Page 17 of Protecting Josie
Sorrow filled her. She hadn’t said a word to the man, and he hadn’t talked to any of them, but he’d risked his life to help them escape. Now he’d beenshotbecause of them.
Closing her eyes, she buried her face in Nate’s neck. Shetightened her legs and arms around him and prayed he wouldn’t drop her.
They spun in circles as the chopper lifted high into the sky and away from the boats, bullets flying around them. Josie felt dizzy, and she opened her eyes to try to get her equilibrium back. She instantly regretted it, as their position above the waves was way higher than she’d anticipated.
“Almost there!” Nate yelled.
Josie looked up and saw the skids of the helicopter getting closer and closer at an alarming rate. Once again, she closed her eyes, not wanting to see the collision that was about to happen. Except it didn’t.
She felt the rope swing outward, which made her open her eyes. A man inside the helicopter was manipulating the rope so they avoided smacking into the skids. He made it look so easy to maneuver them…but she supposed he probably had lots of practice helping people into a helicopter flying a million miles an hour over a churning ocean while being shot at.
The thought made her internally roll her eyes at herself. It was weird the things the brain came up with to cope with stressful situations.
Then hands were touching her, and she felt something hard at her back. They were yanked inside, and she watched as Kevlar hauled himself inside the chopper with little ceremony and an efficiency built by experience.
“Go, go, go!” someone yelled.
Before she had a chance to feel relieved that they were inside the helicopter, it banked left, hard. Sending her and Nate careening toward the other side. His back smackedagainst the metal wall of the chopper, and then they were sliding forward.
“Fuck!” Nate cursed, but his arms tightened around Josie, not letting go, not trying to remove the harness he’d wrapped around them both.
The noise inside the chopper was so loud, Josie couldn’t hear anything but Nate.
“Easy, bro!”
The cover-up Josie had worn for weeks slid up as, once again, the helicopter banked hard to one side. She felt burning on the back of her thigh, but before she could even register the pain, a loudboomechoed through the chopper, making it lurch, and for a second, Josie thought the engine had stopped.
“Fuck!” Nate yelled. Then he looked down at her. “We’re hit.”
The words didn’t register at first. And when theydidfinally sink in, the terror Josie felt earlier—all of it…running from their prison, seeing the boat they had to get in, being chased on the open seas, dangling by what seemed like a thread from a helicopter—increased tenfold.
“We’ve got one of the best pilots in the Army flying this thing. We’ll be fine.”
Josie had no idea how the hell they were going to befinewhen they’d just been hit by some sort of missile. She could smell the smoke now, the caustic scent of gas.
Nate managed to sit upright. While keeping his arms around Josie, he scooted toward a lone seat right behind one of the pilots. Even with the chopper moving from side to side, obviously trying to evade more weapons fire from themen in boats, he pulled himself into the seat with Josie still clinging to him. Kevlar had strapped himself to the side of the chopper and he was on his knees, pointing his weapon out the still-open door of the chopper.
To her surprise, Nate pulled a harness, a seat belt of sorts, around the both of them, snapping it into place. He had his arms around her back, and her face was pressed against the side of his neck. She was straddling his lap, her crotch pressed tight against his, her cover-up and bikini no barrier whatsoever. The position should’ve been awkward, but all Josie could think of was sticking as close to Nate as possible.
She was about to die in a fiery helicopter crash. And if that didn’t kill her, water filling the interior as they sank to the bottom of the ocean certainly would.
She didn’t want to be alone when she died, and as long as she clung to Nate, at least they would die together.
The helicopter trip was the longest of Josie’s life. It could’ve been ten minutes or an hour. She had no clue. By some miracle, they didn’t crash. Not into the ocean, at least. She vaguely heard Nate speaking but due to her fear, his words made no sense.
Then his arms tightened around her so hard it was difficult to breathe. She figured out why when the sound of the engine suddenly disappeared.
“This is it. Hang on!” one of the pilots called out.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Josie did as ordered.
The last thing she heard was a popping sound, and Nate saying “fuck!” before the world turned upside down and something hit her head—hard.
Blink woke to the smell of something burning. Everything returned to him in a flash. The crazy boat ride, being hoisted to the chopper, seeing his brother, Tate, behind the controls, then the helicopter being hit with an RPG. Tate swearing as he and his copilot fought to stay in the air. He heard him say something about going down in Iraq before the engine died and they crashed.
Feeling pressure on his chest, Blink looked down and saw Spirit lying bonelessly against him. He’d managed to get them both into one of the seats and strapped in. Thank God. If he hadn’t, they’d probably both be dead right now. As it was, he saw blood dripping from the side of Spirit’s head.
“Tate? Kevlar?” he called out, worried about his brother and the other pilot and his team leader.
