Page 81 of Badd B*tch

A rope dropped from the side of the aircraft, a recovery harness at the end. Tea crouched at my feet and took my hands. "This is gonna fucking suck, Jax. Just prepare yourself."

I nodded, grinding my teeth and mentally bracing myself. She hauled me to my feet and helped me over to the rope, fitted the harness under my armpits with the widest part of the harness at my lower back, and then gave the line a couple hard yanks. Slowly, the tension was taken up and the harness pulled at my back, and then my feet left the ground, setting me to slowly spinning. And yeah, the agony of the harness smashing against the uppermost open wound just beneath my left armpit was truly and blindingly breathtaking. I was drawn upward by what felt like inches at a time, and then gloved hands grabbed me and the line and pulled me in. The floor vibrated under me, and the noise of the rotor and the engine was colossal, deafening. The rescue operator or tech or whatever the right term is slipped the recovery harness off me and sent it back down. Another person in a flight suit, helmet, and gloves eased me away from the opening to make room for Tea, who soon joined me.

The second her ass hit the floor, she was shrugging the harness off and scrambling over to me, pulling my head into her lap.

One of the techs—agents? Officers? I really don't know, and it's annoying—yanked the door closed; the pilot turned to look over his shoulder, got a thumbs up, and then we banked gently, nose dipping as we accelerated away.

Exhaustion, pain, blood loss, and THC all hit me at once, and Tea's lap was my new favorite place on earth, and darkness rose up and dragged me down, down, down into unwilling but welcome slumber.

Chapter 14

Tea

I couldn't fall asleep—too stressed, worried, and relieved—but I could close my eyes and rest as we flew. I gave the team a quick update on Jax's condition, but there wasn't anything they could do here that I hadn't already done.

Every once in a while for the next few hours, I’d open my eyes, take stock of our surroundings, and drift off again. And every time, the profile of the pilot tickled my memory, but without a good look at him, I couldn't place him.

Finally, I heard and felt the shift in the engine as the pilot adjusted, slowing as we neared our destination—wherever that was; I had no idea and couldn’t find it in me to care. Not long after that, we were touching down.

A medical team appeared with a pair of stretchers, and they lifted Jax onto one. I put my mouth to his ear. "Be right after you, kay? One sec!"

He nodded, squeezed my hand, and winked at me. He winked! The smarmy jackass. I grinned at him, shaking my head, and then climbed back up into the helo, tapping the pilot on the shoulder.

When he turned to face me, shock rippled through me. "Bumble?" I grabbed a headset from a hook and put it on. "Bumble? Is that you?"

He peered at me. "Bagger?" He shook his head, scrubbed his jaw. "No fucking way! Bagger! What the fuck?"

Bumble was a former colleague in the SAR unit I served in, someone I'd flown dozens of missions with until he retired to fly private. We'd lost touch in the months after he left and before Luke's death, and then after Luke died, I lost touch with almost everyone from the military. He was several years older than me, a lean, hard man of South Asian descent with thick black hair, and, now that he was a civilian, a thick black beard, which is what had thrown me off until I got a good look at his face straight on. He had been one of my best friends in the Navy, and I'd been pretty damn broken up when he'd left the service.

He shook his head, staring at me. "Fuckin' Bagger. Why the hell am I recovering you from the Alaskan bush?"

"Helo went down. I was flying for Linus Thorvaldsen when we suffered a bird strike."

He glanced at the retreating stretcher. "And him?"

"He's a new hire. I was taking him up to Nome."

"Saw how you were with him." It was a question disguised as a statement.

"Please, Bumble. Don't give me any shit about it."

His expression went sympathetic. "God, no. I heard about what happened. I'm so fucking sorry, Bags." he looked after Jax again. "A civilian, huh?"

"I said no shit, Bum-Bum."

He just grinned. "I gotta give you a little shit." he reached back and squeezed my shoulder, gruff and friendly—one of the guys. "You good, bro?" Yeah, yeah, we all know 'bro' and dude' can be gender neutral, as in this context; to most of the men I served with, I was always just one of the guys, which is exactly how I wanted it.

I watched the medics push Jax on the stretcher through the doors, nodding slowly. "Yeah, I…I am. Or, I will be."

Bumble gave me a playful shove. "Get outta here, Bags. Ya boy is waiting."

"Good to see you, Bum-Bum."

"Good to see you, too, Bags." A pause. "You were the best of us, you know. Everyone knew Bagger Tiernan was the finest pilot in the Navy."

I grinned at him. "Just the Navy?"

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get cocky, Bagger." He pushed me again. "Now go." I heard him laughing as I tugged off the headset. "Fuckin' Bagger. In Alaska. The fuck."