by KB Winters
“It’s fine. I—”
The rest of my sentence died on my lips at the flashing lights and alarms blaring in the cockpit. We were a few hundred feet off the ground, but I was losing power. Warning lights lit up like dominoes falling, one after another.
“What’s wrong?” Talia demanded, snapping up straight in her seat.
I ignored her, channeling all my focus on keeping the plane in the air. We didn’t have enough airspeed and then, it hit me, we’d lost power. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get more throttle.
“Aaron!”
I tore my eyes from the panel to look over at her, wishing I could impart some confidence. She was as white as a ghost and I was sure I didn’t look any better. “Talia, hold on! We’ve lost power,” I said, keeping my voice as calm as possible. A skill my years in the Navy had taught me. No matter what happened, you stayed calm.
“Oh God! Aaron! Can’t we jump? Parachute?”
I shook my head. “We’re not high enough.” I glanced at the panels again, my mind spinning with calculations. “I got this. Just hold on tight and don’t let go. I’ll get you—”
I sent a prayer up, but I knew we were like a falling rock. The water was our best bet at softening our inevitable crash. The bluff…not so good.
“Talia!”
14
“Talia!” My eyes ripped open and I was instantly blinded by bright lights that blocked out everything else from sight. I shut my eyes again and instead, threw all my energy into sitting up, only to find that I couldn’t move a muscle without agony threating to pull me back under. “Talia? Talia!”
I muttered her name over and over again. Can she hear me?
Voices called out numbers, stats, data, overpowering my cries.
No one was listening to me.
“Talia…”
“Mr. Rosen, my name is Gemma. Can you hear me? I need you to open your eyes for me, please.” I opened one eye, this time squinting at the blinding light above me. I slowly opened the other. “That’s good. So you can hear me. Can you talk? Can you tell me what you’re feeling?”
It took a moment to adjust my eyes to the lights and I found the source of the voice. The commanding voice belonged to a brunette wearing a stethoscope around her neck.
“Yeah,” I whispered, surprised at the weakness of my voice. “Where—am I?” My throat was scratchy. I coughed to clear my throat and it was like razor blades were sliding down my neck. “God, where am I?”
“Shh. You’re all right. Mr. Rosen, you’re in the Emergency Room. I’m Gemma, your nurse.”
“Talia? She continued talking but it was getting harder to focus. Could she hear me? My eyes felt so heavy. My body went warm and limp.
The lights dimmed and I succumbed to the heaviness that was tugging on me.
When I woke up again, I had no idea what time it was or where I was. But things started to make more sense. Bits and pieces of my memory came back to me and I remembered the plane had gone down. Fuck. We hadn’t even made it to the ocean, instead crashing to the sand below the bluff where the Rosen Air Museum stood. There was broken glass. A fire. Everything had been smoky and hard to see. Then, lights and sirens.
The most painful memory of all came forth slowly, as though somewhere inside my subconscious, my mind was protecting me from the most horrific piece of all.
Talia’s head lolled to the side. Blood covering her face from the spray of glass that must have cut her to pieces.
“Talia.” I croaked.
It was no longer a question.
I knew she wasn’t there with me.
She was gone.
And it was my fault.
A familiar face cut into my line of sight, but I couldn’t make the connection as to why she looked familiar. “Aaron?” The sound of her voice triggered my most recent memory. Gina? Jenna? Something like that. She was my doctor? No, nurse. “Mr. Rosen? Can you hear me?” I nodded and pressed my eyes closed against the light of her small flashlight. “I’m Gemma, your nurse. I need you to open your eyes.”
I did as she asked and my eyes watered as I followed her instructions to follow the light with my eyes. She was likely checking me for a concussion. I’d played enough sports in high school to recognize the test.
“Looks good. Your vitals are strong.” She pocketed the flashlight and I struggled to sit up, all of a sudden finding it odd to be flat while she hovered over me.
Not that I wasn’t used to gorgeous women being on top…
I chastised myself for the fleeting thought. This was serious. It took all my energy, but I channeled my rampant thoughts back into a singular question, “Talia?”
The cringe around the corners of Gemma’s eyes answered the deep, dark fear that had taken root in my gut. “I’m very sorry, Aaron. Your friend didn’t survive the crash.”
I was surprised by the tear that slid down the side of my face. I hadn’t cried since my dad’s death. Nothing short of that had held the power to break me.
“It was all my fault,” I whispered. I forced my eyes closed, wanting to hide.
I’d gone through the pre-flight checklist, just like normal, but my mind had been so distracted. I must have missed something. I should have taken a second pass through the procedures.
I’d made a mistake, somehow, and Talia had paid the price.
The ultimate price.
My stomach rolled. I tried to turn over as the remnants of my dinner started to come up, but at the slight motion, my side flared with agonizing pain as though it were being torn in two.
“Whoa, whoa,” Gemma pinned my shoulders back against the bed. “Turn your head.”
I did as she said just in time for my stomach contents to spray over the side of the bed.
Gemma continued to instruct me with her calm, soothing tone, and when I was done, she cleaned away the mess I’d made without so much as a cringe.
When I was lying back again, panting from the exertion and trauma of it all, she stripped off her rubber gloves and came to sit beside me, on the clean side of the bed. “I know it’s hard not to move, but you need to try, Aaron. You’ve lost a lot of blood tonight. A piece of shrapnel from the crash gored your side. You’re lucky you still have all your internal organs. Regardless, we had to open you up to stop the bleeding. You have an incision on your left side. That alone will take four to six weeks to fully heal. You also have a broken wrist—” she nodded down to my right arm. “—and a smattering of other contusions, mostly from the safety harness from what I can deduce.”
I sucked in a slow breath and looked away, over at the window behind Gemma, wishing I could go outside and get away from the sterile air inside the hospital room.
“Mr. Rosen, do you understand?”
I dragged my eyes back to hers, noticing, for the first time, how the soft grey mixed with a hint of blue, like the horizon after a storm when the sky began to clear. I let my eyes rove over the rest of her features.
Her dark hair was cut just past her shoulders and hung down, like she’d spent the day at the beach, not in an emergency room. Her face was soft, but there was a fierceness to the set of her jaw as she waited for my answer.
“I understand,” I finally replied with a nod.
“Do you have anyone you’d like me to call? Your parents? Siblings?”
A new pain—one that had nothing to do with the stitches in my side—flooded over me, knocking the air from my lungs. “I don’t have anyone.”
Gemma placed her hand on my shoulder, the warmth spreading through the thin hospital gown I hadn’t even realized I was wearing until she touched me. “I’m sorry. Please let me know if you need anything. Here’s the call button,” she gestured at a small control panel on the side of the bed. “If you want to adjust your position, you can use this, but be careful. You’re on some pretty heavy painkillers right now, so you might not feel the discomfort at first, but that makes it even more imperative that you stay still and don’t try to move around too much. If you need to use
the restroom, please call, and someone will be here within minutes to assist you.”
I nodded my understanding before she could ask, and she lifted up from the side of the bed. She slipped from the room with a smile.
My condition improved, thanks to a lot of sleep. By the next afternoon, I was finally able to get out of bed with minimal assistance. The only problem with getting better, and sleeping so much in the first twenty-four hours, meant that I couldn’t get back to sleep—and when I wasn’t asleep—I was thinking about Talia. It was hard to believe she was gone. I’d only known her for a handful of weeks, but now, I knew I’d never be able to forget her.
As the hours ticked by, I tried to watch the game on TV, but I kept waiting for her family—if she had any—to come bursting through the door to my hospital room, ranting and bitching at how I’d killed her. That I was a murderer.
But, as the afternoon dragged on, no one other than nurses and doctors came and went. Gemma had come by earlier in the morning, and I found myself wishing she would return. For some reason, it was easier to not think about Talia when she was here.
“Aaron!”
I turned away from the TV to see Boomer rushing into my room, his face tight with concern and his voice thick with emotion. Behind him was his girlfriend, Holly, who looked like she’d been crying.
“Shit man! Boomer! What are you two doing here?” I asked, frantically pushing the buttons on my bed to get into a sitting position. Jack and Holly lived in Germany on a naval base, while Jack completed a three-year stint as a hotshot Lieutenant Commander after his heroic tour over in the Middle East.
Jack came to my side and gingerly wrapped his arms around me in a brotherly embrace. “Player, man…dude—the fuck? How are you?”
“I’m all right Boom, how’d ya know I was here?”
“Carly messaged Holly on Facebook to let us know you’d been involved in a crash.”
I nodded and he released me. Holly gave me a quick embrace and began sniffling before she pulled away. “Sorry,” she whispered, wiping her eyes. “I can’t seem to stop. Are you okay?”
Jack wrapped her in his arms and she automatically lay her head against his chest, still wiping at her tears before they could get too far.
I forced a weak smile. “Hey, hey, Holls, no tears. I’m okay.” Jack lifted a brow. “Well okay, I was gutted like a fish, but other than that…tip-top.”
“Player…” Jack knew me well enough to have a permanent bullshit detector on me at all times.
My facade crumbled and I clenched my jaw to keep my own emotions in check. “I’ll be all right.”
“What happened?” Jack asked. He—more than anyone—knew how good of a pilot I was. I could only imagine him on the flight from Germany running through every possible scenario. “I hate to ask this. I know you man, but were you drunk?”
“Boomer, what kind of shit is that? You know I’d never get in the cockpit drunk. Seriously? Fuck, man.” I scoffed. I couldn’t believe he’d just asked me that.
“I know. But I had to ask. Do you think it was just a plane malfunction?”
“I wish I knew. It all happened so fast. Fuck, we were barely on takeoff. I lost all power. Like bam! And there it was.”
Jack waited, silently prompting me to continue. All I could do was offer a shrug. Of course I’d run through it myself. Probably a million times since waking up in the hospital. But I was no closer to getting an answer for myself than I had been in those final moments before the crash with all the lights and warnings flashing at me.
“I don’t know, Boomer. It went to hell, no thrust, no engine, nothing. I couldn’t even steer the motherfucker. Sorry, Holly.”
She nodded. I usually wasn’t so crass in front of the ladies.
“Why were you even up there at night by yourself?” Jack asked, his brows still high. “I mean, did anyone even know you were going up? Come on, Player, I know you. You wouldn’t have—”
“Boomer, back off about it, okay?” Jack’s mouth snapped shut at my harsh tone and guilt rolled over me. I knew he wasn’t trying to point fingers, but everything he said irritated me like nails on a chalkboard.
“Do you need anything?” Holly asked, looking from her boyfriend to me and then back again. “We came straight here from the airport. We could go see Carly and get you some goodies?”
I gave her my best smile. “That would be great.”
She ran a hand over my shoulder and smiled back at me, her eyes still watery. “Okay. You got it. I’m sure she’ll come up to visit you as soon as she closes up for the day.”
I nodded.
“You go ahead, honey, I’ll be right there,” Jack said as Holly started for the door.
She nodded, but not without a warning glance at Jack. Her meaning clear. Be nice.
I really did smile that time.
“Come on, man. How are you? Really?”
I closed my eyes and exhaled. Boomer was my best friend, my brother, my battle buddy. But he could also be a major pain in the ass.
“I got a shit ton of stitches keeping my guts inside my body. My wrist is busted. They got me hooked up to all these fuckin’ machines. How do you think I am?”
Jack looked toward the empty doorway and then back at me, a flicker of something in his eyes. “What about the girl? The news said you were…with someone.”
I dropped my eyes to the thin cover on top of me. I couldn’t hold Jack’s gaze. Not when my insides tossed and rumbled as the thoughts I’d been pressing against all day came bursting forth again. It was like bracing a door closed against a monster. I’d held it for so long, and then, at the slightest release, it flew open and the beast that had been waiting on the other side came roaring back.
“Talia—” I croaked.
“Who is she?”
“It’s a long story, Boomer. She didn’t make it.”
Jack swore under his breath. “Shit, I’m sorry man.” He rubbed a hand on my shoulder and I grimaced at the impact.
“Yeah.”
A long, tense silence stretched between us. I didn’t have anything else to say, and although I would have bet anything Jack had a million questions he wanted to ask—he kept quiet.
Thankfully, Gemma came sweeping into the room with the pretty smile I’d become used to. “Knock, knock. How’s my patient?” She had her eyes locked on me but they briefly flicked to Jack and she stopped in her tracks. “Oh my God! You’re Jack McGuire.”
After Boomer returned home, his name and face had been splashed all over the news, detailing his firsthand account of what had happened in the Middle East when his fighter jet had been shot down, leaving him stranded in hostile territory, until he’d commandeered an enemy plane and taken out a secret cell of terrorists in the mountainside. The entire thing had been all the rage for a few months. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for him to be recognized on the street, and he handled it with ease.
That was Boomer.
All diplomacy and class—unlike me.
Jack released my shoulder from his grip and turned toward Gemma, offering her a smile and a handshake. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Ma’am?” Gemma wrinkled her nose and then giggled, the soft sound worked its way over me, and I realized it was the first time I’d heard her laugh. It was a sound I could get used to. Especially given my circumstances. “Gemma Henderson. I’m a trauma nurse here at the hospital. And, currently in charge of your buddy here.”
“Thank you,” Jack said, still smiling.
Gemma came to my side and checked the numbers on the screen over my shoulder and then looked at the IV bag that was dripping medicine and fluids into my system on a slow drip. “Everything looks good. How do you feel? Any discomfort? Pain?”
I shook my head. In truth, I’d been aching for the last half an hour, but I found myself wanting to feel the pain. I was already numb enough. And I was higher than a kite. A feeling I didn’t like.
“All right,” Gemma said, giving me another appraising look over. “Well
, Mr. McGuire, feel free to stay as long as you’d like. I’ll make sure they leave you alone when they round up the other visitors.”
Jack smiled and gave a friendly nod. “Thank you.”
“He was actually just leaving,” I interjected. “Pastry run.”
Gemma laughed. “I see. The hospital fare not quite cutting it?”
“Not even a little,” I teased, feeling more like myself than I had thus far. “I have particular tastes.”
Gemma flushed slightly and nodded. “Right. Well, as always, let me know if you need anything. Mr. McGuire, a pleasure to meet you, and thank you for your service to our country.”
“Of course. And thank you, for taking care of Player, here. I know he can be a handful. Hopefully, he hasn’t been giving you too much trouble.”
“I’m right fuckin’ here, McGuire.”
Gemma laughed and ducked out of the room with a final glance back at me, her eyes bright and shining.
15
As promised, Holly returned an hour or so later, two huge pastry boxes in hand. After letting me take my pick of the stacks of treats, they took the rest out to the nurse’s station to be divvied up around the night shift crew as the evening sun began to set.
“Carly told you to get better soon,” Holly told me, taking a seat by my feet before biting into a croissant. “She said she’ll be by to harass you tomorrow morning.”
“As long as she brings me an almond spice latte.”
Holly laughed and nodded. “Naturally.”
“Where’s Jack?”
She swallowed her bite forcefully, licking the corner of her mouth before answering, “He went up to the museum to see how things are going. Have you heard anything?”
I shook my head. “I don’t have a phone.”
“Right.” Holly chewed her lower lip nervously.
Jack strode into the room a few minutes later, and behind him, following like a duckling, was Lana. She burst into loud, ugly tears as soon as she crossed the threshold, and the expressions on Jack and Holly at her outburst made it hard to keep a straight face. “Oh my gosh! Mr. Rosen!”