Ricardo looked wary. “You hear something?”
Not insurgents. He hoped not anyway. And there it was, the chopper come to take them away. Only a few minutes late. It was a miracle. A miracle kicking dust into their eyes. They ran to the side, giving the chopper room to land.
That was the only thing that saved them when the first bullet hit the ground.
Under fire. They were under siege.
Had the enemy been waiting for the chopper to land so they could take it?
For a second, the chopper hovered, and Blake was sure it would fly right up again, taking with it any chance of rescue or hope. Ricardo’s little brother.
But then it battered almost gently against the hard packed earth, landing only seconds before the door slid open. A barrel appeared, taking shots near the tree line, providing the cover he and Ricardo needed to make it inside.
“Let’s go,” Blake shouted over the heavy thrum of the propellers. He pushed Ricardo in front of him so he’d cover behind. They both ran.
They reached the door of the chopper. An arm came out to pull them inside.
Blake was already standing in the heavy vibrating machine when he looked back and saw Ricardo crumple to the ground—outside the chopper. “Get up,” he shouted. He didn’t care if it was cruel to drive him like this. They’d leave without him.
Their cover was gone.
“Move,” the man shouted into his headset—telling the pilot to go.
Blake moved to jump out, but the man blocked him. The other man had fifty pounds on him, as well as more nights of sleep in the past 72 hours and more food and water. But Blake had the fucking determination, the certainty that he couldn’t, wouldn’t leave his teammate behind. His last one. The only man left. If there was anyone left behind on this rock, in this oven, it would be him.
A shot hit the chopper—impossible to know where. It rocked the whole machine, and Blake fell off balance. The doors were still open, but tilted up, and Blake was sliding back, falling. Every second took him farther from Ricardo, every second took him one more foot in the air.
“No,” he roared, lunging for the doors. It would almost kill him to make the jump now, but he didn’t care. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t fucking be happening.
The guy caught him by the ankle just as he was almost out of the chopper.
He landed hard on the metal grate. The force of his fall swung the chopper far enough that he could see over the edge: the man sprawled on the ground, wounded. And he could see the other men, closing in now that the chopper was leaving range, surrounding him like a pack of wolves.
“No.” This time it was only a quiet sound, stricken. Too soft to hear over the roar of the bird.
Ricardo’s brother. Ricardo.
Something wasn’t right. The bullet must have struck something vital, because the engine was sputtering now. They were still in the air but shifting sideways. At this height they’d crash. They’d burn.
And then they didn’t have to wait that long. A flare of orange out of the corner of his eye was the only clue the chopper would explode in the split seconds before it did, before flames engulfed him, before the force of the blast threw him from the chopper, and then he was falling, falling out of the sky.
*
“GET UP!”
Blake jerked from sleep, breaths bellowing in and out of his chest, blood racing. His body was covered in sweat and tangled up, constrained. Something warm was beside him, something soft.
He grew still. His eyes closed. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
Of course he’d woken her. He always woke her when he got like this. In fact, she was the one who had to wake him up, because he wouldn’t stop thrashing and screaming. How many years had it been now? He’d come back, put his life together. He’d found Erin. Things were good, but the nightmares wouldn’t stop. Would they ever?
Erin trembled beside him. He could feel her tremors through the mattress they shared. A strip of moonlight fell over her face. Her eyes were wide, lips tight. Fear. She was afraid of him.
His stomach clenched. “What did I do?”
She shook her head, her voice shaking only slightly when she said, “Nothing.”
A lie. “What did I do to you?”
Her hands tightened and released a twisted corner of the sheet. “You were… on me.”
Something inside him went cold. He didn’t want to believe it. But maybe that was just a sign of how fucked up he was, that he wasn’t even surprised. Angry. Furious. At himself. But not even fucking surprised. “I was hurting you?” he asked softly.
“No.” The word came out too forcefully—too false. “Not on purpose. You were… I think you were protecting me. You kept saying to stay down.”
“Jesus.” He shook his head and looked at the wall. Jesus.