“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!”
Dimly she heard Justice on the radio, calling out the distress signal, their plane designation, and current location, then he cursed viciously and fell silent as he fought the inevitable. The plane dropped suddenly, a move that sent her stomach climbing into her throat, and she squeezed her eyes shut so she couldn’t see the rocky peaks rushing at them. Then the left wing rose as the right one dipped and they rolled to the right, a nauseating maneuver that made her swallow convulsively. A few seconds later the right wing rose and for a brief—very brief—time they were level. Then the left wing dipped and they swung to the left.
Her eyes popped open. For a moment she couldn’t focus on anything; her vision was narrowed, dim, and her chest hurt. Distantly she realized she was holding her breath, and with an effort she exhaled, then sucked in oxygen. Another breath, and her vision cleared a little, enough to let her see him. He was all she could see, as if his image were magnified and everything else remained lost in the fog. She could see his right jaw, see the clenched muscles working, the sheen of sweat, even the curl of his eyelashes and the faint shadow of newly shaved whiskers.
An agonized thought shot through her brain: he was the last person she would see! She caught another breath, pulling it deep. She would die with him, this man who didn’t even like her; a person should at least die with someone around who cared. The same could be said of him, though, and she felt a deep sadness for both of them. He was…he was…The thought splintered, her attention caught. What the hell was he doing? Realization dawned, sharp and incredulous. He was guiding the plane, with the rudder and skill and ruthless determination, and also every prayer he knew, probably. The engine was dead, but he was still flying the damn plane, somehow keeping it under rudimentary control.
“Hold on,” he said harshly. “I’m trying to get down to the tree line, but we might not make it.”
Bailey’s brain felt like sludge, barely able to move, to function. Tree line? What did that matter? But she shook off the terror-induced brain fog enough to pull her seat belt tighter, press her head against the back of the leather seat, and hold on tight to the sides of the bottom cushion.
She squeezed her eyes shut to block out the sight of oncoming death, but she could feel the plane tilt first one way, then the other. Thermals, she thought, the single word swimming into focus. He was using the movement of the air currents to give them some lift, buy them precious seconds. The plane was too heavy to function like a glider, but the layers of air were slowing their descent somewhat; whether it would be enough to make a difference, she didn’t know, but Captain Justice must have something in mind, mustn’t he? Why else would he be fighting so hard to control the plane? If the end result was the same, then why bother?
With a sense of doom she waited for the overwhelming crush of impact, the last split-second of awareness. She hoped dying wouldn’t hurt much. She hoped their bodies were found fast, so her family wouldn’t suffer through a long search. She wished…she wished for a lot of things, none of which would happen now.
She felt as if an hour had passed since the engine stopped, though logically she knew mere minutes had gone by…no, not even minutes. Less than a minute, surely, though that minute seemed endless.
What was taking this damn plane so long to crash?
Him. Justice. He was the reason this was dragging out. He was still fighting the laws of gravity, refusing to give in. She felt an irrational urge to punch him, to say “Stop prolonging this!” How much terror was she supposed to take before her heart gave out under the strain? Not that it made any difference, under the circumstances—
WHAP!
The jolt jarred her teeth; it was followed instantaneously by a horrendous, deafening roar of screeching metal and thunderous cracks, more of those weird whapping sounds, and an impact so hard everything went black. The seat’s shoulder strap jerked almost unbearably tight. On some level she was aware of tilting to the right, then dropping, falling; the seat belt held her in place though her arms and legs were flopping like those of a broken doll. Then the right side of her head cracked against something rigid, and she was swallowed by darkness.
BAILEY COUGHED.
Her brain faintly registered the involuntary response. Something was wrong; she wasn’t getting enough oxygen. She felt a vague sense of alarm and tried to move, tried to get up, but neither her legs nor arms worked. She concentrated, hard, her entire being focused on moving, but the effort was too much and she drifted back down into nothingness.
The next time she surfaced, she struggled and concentrated and was finally able to twitch the fingers of her left hand.
At first she was aware only of small things, immediate things: how hard it was to move, how her right arm felt as if something was cutting into it, the need to cough again. Saturating all of those small things was pain, insistent and unwavering. Her entire body hurt, as if she’d fallen—
Falling. Yes. She’d been falling. That was it. She remembered hitting—
No. The plane…the plane had crashed.
Realization filled her, a realization mixed with both wonder and trepidation. The plane had crashed, but she was alive. She was alive!
She didn’t want to open her eyes, didn’t want to see the extent of her injuries. If she was missing any body parts she didn’t want to know about it. If she was, she would die anyway, of shock and blood loss, on this isolated mountaintop both miles and hours from any possible rescue. She wanted to just lie there with her eyes closed and let whatever would happen, happen. Everything hurt so much she couldn’t imagine moving and risking pain that was more intense.
But it was annoying, the way something was interfering with her breathing, and her right arm really hurt where something sharp was digging into it. She needed to move, she needed to get away from the wreckage. Fire. There was always the danger of a fire in a plane crash, wasn’t there? She had to move.
Groaning, she opened her eyes. At first she couldn’t focus; all she could see was a brownish blur. She kept blinking, and finally the blur became some sort of fabric. Silk. It was her silk jacket, covering most of her head. Laboriously she lifted her left arm and swiped at the jacket, managing to drag it away from her eyes. Pieces of glass made small tinkling sounds as the motion dislodged them.
Okay. Her left arm worked. That was good.
She tried to push herself upright, but something was wrong. Nothing was where it should be. She made a few more feeble, futile efforts to sit up, then made a low sound of frustration. Instead of struggling like a worm on a hook, she needed to take stock of the situation, see exactly what she was dealing with.
Concentrating was difficult, but she had to focus. Taking deep breaths, she looked around, trying to make sense of what she saw. Mist, trees, occasional glimpses of blue sky. She saw her own feet, the left one sans shoe. Where was her other shoe? Then, like a bolt of lightning, another thought shot through her brain. Captain Justice! Where was he? She lifted her head as much as possible, and immediately saw him. He was slumped in his seat, his head dropped forward. She couldn’t make out his features; they were covered by what looked like a sea of blood.
Urgently she tried to surge upright, only to fall back once more. Her position confused her. She was lying on the floor of the cabin—no, that wasn’t right. Fiercely she concentrated, forcing her brain to make the adjustment from what it expected to the reality of her position, and abruptly things made sense. She was still buckled in her seat, and she was lying against the right side of the plane, which was resting at a fairly sharp angle. She couldn’t sit up because she needed to haul herself up and to the left, and she couldn’t do that unless she could use both arms, but her right arm was trapped and she couldn’t free it unless she first got her weight off it.
If Justice wasn’t already dead, he soon would be if she didn’t get in a position to help him. Get out of the seat. That’s what she needed to do. With her left hand she fumbled for the seat belt, popped the clasp open. When t
he belt released, her lower body rolled off the seat and dropped with a painful thud that made her groan again, but she was still tangled in the shoulder strap. She struggled free of it, and managed to get to her knees.
No wonder her right arm had felt as if something was cutting into it: something was. A triangular shard of metal protruded from her triceps. Feeling irrationally insulted by the injury, she jerked the shard out and threw it away, then scrambled forward until she could reach Justice. The angle at which the plane was resting made balance difficult even if she hadn’t been woozy and dealing with her own aches and injuries, but she braced her right foot against the side of the plane and hauled herself up so she could reach the scant space between the two pilots’ seats.
Oh, God, there was so much blood. Was he dead? He’d fought so hard to bring the plane down at a survivable angle, she couldn’t bear it if he’d saved her life and died in the attempt. Her hand shaking, she reached out and touched his neck, but her body was too outraged by the abuse it had taken to stop trembling and she couldn’t tell if he had a pulse or not. “You can’t be dead,” she whispered desperately, holding her hand under his nose to see if she could feel his breath. She thought she did, and stared hard at his chest. Finally she saw the up-and-down movement, and the relief that swamped her was so acute she almost burst into tears.
He was still alive, but unconscious, and injured. What should she do? Should she move him? What if he had spinal injuries? But what if she did nothing, and he bled to death?
She leaned her aching head against the side of his seat, just for a moment. Think, Bailey! she commanded herself. She had to do something. She had to deal with what she knew was wrong with him, not what might be wrong, and she knew for a fact he was losing a lot of blood. So, first things first: stop the bleeding.
She looked up, searching for something to hold on to while she clambered forward into the cockpit, but nothing, literally, was there. The left wing and most of the fuselage on that side were just gone, ripped away as if a giant can opener had opened up the aircraft. There was nothing to grasp except the razor-sharp edges of mangled metal. Part of a broken tree limb stuck through the gaping hole.
There was nothing else to use, so she gripped the top edge of Justice’s seat and pulled herself up, slithering between what was left of the roof and the top of the copilot’s seat. The best position she could get in was a crouch, with her feet braced against the right door. “Justice,” she said, because she’d read somewhere that unconscious people sometimes could still hear and respond a little to their names. Whether or not that was true, she didn’t know, but what could it hurt?
“Justice!” she said again, more insistently, as she grasped his shoulders and tried to pull him upright. It was like pulling on a log. His head lolled to the side, blood dripping from his nose and chin.
Pulling on him wasn’t going to work. His seat belt was holding him in place, but she was working against gravity. She needed to release the belt and get him out of the seat, try to get him out of the plane.
Like she had, he would fall out of the seat as soon as the belt was released, but it was a small plane; the distance was a couple of feet, at best. Still, the fuselage had been crushed inward on the copilot’s side, and a tree branch had punctured all the way through the metal skin like a wooden stake through a vampire’s heart. The sharp end of the tree branch was angled toward the back, rather than pointing upward, but she didn’t want to take the chance he might be impaled, so she looked around for something to put over the branch.
The first thing she thought of was her tote bag, but she didn’t see it. It had been lying on the left side of the bench seat, so it may have gone flying when that side of the plane was torn open. All that was available was her bedraggled, bloodstained silk jacket. Twisting around, grunting with the effort, she managed to grasp one sleeve and drag it to her. The garment was thin, almost weightless. Silk was strong, but what she needed in this situation was bulk to cover the sharp end of a tree branch, not tensile strength.
Inspiration struck. Swiftly she bent forward and removed her remaining shoe, a very expensive designer loafer, and jammed it over the jagged point of wood. Then she folded her jacket and placed it over the tree branch, as a bit of extra padding.
“Okay, Justice, let’s get you out of this seat,” she said gently. “Then I’ll see about getting you out of the plane, but first things first. When I undo your seat belt you’re going to fall a little ways, just a foot or so. Ready?” He’d probably fall on her, given the severely limited space, and then she’d be pinned with no wiggle-room for escape. She was in a really bad position. Sighing, she crawled over the top of the seat into the back again.
A low moan sounded deep in his throat.
She jumped, so startled by the sound she almost screamed. “Oh, thank God,” she whispered to herself as she scrambled into an upright position. In a slightly louder than normal voice she called his name again. “Justice! Wake up if you can. I can’t get you out of the plane by myself; you need to help me if you can. I’m undoing the seat belt now, okay?” As she talked she reached up and around, searching for the release, sliding her fingers along the woven fabric of the belt until she found the metal. A quick flip of the catch, and he dropped out of the shoulder restraint like a rock, onto his right side with his head and shoulders resting on the floor, his long legs still draped over the console and tangled with the controls.
“Damn it!” she groaned. This position wasn’t any better; his back was to her, and she still couldn’t see much of his bloody face. Nor was there room for her to wedge herself in front of him to see where all the blood was coming from.
Bailey took a few more deep breaths, wondering how she was going to manage this. The air she sucked in was cold, and sharp with the scent of evergreens. The effect was almost like a slap in the face. Once again she took stock of their situation. She couldn’t drag him up—he was far too heavy, and the slope of the plane was too severe. On the other hand, if she could get the copilot’s door open, then she could pull him out through it. Examining the protruding tree branch, she saw that it had actually entered the cabin in front of the door’s hinge, so the branch wasn’t an impediment. But the way the plane was tilted, the door might be blocked. She peered at the tinted windows on the right side, which were so badly scratched she could barely see through them, much less tell if anything was blocking the door.
The copilot’s window was hinged. If she could push it open—Action followed hard on the heels of the thought, but the frame was buckled just enough that the window hinge didn’t work, and she couldn’t get herself braced to apply any leverage to it. In frustration she lifted her fist and used the side of it to pound the window, which accomplished nothing except making her hand hurt.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it!” She blew out a frustrated breath. If she couldn’t open the window, she likely wouldn’t be able to open the door. “On the other hand,” she said out loud to herself, “why am I wasting time with the window when I need the door open?” If she could open the door, she wouldn’t need to open the window.
She felt as if she were missing several obvious points, that her brain was working at only half speed, but she was doing the best she could under the circumstances. Her entire body felt as if she’d been severely beaten, her head ached, and her arm was bleeding. She would think of things when she thought of them, and anyone who didn’t like it could take a hike.
Take a hike. Very funny. Ha ha. And there was no one here to like or not like her decisions—other than Justice, and he was in no condition to comment—so her little pity party was wasted.
Legs. Legs were much stronger than arms, and she was stronger than most women thanks to all those hours of working out. She could lift four hundred pounds with these legs. She wasn’t a weakling, and she shouldn’t think like one. If the door was stuck, maybe she could push it open with her legs.
Justice’s tall body was in the way, but she thought she could get some leverage. Before she w
ent to all that trouble, though, she leaned around and tugged on the handle to see if the latch would release. She felt resistance, like metal scraping on metal, but she’d expected that and tugged harder. Finally the latch gave, but the door didn’t open. Again, not surprising.
She had to find some way to hold the handle in the release position, or she’d never be able to kick the door open. There was nothing to tie it to, assuming she had anything to tie it with, which she didn’t. She’d have to jam something under it, and at the moment she was woefully short of jamming material, too.
Maybe there was something under one of the seats. People stuck things under seats all the time. Stretching, she patted around under each seat. Nothing.
Maybe a sock would do. Peeling off one of her thin trouser socks, she twisted it into a rope and looped it around the handle, twisting again to hold it secure. Squirming around, she folded herself into the copilot’s seat in as tight a tuck as she could manage and braced both feet against the door. The position was incredibly awkward, but using the sock to hold the handle gave her a precious few inches. Straining her shoulder and arm, she pulled up on the sock, once again feeling the protesting metal as it gave. With her other hand she gripped the forward edge of the seat so she wouldn’t simply shove herself backward, accomplishing nothing. “Please,” she whispered, and slowly began pushing. Her thigh muscles tightened; the smaller muscles around her knees turned rock hard as she exerted pressure on them. Her fingers, digging into the edge of the seat, began to protest, and then to slip. Furiously she hung on, and with a final effort did everything she could to straighten her legs.