Page 52 of Kai (Alpha Heroes #13)
Cece
The deafening roar of a powerful engine obliterated my thoughts.
My heart shot up to my throat, and my knees quaked as Kai and I looked out the windows.
The chuff of the blades cutting into the air preceded the appearance of the flying beast as it rose over the ridge, casting a sinister shadow over the cove’s clear waters and etching the ripples that rolled beneath Serenity .
I couldn’t hear Bellator’s voice over the ruckus, but I caught sight of the announcement that flashed on one monitor in huge red caps. “Missile loaded.”
Kai stared up at the infernal machine now hovering over the tall cliffs. It drifted closer and closer to us, a black and fiery death coming for us. A brief metallic hiss swooshed in the air.
“Fox,” the captions blared on the screen.
I clung to Kai, tucked my head against his shoulder, and shut my eyes.
Goodbye, Thena, Missy, Affie, Dash. I love you.
Nix, I’m coming, and I’m bringing Kai with me.
I had a spare second to thank the universe for gifting me a few days of bliss with Kai.
However short our time together had been, it’d changed me for good.
Kai’s hold tightened around my shoulders. He muttered something, but the helicopter was too close for me to hear him. I counted down the seconds. Three. Two. One…
The clatter of the helicopter ebbed until I could almost hear myself think again. I opened one eye first, then the other. I found Kai staring at the screen.
“Bellator,” he demanded, his face blank. “Sitrep.”
“Thirty seconds to impact,” the bot stated.
Thirty seconds to impact? It didn’t make any sense, considering the helo had been hovering so close to us and it would’ve taken a missile less time than that to kill us and destroy Serenity.
I caught a glimpse of the death machine as a black dot flying north at mindboggling speeds. “Why are we still alive?” I asked in a quaking voice.
“Because the helicopter never saw us.” The tension tightening Kai’s features eased. “We’re not and never were the intended target.”
“Twenty seconds to impact,” Bellator announced.
I took a second to steel my nerves. “If not us, who is the intended target?”
Pressing his hand on my back, Kai pointed at a monitor. I followed the line of his finger to the screen that showed the camera panning on the Cessna in the distance. In the image, the little plane tipped its wing and banked at a hard angle.
“W-what’s happening?” I stuttered.
Kai kept his stare on the monitors. “Li is taking care of his loose ends.”
“Ten seconds to impact.” It was Bellator again.
The Cessna angled one way and the other, dipping down its nose like a kamikaze at Pearl Harbor. The little plane headed closer to the ocean’s surface until a spray of water escorted the aircraft’s wings.
“What’s he doing?” I asked, confused.
“Evasive maneuvers,” Kai said.
“Where’s the helicopter?”
“Gone.” Kai pointed at the radar on a different screen. “On the way back to whatever black ops base it came from.”
My stare returned to the screen that showed the Cessna. The missile hit.