by Amy Lane
Spencer hollered and pulled the knot tight, and then let the rope ladder play out to the base of the cliff. Cash took the same running jump Spencer had, but he refused to stick his foot in the side of the crevice because he didn’t have boots on and he wasn’t insane. He used a hump in the rock to push off, and as the ladder started to lift off the ground, Cash leaped and grabbed hold, snagging the second rung from the bottom and holding on tight as the little aircraft rocked.
“Goddammit, Cash!” Spencer called from the top of the cliff.
“Get these people to safety!” Cash called back. “I’ll take care of him. I promise!”
“Shit! He’s gonna fuckin’ kill me!”
Cash struggled with the rope ladder instead of answering, the smooth nylon rope slippery. He wrapped his hands in the “rung” twice and struggled to get his feet on the first level so he wasn’t dangling like a monkey from a barrel. Damien, apparently catching on to the change of plan, ascended smoothly, looping around the island from the south so he was coming up behind the gun turrets. Cash flailed his legs for a terrifying second, dangling above the crystalline green waters of the Sea of Cortez, before he finally found purchase, the buffeting of the air trying with every breath to rip him from safety.
Glen. He had to get to Glen. It was throbbing in his head, and he kept it there, his true north, and he gamely didn’t think about the fact that this was the most terrifying thing he’d ever done.
Emotional Rescue
GLEN managed to beat the lunatic with the gun to the top of the gun turret with enough time to disable the gun itself. He practically sagged with relief, but he heard Barron cursing at him from a terrifyingly close distance and tried to get his shit together.
He did not want to shoot this guy.
For one thing, he hadn’t shot anybody in his life—not even during two deployments. He and Damien were pilots. Not fighter jet pilots—transport or reconnaissance pilots. They didn’t kill people; they got people where they needed to go. In civilian life, that had been the hospital more often than not, but it didn’t change the fact that they were wily, they were resourceful, they were good with guns, and they were not killers.
Of course, he thought grimly, if this guy threatened his life enough that might change. But he wanted to try option B first.
The turret towers were identical—approximately eight feet by eight feet, with a door cut in the center. While Glen waited for Barron to get to the top, he crouched down to the side of the opening, pistol in hand—but not ready to fire.
More like it was ready to be used like a brick.
He gave Barron enough time to get almost into the turret. He’d picked Barron’s left side, relying on the fact that most Americans looked to their right first, like they were merging into traffic. And there he went, look to the right, look to the le…
And Glen lunged, clocking him on the head as he heaved his body inside.
Barron moaned and sagged, his hand going automatically to his belt for his gun, and Glen tackled him sideways, trying to wrestle the gun out of his pants. He managed to get it, but as he was pitching it through the port, Barron rolled underneath him, and Glen almost went out the same way.
He dropped Barron’s gun, which slithered out of the turret and bounced off the ladder, and his own gun thunked heavily to the floor of the tower before he stopped himself on the frame of the port and used his core strength to arch back into the tower.
He and Barron tumbled for a moment, their momentum carrying them to the far side of the cell-like room, and Glen was busy enough trying to keep the gun out of Barron’s grasp to catch the first roundhouse right on the temple.
He saw stars for a moment and grunted, throwing his knee into Barron’s solar plexus.
Barron gasped and doubled over, one hand still extended feebly for the gun. Glen shoved himself to his feet and staggered after the weapon, not feeling quite so many qualms about shooting the guy now. In the back of his mind, he registered a mechanical sound, a whump-whump-whump that comforted him somehow.
But right now he was too busy to think.
He lunged for the gun, knocking it from Barron’s fingertips, and they both gasped as it skittered off the platform and down to the ground below.
“So,” Glen said, dropping to a fighter’s crouch and circling. “Two guys, no guns. That could be a porn video, you know.”
Barron recoiled. “That’s disgusting!”
“And shooting someone isn’t? Yikes. I’m glad we lost both guns!”
Barron’s head dropped to one side and he rolled his eyes—and Glen took the opportunity to kick him in the kneecap.
“Oh my God, you suck!” Barron howled. “Who in the hell are you, anyway?”
“A friend of one of your kids,” Glen said, knowing it didn’t really matter which one. “I know you think they’re all friendless—or stupid. But sometimes you do dumb things when you’re a kid. You forgive them and help them move on!”
“Bullshit!” Barron pulled his fists up, like a boxer, and Glen adjusted his fighter’s crouch. Together they circled the claustrophobic space, and while Glen was glad the guns were out of the equation, he really wasn’t sure how he was going to beat this guy without pushing him over the side.
The whump-whump-whump was getting closer, but Glen didn’t feel like looking yet. Barron was watching him for any weakness. Of course Glen’s mouth was his strength.
“So, you know who that is, don’t you?” Glen had no idea, but distracting Barron was the object. “That’s the Baja authorities. Do you know how many tax and environmental codes you’ve violated?”
Barron’s mouth fell open. “The hell? This is Mexico—they don’t care!”
And Glen had to work to keep his mouth from falling open. “Do you know how hard they’ve worked to reclaim this area? Dude—you’ve been shooting sea lions for sport! Who does that?”
Barron turned his head and spat blood. Glen had gotten a couple of good shots in. “That wasn’t me,” he said. “Some of my guys, they’re a little—”
“If they’re your guys, it was you.” God, five years in the military—that’s what Barron’s jacket said. Had nobody taught him chain of command? “And why wouldn’t they think it’s okay to torture animals for sport? What have you been doing here?”
“Oh, these kids aren’t tortured.” Barron threw out a jab and Glen dodged easily. “They’re so spoiled they don’t know which drugs to take and which ones to quit. If they think I’m the one to tell them, who am I to turn down all that money?”
“You would fleece little old ladies for their denture money, wouldn’t you?” Glen asked flatly. He threw a punch—wide on purpose—and Barron barely dodged. His reflexes were slowing down, but Glen’s weren’t much better. Glen had climbed two of these fucking nightmares, and he’d already had sort of a day.
A little more talking and Glen would take him out. For a moment, there were the two of them panting, Barron sweating, and the whump-whump-whump, curiously intimate. The helicopter sounded both close and… quiet? Small? And—
“What in the hell?” Barron dropped both fists and stared behind Glen, but Glen wasn’t buying it. He clocked Barron hard in the jaw and watched his knees wobble. He went over backward—right out the portal of the damned tower.
“Fuck!” Glen lunged for him, catching his shirt front as Barron struggled to pull himself inside. But his momentum was too great, and Glen clung to the side of the tower, raw-wood splinters digging into his hand, while he tried to wrestle Barron through the portal. “C’mon, you lazy asshole, help me!”
Barron’s struggling was going to kill them both—dammit! Glen pulled, one hand rooted in safety, one hand holding the deadweight that was going to drag him to his death, but a sudden gust of wind made the decision for him.
Barron flinched from the downdraft that came from over the tower and yanked himself out of Glen’s hand as—improbably—Cash called Glen’s name. Glen stared in horror as Barron tumbled to the ground, bouncing off t
he slightly angled ladder on his way down. The body didn’t move when it hit, and Glen wobbled as he stared down below him. That… that wasn’t….
“Glen! Glen, look up!”
Glen was still struggling to get his balance when Cash literally flew across his field of vision, clinging to a rope.
And Glen’s heart stopped, and then his adrenaline surged, and then he was pissed.
“I’m dead,” he shouted. “I must be. The fuck are you doing?”
“Came back to get you!” Cash shouted back. “Now grab the damned rope. The rest of the goons are on their way!”
Glen looked out across the lawn and saw them—the same assholes he and Cash had zip-tied, but now with more guns.
“Alrighty, then,” he called, getting his legs under him and getting ready to leap. “You start, I’ll follow!”
Cash grinned fiercely and started clambering nimbly up the ropes. Glen sighted the ladder and gave himself a couple of rocking starts for momentum. One. Two.
Bang!
Fire roared up Glen’s bicep as he threw his arms over the rope rung, and he shuddered. Damien—it must be Damien at the helm—started to pull the impossibly small helicopter up above the island, heading out to sea first, probably because there was a better chance for Glen and Cash to make it if they fell into the water. Watching Barron’s guys disappear out of gun range was a relief, but it was short-lived. While the bullet might have only grazed his arm, his entire left side was on fire. Fuck! He’d never been shot before—this was a novelty he could have foregone.
He kept struggling to hold on, the buffeting of the wind threatening to take him off at any time. On the one hand, that aircraft looked like a child’s toy above him, and he was terrified it was going to disintegrate with the twin forces of Cash and Glen thrashing on the rope dangling beneath its runners.
On the other, it had so little power and went so slow, at least he wasn’t getting blown off the damned rope.
The helicopter rocked hard as Cash scrambled up into the passenger seat and Glen had a minute to wonder how he was going to get into the third seat behind the other two when his arm throbbed and he almost let go.
Fuck. Fuck, he was bleeding, and it made the rope slippery and—
“Get your ass up here!”
Cash was, impossibly, lying on his stomach, half his body out of the aircraft.
“I’m working on it,” Glen muttered while every ache, every pain, every scratch, and every old injury he’d ever sustained tried to drag him down like a lead weight in a Jell-O pond.
“Glen, goddammit, I stayed! I came back! Now get your ass back up to this fucking cockpit. If you fall off the damned rope, I’ll jump in to get you.”
“The hell you will!” The thought of Cash, untrained and vulnerable, leaping into the ocean below them without a wet suit or a life vest spurred Glen up one more rung. And another. “You said you’d stay!”
“I said I’d stay with you, moron! That means you have to get your ass in this helicopter so we can do that!”
“Augh!” His muscle was already stiffening, and his entire bicep burned with the white-hot fury of a thousand suns. “I don’t want you to jump!”
“Then get up here!”
“Jumping would be stupid,” Glen shouted, coming up one more rung.
“And falling would also be stupid!” Cash’s voice was breaking. He sounded like he was losing his shit.
“Don’t cry, baby,” Glen said absurdly. “I’m on my way.”
“Well, you are fucking slow,” Cash snarled, and Glen looked up to realize Cash was almost close enough for Glen to reach his hand. “Hurry up. I don’t think Damien can fly like this much longer!”
“I don’t know—does this thing have pedals?” Glen asked, hoisting himself up one more rung, one more knot, one more haul, grabbing the runners and trying to get to a place where he could reach into the cockpit.
His feet on the last rung of the rope ladder wobbled frantically beneath him. He was going to have to let go of the runner, going to have to—
Cash’s hand, sturdy, callused, stronger than Cash looked, reached into his vision, and he had no choice.
He’d never had any choice.
He took it, then took the other one, and Cash hauled at him and squirmed backward while Damien cursed, the small craft rocked, Cash squirmed some more, and finally, finally, Glen was half inside the helicopter, kicking his feet to get him in the last bit.
Cash had wiggled back between the seats by then, and Glen fell into the cockpit, looking out the open side of a piece of flight vanity that had saved his life.
“The fuck is this thing made of?” he shouted to Damien. “How did that even happen?”
“Fairy kisses!” Damien shouted back. “Now shut up and let me drive!”
Glen leaned back into the seat while Cash fumbled at his waist for the belt. Glen couldn’t do it. His eyes were closed, his arm was on fire, and he was going to trust fate—and Damien.
And Cash.
They’d done that.
And Cash had stayed.
Fallout Boy
THE craft started to whine in a higher pitch as they approached the beach, about fifty yards from where armed policemen and terrified kids were sorting themselves out. Damien swore at it, wrestled with the steering, and beat against the ceiling of the cockpit, angling the thing lower and lower until they literally skimmed the water as he skidded it in on a spray of surf and sand.
Tide was coming in. Cash reckoned they had a good twenty minutes before they had to bail out of the helicopter, but for the moment, the three of them took a few deep breaths and—in Cash’s case, anyway—gave thanks to a merciful god.
Fifty yards farther, Cash could see the skiff Alexander had piloted and the Zodiac Spencer had returned in, and he breathed another sigh of relief.
Then he got a good look at Glen’s pale face and the relief faded. His arm sported an angry, bleeding furrow where a bullet had passed by too closely, and Cash was reminded, yet again, of who instigated this mess.
“Damien?” he said, voice wobbling. “He’s going to need—”
The propellers were slowing, and the noise of the Scout’s mosquito-size motor had stopped whining in their ears, but Damien was still talking on his headset.
He finished and pulled the headset off. “There’s medical assistance waiting up on the road,” he said, nodding with his chin up to where the sand met the pavement. “I called, asking for a stretcher. He’s beat.”
Glen started and then let out a yelp. “I’ve been shot!” he snapped. “Of course I’m beat!”
“Didn’t beat your mouth, though,” Damien said.
“Heh heh heh—”
“Oh, stop it,” Cash muttered. “No dirty jokes. Not now.”
“After escaping mortal peril is the best time to crack a dirty—ouch!—joke,” Glen told him, and if he hadn’t been sporting bruises and a gunshot wound, Cash would have smacked him.
“Scared the shit out of me. What—were you trying to save the bad guy?”
Glen sobered. “Didn’t work.”
“I will beat you,” Damien said amicably. “I’ll wait until you’re all healed; then I will beat you back into the hospital. We are a search-and-rescue operation—and there were goons with guns down there.”
“Oh please,” Glen muttered. “Like I’m the only one of us who’s been shot at.”
Damien chuckled at some shared part of their history, but Cash had lost that jealousy a long time ago. He’d seen the tiny Scout bucking in Damien’s hands, heard him swearing in genuine fear. Scaring up an aircraft and flying to his and Glen’s rescue hadn’t been easy—it had been an act of love. Five months ago, Cash would have said that sort of love could only come with sex attached, but he and Brielle had never been lovers, and look at the promise he’d just kept.
Damien and Glen, with twenty years of comradeship behind them? This was what you did.
“It’s more personal with you,” Damien said now, turn
ing in his seat and getting a good look at Glen’s arm. “Even the wound looks angry.”
“Need my shirt?” Cash asked, because it was bleeding—not excessively, but profusely.
“Yeah,” Damien said. “Since you’re not getting out until the stretcher gets here.” He glanced down at the helicopter, which was still steady on the sand. “You know, Echo, the least you could have done was get wounded on the same side as your bum shoulder. It’s a good thing you’ve got a boyfriend now—you’re going to need help to eat, pee, jerk off….”
Cash struggled out of his hoodie to get to his T-shirt as they talked.
“You never helped with any of that stuff anyway,” Glen said. “Useless bastard. Can fly a… what in the fuck is this? What did you just fly during a hurricane? You can fly a cracker box through a hurricane but you can’t help a buddy pee? Jesus—good thing I’ve got Cash. He’ll step up.”
“Yeah,” Damien said, looking sideways at Cash. “He will.”
Only Damien and Cash would ever know about those perilous moments when Glen was losing strength. Damien had been screaming “Get back in my goddamned helicopter before you kill us all!” and Cash had been screaming “He needs me, goddammit, he fucking needs me!” Cash wasn’t sure what kind of hoodoo pilot magic Damien had worked, but Cash had felt one arm clamping behind his knees as Damien had wrestled the damned Scout and Cash had dangled out the window to make sure Glen made it to safety.
“After all that?” Cash muttered, handing the T-shirt to Damien. “Are you kidding? You’ll have to use a bolt cutter and a pry bar to get me away from you.”
“Or a record contract,” Glen rasped. “Don’t forget that.”
Cash groaned as he hauled the hoodie back over his head. “We got six months before rehearsals start, baby,” he said, leaning between the seats so he could stroke Glen’s shoulder softly through what was left of his tank. “I think we can forge a lifeline by then.”
Glen was dirty, ragged, sweating, and in pain. But at Cash’s words, he tilted his head back against the headrest and smiled.