk, depressed boy."
"I am, yes," he chuckled self-deprecatingly. "How old are you?"
"17, tomorrow," but before I could say anything else, I saw the pilot and co-pilot and the flight attendants all landing. "EVERYBODY RUN AWAY FROM THE PLANE!" I screamed at the top of my lungs and the ones who had landed first, began to run away from the reach of the plane that was falling down on fire from the sky and was definitely going to explode as soon as it got to the ground, and kill everyone who's near it, given how they were all oblivious with the rush of the fall from the plane.
I found myself grabbing Keith and running back too, but this time, he was the one to help me, he grabbed me, put me on his shoulders and ran fast with his long legs. "I'm 19!" He told me in Dutch this time and I held my headphones that almost flew away from me again.
Not even a minute after that, the plane fell down on the French plain territory we are in, exploding in fire, and throwing everyone down with the force of the explosion, and Keith hugged me as we were thrown on the ground, turning around quickly enough to take the fall in my place, but it didn't make it less impactful for any of us.
"I told you the plane fell!" I snapped at him.
"Zofya!" Elena, Cecylia, uncle, and Dragan screamed for me.
I sat down over Keith, pining him down on the ground and turned to them, "I'm fine," I yelled. "Depressed boy saved me back," then I turned my eyes to him, only to find his pale skin blushing. "Don't even think about having a crush on me," I gasped.
"Too late," he swallowed and I jumped away from him.
"I have a boyfriend!" I gasped and ran to Cecylia and uncle, who hugged me again. "I'm okay."
"I can't believe this is happening," Cecylia cried, freaking out. "We high jacked from a fucking plane, and then the plane exploded," she cried and uncle hugged her.
"Thank Lord our things are safe in the other plans," I joked. "Let's hope that plane doesn't fall too, then I'll be mad."
"Zofya!" Uncle and Elena growled at me.
"Sorry," I chuckled anxiously and turned to Elena. "Is little Yury okay, Elle?" She nodded, holding him. "How about you, lil dragon?"
Dragan ran to me and wrapped his arms around me in response, "You saved my life, Zee. I wouldn't have been able to do that without you. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. Thank you for coming to our plane. We could be dead if it wasn't for you!"
"I'll be forever in debt with you for saving my son," Elena cried.
"Hey, hey," I hugged him back, "it's okay. We are okay, yeah? And Elle, you don't owe me anything. I would have done that even if you hadn't asked me to. I'm glad you are all safe, that we survived."
"Are you all family?" Keith asked me, coming closer, looking shy.
I glared at him, "My sister, my godfather," I pointed to Cecylia and uncle Krystian, "the friend I made in Zurich, and her two sons."
"How long have you been friends for?" He blinked surprised.
"Almost a day," I said bluntly. "What do you want now, depressed boy? Are you alone? Did you came alone in the plane?"
He tensed up, eyes darkening, "I'm all alone now," he swallowed. "My father was from Venice, Italy, he died when my mom was about to give birth to me, so I took her last name. She lived in New York, so I was born and raised there, but her family is from Warsaw, Poland. They were both only children, my dad's parents died when I was 14, and mom's died 8 months ago. She died 5 months ago from a train accident in New York. All of her family's inheritance from Poland went to her, and now to me."
So, he's fully alone and has no family alive. Shit.
"Don't expect me to bleed my entire life for you," I mocked him and grabbed his arms, making him join us. "Fine, I'll let you stay with us. They are all going to spend the holidays in my villa in Poland, you can join us, so you won't kill yourself all alone in your maternal family's home in there. I didn't save you so you could kill yourself right now."
"Zofya!" Uncle gasped.
"What?" I scoffed mockingly.
Keith gasped, "Are you serious?"
"About?" I tilted my head, brows arches.
"About letting me stay with you?" He turned to Cecylia, "Aren't your sister too reckless? I'm a stranger."
I glared at him, "If you try anything funny, I'll murder you then I'll make it look like you killed yourself, yeah? Aren't you depressed? They won't find it weird, and I know how to kill," I winked when both his eyes widened. "So, behave. You will go well with my family, there are single people your age, don't try anything funny with me. My family is huge."
"They don't know we are sisters," Cecylia told him. "I'm just a lil older than her, by a few months, we are the same age basically. My mom, who was her godmother and her parents best friend, cheated on him," she pointed to uncle, "with her father, who's my dad. I look like my mom, she looks like her dad, so people don't know yet."
"When we were around 10, our dad and her mom cheated again and this time got together, at the same time as my mom cheated on my dad, with his sister whom she is now married to. So, yes, fucked up family. All round. A warning that I also gave Elena, my father's family is very incestuous and most of my cousins are married to each other."
"They think we are father and daughter," she told him, pointing at her and then at uncle, "but we ain't blood relations, given the cheating. And we are together," and to that, uncle passed an arm on her waist, as a silent warning to Keith.
He raised his hands in peace, "All fine with me, I'm interested in her, don't worry," he pointed at me and they all giggle.
"She is mine," Dragan exclaimed hugging me.
Elena rolled her eyes, laughing, "Zofya is already dating."
"A kid?" Keith frowned.
"No. I'm dating someone older than both me and you," I glared at him. "Lil dragon just has a inoffensive crush on me. Even if I wasn't dating, I'm not into blondes, depressed boy."
"I can dye my hair," he grinned.
"You ain't nothing close to her boyfriend, boy," uncle giggled.
"If he's older than me," Keith frowned, "and I'm 3 years older than you, since I'll turn 20 on December 30th, and you will turn 17 tomorrow, does that mean your boyfriend dates you even though you're a minor?"
"I'm not a minor, I've been emancipated for a year," I began to pick my things from the ground, taking advantage that the rain was stopping and go north, the plane still burning far from us. "And he didn't know, yeah?"
"He didn't know?" Both Keith and Elena gasped.
"No. I used my fake ID when I met him, he thinks I'm 21," I could not help laughing anxiously. "And he thought my name was… well, Dakota Wiktoria Radwańska. I kind of lied to him, and I went to Switzerland to avoid being in Poland, after leaving him to learn about the truth, because I was too scared of the outcome. But we're dating regardless. I mean, now it's up to him, to keep dating me or not after learning the truth. Oh man, he must be so mad."
"Zofya!" Elena gasped. "Why did you do that?"
"Because I wanted him," I chuckled.