Chapter Thirty-One

Safiya

O ne second, Grayson was leaning out of the open cabin door, firing his heavy weapon as the plane was moving. Then the next, he was pulling the door shut as the third man took the left seat in the cockpit.

Before Grayson had sat down in the seat facing me and buckled his safety belt, we were lifting off.

The engines screamed. Bullets struck the plane like hail on a metal roof, and Grayson pulled the shoulder sling of his weapon over his head before removing his vest and dropping it to the cabin floor.

"Deep breath, Safiya." With his blue-gray eyes trained on me and his voice too calm, he slowly set his weapon down. "You're okay."

I was not okay.

There were bullet holes in the plane. His dark shirt was wet and stuck to his left side. There were blood smears on his face, the arms of his seat, and the weapon he had placed on the floor.

This was not okay.

Nothing about this was okay.

Joining the uncontrollable trembling of my body, my teeth started to chatter. "Y-you are bl-bleeding." I glanced from his side to his temple. "Y-your h-head i-is hurt."

"I'll be fine." Unbuckling his seat belt and pushing forward in his seat until his knees were caging mine, he took my hands. "Do you remember anything since the cabin?" His thumbs gently coasted over the welts on my wrists. Blood smeared, and his injury met my injuries.

"S-since they t-took me?" The plane made a whistling sound.

Stroking my bruised flesh again, he ignored the sound. "Yes."

"N-no. Pl-please st-st-stop y-your bl-bleeding." I needed him not to be hurt.

"I'm all right. Were you given anything to drink?"

"I-I know wh-what y-you are d-doing." I wanted off this plane.

"I'm asking questions to both distract you and determine what you were given."

"Th-the plane was sh-shot at." He was shot at.

His hands wrapped around mine. "We're going to be okay. How were you drugged?"

How was he hurt? "A-a needle."

He rubbed his thumbs across the top of my hands. "Once? Twice?" More blood smeared.

"T-twice."

He calmly nodded. "Were you given anything to drink?"

The horrible water memory came rushing back as the plane leveled, and I looked away.

His warmth left my hand, and he grasped my chin, turning me back to face him. "Whatever happened, you're with me now."

I glanced toward the cockpit. "A-and them."

"With me," he repeated.

But I was not with him. Not all the time, and the fear, the kidnapping, the horrible men, the shooting, it all bled out when I wanted nothing more than to hold it in because he was hurt, and I had been here before, but I could not stop it. "I am frightened."

I regretted it the moment I said it because I knew this man.

He was not comfort.

He was not safe.

He was the American from the military I had met all those years ago who killed, and he was still killing, but this time he had done it for me. How much blood was on his hands because of me? How many more times could he do this? There had to be some law of averages he was breaking. He could not keep doing this. I could not.

Just as I knew he would, he did not placate. "What's the worst that can happen?"

"We could die." He could die.

His hand slid from my chin to the side of my face. Then the SEAL who had given me a second chance at life robbed me of my breath. "Then we die together."

His stare absolute, his proclamation unadulterated, he gave me the one thing I did not know I craved most until that very second.

"Together," I whispered, realizing I was no longer chattering.

His thumb stroked over my cheek.

Then the plane suddenly jerked sideways and severely dipped.

"Ghost!" the blond man that Grayson had called Ares yelled from the cockpit. "GHOST."

Before I could grab on to the armrests, Grayson was out of his seat and rushing toward the front.

Alarms rang through the cabin, and panic stopped my heart. "What is happening?"

"Stay!" Throwing the command over his shoulder before reaching the cockpit, Grayson started issuing orders at Ares. "Maintain speed and altitude. Do not drop the gear. Medium banking turn into the headwind. Easy, easy. Hold her steady."

"I can't maintain shit. Fuel tanks must've been hit. Left engine out. Twelve thousand feet above MSL. Losing altitude. H is down, and I've never fucking blue water ditched." The aircraft jerked again.

"Fly the plane, Ares," Grayson ordered as he yanked the second blond man out of the left pilot's seat and dragged him back a foot before letting go.

Half in, half out of the cockpit, the bloodied body of the soldier landed on the cabin floor with a thud.

"Are we crashing?" Then we die together.

Grayson spared me a glance. "No. Forced landing." Quickly stepping over the man, he got into the pilot's seat and buckled his harness. "Taking the controls." With one hand on the yoke and the other rapidly moving over switches and touch screens, he issued more orders at Ares. "Get Helios and Safiya aft cabin. Strap them in. Grab the PFDs and suit her up. Ready the life raft, secure the cargo, then stay with them."

"Ghost—"

" Do it ," he barked, touching the communication device in his ear. "November, mayday, mayday, mayday. Engine failure, fuel exhaustion. Seventy-five hundred feet. Dropping fast. Ditching south, southeast of BVI." As the alarms kept sounding, Grayson rattled off a series of letters and numbers.

Ares unstrapped his harness, and he was out of the cockpit, grabbing the man Grayson had called Helios by his shoulders before I thought to help. I reached for my seat belt, and the other man's voice struck me as hard as the pitch of the plane. "Stay seated!"

"I-I can help." My hands shaking, Grayson's forced landing echoing in my head, I did not know what I could do, but sheer panic was driving my need to move.

"Do not get up from that seat until I tell you!"

With incredible strength and efficiency that could only have come from having to do this exact task countless times before, Ares dragged Helios to the rear of the plane, lifted him into a seat, and quickly buckled him in.

"Ares," Grayson yelled back. "Banking."

"Copy!"

The plane pitched sideways, Ares grabbed orange vests from the back, tossed one over Helios, then he was in front of me. Bracketing his legs around my seat for balance, he put the flotation device over my head, clipped straps around me, yanked them tight, then unbuckled my safety beat. Grabbing me around the waist, he turned me away from Grayson. "Move, move, move."

Frantic, panicked, holding on to the seats while he held onto me, I stumbled. "You need to help Grayson!"

"I am. Move ." He did not wait for me to do as he said.

Lifting me by the waist, he rushed toward the rear of the plane, tossed me in the seat opposite Helios and buckled me in. In the next second, he was fastening the life vest over the wounded, unconscious man, then grabbing a small suitcase-sized piece of cargo when the plane went eerily quiet.

"Secure cabin!" Grayson yelled from the cockpit.

" Secured ." Ares dropped into the seat across from me and reached for his seat belt.

"Brace, brace, brace!"

"Bracing!" Ares's hand landed on the back of my neck, and he shoved my head to my lap.

The plane violently slammed into the water.