Page 73

MARA

M oments later, the Valor was lifting off.

I was already strapped in, Javier on one side of me and Wes on the other closest to the cockpit.

Matias’s body had been placed on the floor toward the back of the aircraft—a sight that made me want to wretch every time.

But I was so grateful… I was so incredibly grateful to Wes.

At great personal risk, he did for me what I couldn’t do for myself… he made sure Matias came home.

If I hadn’t loved him already—given him every single part of me I had to offer—I absolutely would have done it now. Because no one deserved my heart more than Wes Calvernon, and I was still convinced I didn’t deserve his.

“We’ve got enemy aircraft inbound, Mr. President,” the pilot reported. My fingers gripped the armrests, eyes sealed shut with my head pressed firmly against the headrest.

“ETA?” Wes asked.

“We’ve got ten minutes…maybe less. ”

“Fuck,” Wes muttered under his breath.

“We’re going to be okay, prima,” Javi whispered in my ear. “Just breathe.”

I did. I inhaled deeply, trying to settle the buzz and restless energy inside me. But Javier was wrong. Nothing was going to be okay. Matias was dead. It was definitely not o-kay !

“The Valor is swift, sir, but she’s vulnerable to attack,” the pilot explained. “Support aircraft are on their way. Two Northern A-10 Thunderbolts should meet us any moment to assist.”

I opened my eyes, turning to face the pilot. I didn’t know a lot about planes, but only two support aircraft? “Is that going to be enough?”

The pilot remained silent for a moment, pushing on the controls and giving us forward thrust. “It’s what we’ve got.”

Well, that doesn’t sound ominous at all.

I felt something grab me, and I whirled around to see Javier’s hand clasping onto mine in a death grip. I rotated my wrist and took his hand. If it wasn’t obvious before, it was obvious to me now. We were in a world of trouble, and I just wasn’t sure we were going to make it out alive.

***

WES

FUCK!

How did it all get so screwed up? How the hell did this happen?

Our pilot had the Valor moving at full speed, trying to get us out of enemy airspace as fast as possible, but there was no hiding that this was a giant clusterfuck. The Dissenters sent the closest thing around—and I was grateful. The Valor had dropped down and saved us from a bad situation.

Hell, who was I kidding? It didn’t save us. Matias was dead. My brother-in-arms was fucking dead. Nothing had saved him.

And Mara…

She had to watch him die in her arms.

I looked at her now. Saw the gaunt lines of her tear-stained face. Heard the sorrow in her eyes that were still screaming in anguish even as her lips remained perfectly still. I kept her alive, but I feared I’d failed to save her soul.

What would happen to her?

I nearly lost her when her brother died. Would this be just as bad? Would Matias’s loss rip open old wounds that had only just begun to heal?

Fuck! Why this? Why fucking this?

The desire to destroy something was so fierce, so poignant, I wasn’t sure I could contain it. I wanted to tear the steel doors, shred the fabric of the seats with my bare hands, strangle the neck of whatever fucking deity existed in this fucked up world.

Why this ? Why did it always come down to fucking this ?

I kicked at the metal panel in front of me with a yell, sensing Mara jump beside me.

“Wes!” she admonished. Her hand landed on my shoulder as I leaned forward, burying my face in my hands, then shoving my fingers into hair and pulling on the stands with a growl of inner anguish.

Fucking Matias was dead. He was dead !

Her hand rubbed my shoulder blade. Glided along my back. But I couldn’t bear to look at her. Couldn’t bear to see the sorrow in her eyes.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

I spun on the pilot. “What the fuck now? ”

“Shit!” he shouted from the cockpit. “Shit, shit, shit!” He reached for his radio and screamed into the device. “Mayday, mayday, mayday! Enemy aircraft inbound!”

My entire body was glacier ice. Chilled to the fucking core.

“What’s happening?” she said beside me. “What does that—”

The entire aircraft took a sudden dive forward, throwing her body towards her cousin as she shrieked from the sudden maneuver, and then leveled out.

I spun on the pilot once more. “How many?”

“One,” the pilot yelled over his shoulder just as his radio crackled and a voice came through it.

“Thunderbolts coming in to support. Increase speed and apply evasive maneuvers.”

“Hang on, Mr. President!” the pilot screamed over his shoulder. No sooner than he did, I watched as one of the Thunderbolts zoomed past us, taking the lead.

And then, it all went to fucking hell.

***

MARA

The pilot yanked on his control stick, and suddenly the Valor tilted on its side with a sharp turn to the left as a missile blew past us. “Hang on!” he screamed again as the plane leveled out once more.

Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod!

The Valor dove again as a Telvian fighter jet whisked by.

“Shit!” the pilot shrieked.

“That’s an F-35,” Javier yelled out. “Those Thunderbolts don’t stand a chance! ”

“Hold on!” the pilot shouted over his shoulder, pulling on the control stick, giving us another sharp turn while diving down again. My whole body flattened against my chair with the strength of the g-forces.

The Valor shot upwards, spinning to the right as the second Thunderbolt started firing at the fighter jet.

But Javi was right—it didn’t stand a chance.

The Telvian F-35 somersaulted, out maneuvering the Thunderbolt, coming in behind it as it fired another missile.

The projectile whizzed through the air, hitting it, and exploded.

BOOM!

Debris flew everywhere, striking our aircraft, breaking the pilot’s window as a massive plume of fire and smoke erupted in the air.

The force of the explosion pushed the Valor, causing the pilot to lose control of the plane, and we fell into a tailspin.

I screamed, feeling my body become weightless.

But I wasn’t the only one, because Javier looked like he was about to shit his pants as he clung to his seat for dear life.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday!” the pilot screamed into his radio. His hands grabbed the controls, desperately trying to pull us out. But I saw it. I saw the red smeared on his hands. “Thunderbolt down! Thunderbolt down!”

The blood was rushing through my ears, my heart pounding in my chest as I saw the ground coming toward us, faster and faster.

“F-35 inbound! Get out of there!” someone screamed through the radio. “Pull up! Pull up!”

The pilot yelled as he pulled back as hard as he could on the control stick, but the ground kept coming, rushing toward us. I gripped the ends of my armrests as I watched the pilot’s hand go limp, falling off the control stick.

“Pull the hell up!” Javi screamed.

“Oh shit!” Wes yelled.

And I knew it then as I watched the pilot’s body slump over to the side. There was no way we were going to make it out of this alive.

“We’re going to die!” I screamed, my body lifting off my chair .

Wes unbuckled himself and threw himself forward into the cockpit.

Then he was pulling as hard as he could on the blood-stained control stick, crying out as he did, muscles bulging as he pulled with all his strength.

And just as we were about to kiss the desert sands, the Valor scooped up in a wicked U-shaped maneuver that had my body slamming sideways into my cousin.

“Javier!” Wes screamed over his shoulder. “Help me!”

“Me cago en tu madre,” Javier cursed under his breath, unbuckling himself. “This is why people shouldn’t fly!” He fought his way toward the front of the plane as Wes continued to pull up, gaining more and more altitude.

“Get him out of here!” Wes screamed. It didn’t take a genius to know he was talking about the pilot.

The plane finally leveled out, and Javi grabbed the man’s shoulder and heaved, pulling the limp body out of the seat, and dragging him back into the cabin of the Valor. Wes hopped into the captain’s chair, looking at the controls, the lines of his face hardening as he furrowed his brows.

“Evasive maneuvers!” the voice screamed from the radio. “F-35 inbou—” Another explosion rocked the sky as our last support aircraft exploded into nothing but shrapnel, smoke, and flames. And suddenly, the only sound coming in from the radio was static.

“We’re dead !” Javi shouted, falling back into the seat next to me, desperately trying to buckle himself back in.

“Not today!” Wes yelled back, and then he was pulling on the control stick, whipping the Valor onto its side as we made a quick shift to the left.

I didn’t see it, but I heard it. The high-pitched, shrill shriek of a missile zipping by us—a near miss.

And then we were dipping down again into a dive, slamming my body backward.

The Valor spun, and suddenly, I thought I was going to be sick.

“?Aquí viene! Here it comes!” Javi screamed, pointing out to the right. And sure enough, there it was, coming straight at us .

Beeeeeeeep!

“Fuck!” Wes hollered—a blaring red light flashed on the dashboard.

“What does that mean?” I yelled out.

My cousin looked at me, all color draining from his face. “Radar’s locked on us.”

Suddenly, the sky boomed, another explosion marring the celestial blue. The force caused the Valor to spin out once more. I screamed again, but Wes regained control, steadying out the aircraft when the radio crackled and a new voice came through.

“Valor, this is Dissenter Viper. Come in.”

Wes spoke into the radio. “Viper, it’s Valor. Fuck, am I so glad to see you.” Then I saw it. Flying through the smoke of the disintegrated F-35 was a Bell Viper, an assault helicopter sporting the emblem of the Dissenters.

The radio crackled again. “Glad we could assist, Valor. Keep heading east. We’ll escort you home.”