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I tapped Booker’s arm. “Gunn’s on his way down. Sit tight.”
“Okay, I’ll just wait here then.” Booker cracked a crooked smile.
I shuffled into the back.
“You guys had any trouble?” I asked Wyatt.
“Just a few monkeys checking us out. What about you?”
I shook my head. “We’ve been through hell. Wasn’t sure we’d make it in time.”
“I knew you would. You’ve never let us down before.”
Frowning, I nodded at him. “Thanks. I’ve got one hell of a story to tell you guys, though.”
Gunn lowered down on the winch, and we pulled him into the wrecked chopper. As he unhooked the winch, he whistled. “Holy hell, you guys sure know how to make a mess of things.”
He shook Wyatt’s hand and shuffled toward Booker.
I explained to Wyatt my plan to use the winch to pry away the metal pinning Booker’s legs in the cockpit.
He nodded. “Sounds good. I’ve been trying to shift that metal since you left, and the only way it will budge is if you lift it from the outside.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do.” I grabbed the winch. “I’ll crawl over the outside. You guys work inside and hook this on when I pass it through to you.”
Wyatt nodded. “Roger that. Don’t fall off. I hear it’s a long way to the bottom.”
I chuckled. It was still hard to believe Layla survived the fall.
As I climbed out the chopper, the giant trees surrounding the wreck shuddered with the downdraft from the chopper hovering overhead.
The angle of the wreck meant every movement I made over the outside was a battle against gravity. Thankfully, none of the chopper blades had remained intact during the crash, so I was able to crawl across the roof to the cockpit.
Gripping onto the edge of the shattered windshield, I leaned inside. “Find a section of metal to hook this on.”
I fed the winch hook through to Wyatt.
As Wyatt secured the hook to the metal pinning Booker's legs, I studied his position. He was still strapped into the pilot seat. He’d spent the last twenty hours in that position, facing toward the jungle floor below. When we unpinned his legs from the wreck, there was a good chance he would be too stiff to move.
Gunn nodded at me. “Hook is ready.”
Fearing the winch would come free and rip my bloody head off, I eased back and braced myself against the giant tree that had halted the chopper’s plummet to the ground.
I glanced up at Xavier through the glass in the cockpit floor of the chopper above us. “Okay, Xavier, pull the winch up, slow and steady.”
“Roger that.”
The downdraft hit us like we were inside a tornado.
And the roaring engine above us obliterated all sound. Yet as the winch started to pull, metal screeched loud enough to hear over the noise.
Come on. Come on.
The metal slowly gave way, buckling and crumbling as the hook peeled a slab off Booker.
A loud metallic twang echoed about the bushes and the entire wreck jolted downward.
“Fuck!” I gripped a branch as thick as my thigh.