Brian’s abductor looked almost pained at the sight of him. He spoke.

“Now, if I take this off, you’re not gonna start yelling again, are you?”

Brian shook his head.

The man exhaled through his nose and ripped the gunk off, letting the silence hang in the air, tangible, to see what Brian was going to do.

Brian sat.

The man sat. “So,” he began, replacing the putty in the canister in his back pocket, “it seems we never got off on the best of terms.”

“You kidnapped me.”

The man was silent for a few minutes. “If I had left you, you would have died as soon as the plane hit the ground. Those men you saw were terrorists. Al-Qaeda. Had you survived, you would’ve been hearing that name for months more after the crash. So really, I had to take you. Plus, it’s regulation.”

Brian was silent for a longer time. He tried to digest this, couldn’t. ”...Does that mean…Kelsey?”

“Sister?”

A nod.

“On the plane?”

A slower, sicker nod.

”...Most likely.”