He tore the yellow legal pad out of his flight jacket. Six columns. Six fears. He folded the paper into a paper airplane and launched it into the desert wind.
Wince.
"Negative, Mira," he said, his voice calm. "I'm going to ride it." wince 6
When he landed, Mira met him on the tarmac. Her face was pale. "What happened up there?"
Elias never used to count the winces.
Mach 2. Smooth. Mach 3. A vibration hummed through the airframe. Mach 4. The stick began to chatter.
Wince 6.
But Elias didn't move. Because in that frozen second of terror, he realized something. Wince 6 wasn't a failure. It was the sum total of all the times he had survived . His body wasn't betraying him. It was trying to save him from a ghost.