They stopped arguing.
They started conserving energy.
Their bodies chose survival over explanation.
Lena leaned forward.
“Maya, look at me for a second.”
Maya turned slowly.
“I’m here.”
“Are you nauseous?”
“A little.”
“Lightheaded?”
“Yes.”
“Any tightness in your throat?”
“No. Not yet.”
The last two words made Lena’s face harden.
“Not yet is not good enough.”
Clare was at the front of the cabin pouring coffee for Victoria.
The smell drifted back toward Maya, warm and bitter, almost insulting now.
Victoria accepted her cup with both hands and took a slow sip.
“Finally,” Victoria said. “Something normal.”
Samuel Reed heard her and looked away in disgust.
Lena pressed the call button again.
Clare did not come.
Lena pressed it a second time, holding it down longer.
Clare looked up from the galley.
“I see it.”
“Then answer it,” Lena said.
Ethan Cole stepped out instead.
“Miss Ortiz, the call button is for service needs, not harassment.”
Lena held up the glucose meter.
“Her blood sugar is low. She is symptomatic, and she has not received the meal your airline confirmed. That is a service need.”
Ethan looked at Maya.
“Miss Williams has already been offered alternatives.”
“Unsafe alternatives.”
“That is your opinion.”
“It is my medical assessment.”
“You are not the medical authority on this aircraft.”
Lena stood as far as her seat belt allowed.
“Then who is? The flight attendant who threw away her coffee? The supervisor writing a false report? The passenger eating the tray with her name on it?”
A few passengers murmured.
Ethan’s eyes moved over them, taking inventory of who might become a problem.
Clare came down the aisle holding a small basket.
“We have a snack option.”
Lena glanced at it and immediately said, “Stop.”
Clare ignored her and placed a small packet on Maya’s tray table.
Peanuts.
For a moment, Maya only looked at the packet.
It was blue.
Sealed.
Ordinary.
The kind of thing handed out on airplanes without thought.
But after everything she had said, after the email, after the label, after Lena’s warning, the packet looked deliberate.
Maya lifted her eyes.
“I told you I can’t have peanuts.”
Clare folded her arms.
“Then don’t eat them.”
Lena’s voice rose.
“Are you serious? She told you she has allergies.”
Clare snapped back.
“First class only has this left. Eat it or don’t.”
The older woman across the aisle gasped.
Her husband whispered her name, but she shook him off.
“That is cruel,” the woman said.
Clare turned on her.
“Ma’am, I need you to stay out of this.”
“No,” the woman said, surprising even herself. “I have stayed out of it long enough.”