Jaime brought the information back toward the front. Karen intercepted her before she could reach Graham. "I told you to prepare the cabin," Karen said sharply. Jaime held the tablet where Karen could see the record.
"His seat is confirmed," she replied. "And there's a service contact we need to call." Karen glanced at the screen and told her it must have been updated after the manifest printed.
"Then that's why we should confirm it," Jaime said. Her voice wavered, but the sentence was audible to nearby passengers. Karen warned her that continued insubordination could be documented in her personnel file. Jaime felt the familiar instinct to retreat. She had seen colleagues reprimanded for contradicting Karen, and she needed the job to pay for rent and her younger brother's college textbooks.
But Jaime had also seen the boy holding his cheek. She thought of her own brother at ten, small and determined, insisting he was old enough to ride his bicycle to school alone. She looked at Caleb again, and the calculation shifted. She told Karen she would follow the captain's instructions and walked past her toward the interphone. It was the first time Jaime had openly contradicted a senior colleague on an aircraft.
Captain Torres spoke to the cabin on the public address system. She explained that a passenger welfare issue required the aircraft to remain at the gate and asked everyone to stay seated unless a crew member instructed otherwise. The announcement was measured, avoiding details that could compromise the investigation. It also meant Karen could no longer claim that the departure depended on moving Caleb to the rear of the plane. The aircraft was not going anywhere until the boy's safety had been addressed.
Graham helped Caleb sit in seat 2A. The boy lifted the torn pieces of Nina's letter from the floor and placed them on his lap. He tried to align the edges and grew frustrated when they would not stay together. Graham asked whether he wanted to put the paper away, but Caleb shook his head. "She wrote that for me," he said. "I don't want to lose any of it."
"We won't lose it," Graham promised. His phone vibrated with an alert from Leila, confirming that the protection team had been reached. He briefly acknowledged the message and asked Jaime for water and a clean cloth for Caleb's cheek. Jaime headed toward the galley to get them. Karen saw the request and stepped into her path.
"Beverage service isn't starting," Karen said. Jaime explained that this was not beverage service. A child who had been hit was asking for water, and she intended to bring him some. Karen insisted that doing so would reward disruptive behavior. Graham stared at her for a moment, wondering whether she could hear herself. Then he told Jaime to follow the captain's instructions, not Karen's anger.