Page 6 of Mile High With the Bikers (Screaming Eagles MC #10)

DIESEL

“Fucking ow! Holy shit, girl!” I’m all for a woman using a little force, but when a gun goes off and the plane plummets suddenly, Rory has nothing to hang onto but our dicks. I think I found my limit.

“Sorry!”

Shrapnel grunts, looking a little pale as the four of us scramble to find our clothes. “Who the fuck is shooting on a motherfucking plane ?”

“Sh—shooting?” Rory’s pale eyes are wide. Her skin is still flushed from sex, and it’s real damn hard to focus when a second ago I was about to bury myself between those soft thighs.

“Move!” Bull snaps. He’s already pulling on his jeans.

Rory shrinks in on herself. She looks like she’s a few seconds away from a full on panic attack. I crouch down and put my hands on her neck, turning her to look at me. “Get dressed and stay behind us. You’ve got some sort of emergency training, right? We’ll go out first and?—”

Another shot goes off.

First to get dressed, Bull pushes me aside. “Put your fucking dick away,” he growls. “Look, angel, grab your clothes and follow us. You’re going to lock yourself in the bathroom and stay down until we say it’s clear. Got it?”

“Got it,” she whispers with a short, jerky nod.

As soon as we’re in the hall, it’s clear the whole plane is in chaos. People are shouting in the meeting room, and something shatters against the door. Sounds more like a glass than a window. Or at least I really fucking hope so.

Rory, still mostly naked with her clothes in her arms, pauses before going into the bathroom. “Be careful.”

“I think it’s a little late to keep our belts fastened,” Shrapnel jokes.

Bull and I share a tense glance. We’re used to shit hitting the fan, but not at forty thousand feet. None of us are fucking pilots, and we can’t badass our way out of a plane crash. Even so, men like us aren’t built to sit and hope for the best. If we’re going down, we’re going down fighting.

I kick the door open to the front room of the plane and curse.

There are people hiding under the table and behind chairs, and others pounding the shit out of each other.

At the far end is Whittaker, slumped against the wall with a dark stain slowly coloring the side of his suit red.

He's alive and looks more pissed than dying, but adrenaline is a hell of a drug. I’ve seen guys joking around one second and then stone dead the next.

“Idiots!” he roars before coughing and wiping a sleeve across his mouth. “What do you have to gain by getting us all killed?”

Sal Akins waves a smoking gun in Whittaker’s direction.

Never had the pleasure to meet the asshole, but he’s a notorious loan shark who’s responsible for at least half the real-estate scams on the West coast. “What did you fucking expect when you showed us all how easy it would be to use your fancy new toy to destroy whoever the fuck you want? Jesus Christ, man. Did you think we’d all just hop on board and hope you didn’t point it at us? Shut up. ”

Oh, fuck no.

I made my peace with not dying of old age a long time ago, but I’ll be damned if I get wiped out because of some corporate drama between rich assholes. Not on our fucking watch.

Some of the hired muscle notices us bursting in.

I’ve got no fucking clue who is working for who or who started this mess, but someone's gotta clean up.

Before the closest guy has his aim on me, I'm in his zone, capturing his arm with both of mine and twisting it hard.

He screams as bone cracks. The gun drops from his limp fingers as I push him away.

A fist connects with my face, knocking me back. I can taste the blood in my mouth. Jesus fuck, that hurt.

Shrapnel slides in front of me, giving me a second to recover as he hunches down and drives his shoulder right into the chest of the guy who hit me, and he doesn’t stop until he’s driven him right into the wall.

I whirl away from a second goon trying to take me out and then Bull is there, lifting the fucker right off his feet and knocking his head against the ceiling.

Brawling's all well and good, but Sal’s the one with a gun out, so I go for him. Throwing myself down the length of the conference table, papers and drinks go flying as I slide towards him. He notices, but not fast enough. I hit him like a battering ram, taking us both to the floor with a crash.

We roll over, fighting for control of the weapon. He grunts in pain as I get a fist into his side, but then the fucker knees me, way too close to the family jewels. Turns out even a weasel can fight when he has to. He yanks his arm free and turns the gun on me. Fuck.

He pulls the trigger and the gun clicks.

Thanking whatever guardian angel I might have, I grab his hair before he gets the idea to fire again and yank his head towards me, slamming my forehead up against his.

Our skulls crack and a lightning bolt of pain shoots down my spine.

He reels away, clutching his head with one hand and the gun waving wildly in the other.

“Gun!” I shout, fighting the nausea to throw myself at him and at least block the bullet.

Eyes still unfocused, he pulls the trigger again.

I feel the force of the bullet pass through my hair right before a loud crack behind me gives way to a screeching whistle and my ears pop.

I'm gonna fucking kill him. I don’t care if we’re all dying anyway, I want to personally wrap my hands around that scrawny neck of his and watch the light die first.

The fasten seatbelts sign dings on, and an alarm kicks off, warning us that the cabin is depressurizing just in case we didn’t notice. A moment later, bright orange oxygen masks drop from the ceiling. I rip one out and throw myself towards Sal, fully intending to choke the fucker out with it.

“It’s going!” Shrapnel yells.

Shit. I spin and watch just as cracks form around a dime sized hole in the window.

Everything stops for just a moment, before a whole new storm hits the cabin when the window collapses, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the airplane.

The guy fighting closest to the window screams as the sudden decompression yanks him off his feet and turns him into a human plug.

We all watch in horror as his head and left side get sucked straight out of the plane, leaving the rest of him dangling inside for a moment.

Bull lunges to grab his legs but it isn’t fast enough.

He gets pulled through with a sickening thud.

Jesus Christ.

Papers fly off the table, but the involuntary sacrifice of that one guy gave everyone else time to get away from the danger zone.

I don’t know shit about planes, but I’ve got a feeling we are fighting against the clock here.

There’s only so much air and we can’t fight and mask up at the same time.

Whittaker is out of sight, hidden behind two guys in suits.

Sal grabs my leg. “I don’t wanna die!”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have started waving a fucking gun around in a plane!” I growl, kicking him off. Fucking waste of air.

Me, Bull and Shrapnel meet up a good distance from the hole. A massive fucking headache pounds behind my eyes. Is it the air? Or head-butting that asshole?

“Go check on Rory. I don’t know the mask situation or if she knows what the fuck is happening,” I tell Shrapnel.

He nods, yanking down a mask and taking a few deep breaths before passing it to Bull and going to find her.

The plane lurches and we stagger. It feels like we’re descending, fast, but if it’s a choice or we’re plummeting to our deaths is yet to be determined.

The constant dinging of the fasten seatbelts sign is starting to feel like a form of torture by dark comedy.

I take a hit of air, not realizing until I do exactly how much we’ve already lost.

“Plug the hole?” Bull suggests, gesturing to the massive table.

I shrug. “Can’t hurt.” The only problem is that it’s bolted to the fucking floor. “A fucking hand here!”

A handful of people join us, lining up on the side opposite the hole, including an older lady who has more balls than a lot of the cowering assholes in here. The first try does nothing. There’s a sharp creak on the second, and the third push finally breaks the table free from the floor.

It fucking works! Mostly.

The top of the table slams into the wall, covering the gaping wound in the side of the plane.

It’s about as airtight as a porcupine’s condom, but nobody is going to end up flying free.

Shrapnel is back, with a terrified Rory clinging to his side, face sheltered against his chest. They have a portable oxygen canister.

I don’t fucking know this girl, but until we’re safe on the ground, as far as I’m concerned, she’s our responsibility.

“Everyone okay?” Shrapnel asks, arm around Rory protectively. I feel a small twinge of jealousy, but these boys are my brothers in everything but blood. I trust him at my back and I trust him with her.

“We’re good.” Bull says with a slight wheeze, giving a thumbs up.

“Rory?” I run my fingers through her hair, pushing it out of her face so I can see her beautiful eyes. “You alright?”

She thinks real hard on it, like she's having to mentally check that every part of her is still attached, but in the end, she nods. “Yeah, I think so.”

The plane suddenly pulls up, knocking everyone around all over again, but the table is big and heavy enough that it only shifts a little. Rory and Shrapnel stagger into me, and I get an armful of curvy blonde. Too bad there isn’t much time to appreciate it.

“How do we get to the cockpit?” I ask Rory.

She’s looking around and doesn’t seem to notice. Whittaker probably hired her because she’s young and beautiful, not for her air safety training.

“Hey, pretty lady,” I say gently. “Cockpit?”

“Oh! Right.”

With her guidance and Bull’s bulk, we push through the room full of idiots who are coming to terms with the idea that they might survive this flight after all. The door is already busted in when we get there.

“Motherfucker,” I curse under my breath.

One pilot is slumped over the stick, and the guy in the copilot seat is struggling with the controls. He looks up with a slight unhinged gleam in his eyes when we burst in. “I don't know who the hell you are, but buckle the fuck up! If you don’t let me land this thing, we're all gonna die.”

“Woah. Don't let us stop you.”

There are two fold-down chairs behind the pilots. I shove Rory into one and Bull buckles himself into the other. Shrapnel pulls the dead pilot out of his seat and takes his place. Me, I run back and shout to warn the rest of the plane. “Get your fucking belts on! It’s going to be bumpy!”

Everyone scrambles for something to buckle themselves into or hang onto, just as something brushes loudly over the bottom of the plane and shakes it side to side.

Sal gets thrown sideways into the wall. Fuck him.

The grind of electric motors signals wheels coming down, but we're leaning hard left.

If we touch down like this, we're in fucking trouble.

Through the open cockpit door, there's a field opening up past the trees, and we're aiming right for it. I join my friends, brace myself for impact and close my eyes. We’ve done all we can. Silence is my prayer.

We only barely clear the woods when the wing touches down with a metallic shriek that will haunt me until I die.

Rory screams. The plane turns until the wing clears, then we're wobbling too far the other way, and then back, where the wheels hit hard enough that we bounce right back up.

Then down again. The brakes screech, and there's the roar of the engines reversing. I think. I’m a biker, not a fucking Blue Angel.

I reach over to grab Rory’s hand. Her fingers feel so fucking small against mine, but they grip for dear life. Suddenly we're spinning and there's a loud snap that makes the side of the plane drop hard. Jesus fuck, I'm gonna feel that in the morning.

Then just a long grinding noise as the plane slides along the ground, slower and slower, right up until it doesn't anymore.

We fucking lived!

Something explodes behind us.

Motherfucker .