Different airplane.

Different everything.

The same universe of dials and the same cold clarity settling over me like water finding its level.

I had promised myself I would never sit in one of these seats again.

I had meant it with my whole heart.

And here I was climbing into one over a storm with a poisoned man being carried out behind me and a killer at the door, and the strangest thing was how right it felt — not good, nothing about that night was good, but right, the way a bone feels when it finally goes back into its socket.

Some of us are built for exactly one thing, and we can run from it for years, and it will still be there waiting the day we stop running, holding our shape.