Summary:

“Oh shit.”

Shane looked up, turned his head to where J.J. was sat across the aisle. The blue glow of his phone lit up the too-wide whites of his eyes staring down intently at whatever was on his screen. Shane’s stomach lurched again, anticipating a sudden stop his body hadn’t quite caught up to yet.

“The Centaurs’ plane crashed in Tampa.”

There was a moment where everything was still moving, where Shane and the world were still spinning at the same speed they both always had, and then it all came crashing down. Shane wasn’t sure whether it was him that had stopped, or the world around him, but either way, in a matter of seconds the distance between himself and the bus he had only a moment ago been sitting in became staggeringly, dizzyingly vast.

 

The Centaur's emergency landing plays out a little bit worse, and Shane is left with the harsh reality of the cost of loving Ilya in secret.