Dane's Storm

“Remember the signal?” He raised his hand, putting two fingers in the air. “If you’re drowning, if you need help but can’t form the words to ask for it, I need you to make this sign.” His voice was raspy, filled with emotion, but she couldn’t conjure any of her own.

She simply stared at him, finally giving another small nod she didn’t think she meant.

His eyes lingered on her for a moment, his expression sad and uncertain, before he nodded back. “Whatever you need, honey. I got you, all right?”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Audra

Now . . .

I got you, all right? Those words. They rang through my head once, twice. He’d said them before . . . then. Only things hadn’t been okay. He hadn’t been able to protect me then and—

It sounded as if the plane just . . . shut off right before we dropped from the sky. I grabbed the armrests of my seat, a scream lodged in my throat. Dane looked panicked as he clicked switches and turned knobs.

Oh God, oh God, oh God. Those birds, all those birds. Had they . . . disabled the plane somehow? Had they flown straight into the engine? Everything seemed overly bright and there was a high-pitched alarm ringing in my head. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t seem capable of anything at all. I was completely frozen with horror.

Dane was saying something into the handheld radio, but I couldn’t focus, the buzzing in my head so loud I thought my brain would explode. Dane grasped my shoulder and shook me. “Get in the back and strap yourself in,” he commanded in a loud shout that brought me temporarily out of my frozen state. “Now, Audra!”

On shaking legs that seemed incapable of working yet somehow did, I jumped from the copilot seat and stepped out of the cockpit and practically fell into one of the passenger seats. The plane was descending fast, but not smoothly now. It was jumping and jerking and as I buckled myself in, my gaze locked on Dane whose arms were gripped tightly to the steering wheel, sweat dripping down the side of his face. A sob tore from my throat and hot tears flowed down my cheeks. Dane was here, but I was alone. He was fighting a battle, trying to keep us alive, and I . . . all I could do was silently pray. He was talking into the radio about losing both engines—how was he speaking? How did he sound so calm now?—and I clenched my eyes shut against my terror, chanting in my head, please, please, please, please.

When I opened my eyes, the mountains rose up in front of the windshield, the face of a cliff so close I choked on a scream, putting my hands up in front of my face instinctively. Oh God, we were going to crash straight into the side of a rock. Oh please don’t let it hurt. Let it be quick. Help us, Theo, help us.

The muscles in Dane’s arms were straining so hard it looked like they might rip right out of his shirt and sweat had soaked what I could see of his collar. He used one arm to swipe quickly over his eyes and then gripped the wheel again. Could you even

steer a plane with no engine?

High cliffs rose on either side of us and through the windows, snow swirled around the plane so that I could barely make anything out. How could Dane see a thing?

“Brace for impact,” Dane said and his voice was so deathly calm that it made the fear ratchet up even higher. “Brace for impact,” he said again, louder this time and with more authority.

I didn’t know what that meant. What should I do? I wanted to ask, but I had no voice, no breath. And so I gripped the armrests, leaned my head back on the seat, closed my eyes and waited. For the space of three heartbeats, all was deathly silent, and in that quiet before impact, it suddenly occurred to me that I was going to see my baby. I choked back a small sob that, despite my terror, held within it the tiniest burst of joy. I was going to look into his eyes, I was going to know—

The plane suddenly wrenched to the side, jarring my head against the window, metal screamed as a blast of freezing air hit me from the back. We continued down, down, down. Something burned into my chest, my teeth rattled, and all went black.

**********

Something heavy was pressing on me and I struggled weakly to break free, crying out in pain when my small movements caused a searing ache across my chest and belly. My teeth were chattering. I was so cold. Freezing. My head cleared, reality rushed in, and I suddenly remembered. Brace for impact. Oh God. We’d been in a crash. There had been birds and then the engines stopped and we’d . . . oh, we’d fallen straight from the sky.

It was cold.

Oh, it was so cold.

“Dane,” I called weakly, my voice sounding tiny and smothered, a croaky whisper. I pushed at whatever was on top of me. It was part of the ceiling—dark gray plastic. Once I was able to put a small amount of strength behind my push, the debris moved, thankfully lighter than I’d thought. Moving it to the side, I realized it wasn’t even the entire ceiling, just several panels that had been above me. I could see sky and clouds and whirling snow. There was a hole in the roof of the plane and I was on my back on the floor, the seat still beneath me. It’d been torn free from the floor, and when I reached up tentatively to feel the place on my chest that still burned, I realized it must have been caused by my seatbelt as it cut into my skin.

The seatbelt was still wrapped around my chest and though I wasn’t sure if it was actually holding me to the seat or not, I reached down and pulled the metal clasp under my right hand and it fell open. The pain eased and I took a moment to bring my hand to my chest again, pressing gently. It ached and the skin underneath my sweater burned. I hoped it was only a surface wound and that nothing internal was damaged. I didn’t seem to be having trouble drawing in a breath, despite my accelerated heart rate.

I called Dane’s name again but was greeted only with silence. My heartbeat whooshed loudly in my ears. Oh God, please don’t let him be dead. Oh God, no. No, not that.

The fear brought a surge of adrenalin and I grasped a large piece of debris next to me and leveraged myself up and out of my seat. Okay, okay, you’re okay. I did a quick assessment of my body as I pulled myself into a crouch next to the seat that had once been bolted to the floor. The ceiling of the plane seemed to be caved in in spots and torn away in others, so I wasn’t able to stand. I walked, hunched over, a few steps, pushing the larger pieces of debris out of my way.

Looking behind me, I gaped when I saw that the entire back section of the plane was gone. Outside, a few snowflakes swirled in a sea of white. Looking forward again, I moved the larger portion of the ceiling panel to the side and that’s when I saw his hand hanging limply in the doorway of the cockpit. With his body and head leaned in the opposite direction, I couldn’t see him from where I was. I choked out his name, afraid to step forward. Afraid to know the extent of his injuries. But I had to. I had to. There was no one to call for help. Just me.

Okay, okay, okay, you’re okay.

I halted suddenly when I felt the plane shift. It slid forward slightly and I realized I had no idea where we were positioned. The cockpit was a crumpled mess of twisted metal and exposed wires, but I eased forward slowly, terror gripping me with each step. The plane made a yawning screech as if it’d suddenly come alive and slid forward again, tipping downward. “Dane,” I choked out a whisper, afraid to speak too loudly for fear that any noise would cause the plane to shift again. No response.

Inching forward once more, I finally made it to the doorway of the cockpit. I startled when an exposed wire suddenly sparked, hissing loudly. And oh, there was blood. So much blood. Dane was bleeding from somewhere and it was pooling on the floor of the cockpit. I swallowed heavily, horror making me weak in the knees.