by Amy Andrews
‘Not on my watch,’ Brian chirped. ‘Okay, guys, hold tight. Prepare for impact.’
Mia squeezed Luca’s hand hard. ‘I’ve never seen Swan Lake.’
Luca smiled at her. ‘When this is over, we’ll go and see it together.’
There was no time for her to smile back. The crippled chopper hit trees with a violent jolt, halting the rapid downward spiral most effectively. Mia squeezed her eyes shut as the impact raced through her body like a giant shock wave. She vaguely heard cracking glass, a loud expletive followed by a guttural cry from Brian and then nothing other than the screech and grind of the rotors could be heard as they sliced through the canopy. Mia, eyes still shut, hit her head several times against the shell of the cabin and she was grateful for her helmet as the chopper lurched and listed, dropping a little then stopping then dropping again as the branches beneath buckled beneath its weight before it finally came to a shuddering halt.
After a good twenty seconds of no movement, Mia cracked open an eye. She could hear Brian talking to Air Control, she could smell rain and fuel and eucalyptus, she could feel the wind buffeting the chopper and hear it whistling inside the cabin. Her eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness and she could see Luca sitting opposite, wonderfully intact.
She was alive. They were all alive!
‘You okay?’ Luca asked.
Mia thought about it for a moment. Everything felt fine. She nodded. ‘Yes…I think. You?’
Luca nodded back. ‘Yes.’ And then he grinned. ‘Swan Lake, here we come.’
Mia grinned back. Her first instinct, to throw herself at him, was pulled up short by a moan coming from the front.
‘Brian? Are you okay?’ Luca asked.
‘Leg’s busted,’ the pilot panted as he killed the engine.
Luca glanced at Mia. The pain in Brian’s voice was obvious. ‘Is that a guess or can you see it?’
Brian swore again. ‘Tree branch breached the cab, drove into my leg. I can see the bones.’
They exchanged glances again. Luca felt a moment of guilt at his earlier wish that Brian would break something. ‘Any other injuries?’
‘Nope. Don’t think so.’
Luca wasn’t totally reassured. Often people could have wounds they weren’t even aware of if there was one overriding painful injury.
‘Okay, so we need to get you out of there onto the stretcher so we can splint your leg and give you something for the pain. Lucky for you, you crashlanded a mini emergency ward, they have all the best drugs.’
Brian gave a half laugh, half snort at Luca’s attempt to keep things light. ‘Ah. You cottoned onto my dastardly plan.’
Luca unbuckled. Mia followed.
‘Wait,’ Brian called out. ‘We need to assess how this bird’s being supported. I don’t know how precarious it is and moving around could dislodge it. I’d hate to survive the first crash only to be killed on impact with the ground.’
Luca paused. He could tell that Brian was trying to make light of the situation but he also knew that Brian was still thinking like a pilot. Which, given his horrific injury, was amazing.
‘Okay,’ Luca said. ‘How do we do that?’
‘If you can open your door safely, grab the torch and have a look out, see if you can see what’s supporting us. But move carefully until we know. The crash would have activated our emergency locator transmitter so Air Control will know where we are but they’ll want a sit rep—once we know what we’re up against, I’ll let them know.’
Luca glanced at Mia. The chopper had come to a stop in a reasonably level position with a slight tilt to the left so he was pretty certain that movement wouldn’t be an issue but that all depended on what was beneath them.
‘Buckle up,’ he said as he reached for the torch strapped to the cabin above his head and gently removed it.
Mia felt a trickle of dread drip down her spine. ‘Be careful.’
Luca nodded, aware that they might well be precariously balanced and not keen to be the one that upset the apple cart. It was good to know that their ELT had been activated and that help would no doubt soon be on its way. But Brian, while he was being very stoic, needed urgent medical attention, so they couldn’t just sit around and wait.
He swivelled in his seat and shone the torch out the window. Through the now driving rain he could see that the door appeared to be free of any vegetation so he gingerly reached for the handle and gently eased it open. The freezing rain assaulted him almost immediately as he carefully lowered himself to the floor of the cabin, hung his head out and shone the torch under the chopper.
They appeared to be wedged between three massive looking tree trunks huddled together. The bottom of the cabin was supported by sturdy interwoven branches which appeared knotted. The tail also seemed wedged between two trunks further back.
Luca shone the torch down towards the forest floor. Whether it was the rain or the dark or the sheer distance, he couldn’t make it out. It was nothing but a swirling abyss of cloud and night.
He crawled back in and gently shut the door. His overalls were soaked around the shoulders and the part of his face not protected by the helmet was as wet as if he’d just stepped out of the shower.
He scrambled to his feet and gave a very slight experimental bounce. When the chopper stayed firm he gave another bigger one. ‘I think it’s fine.’
He relayed the info to Brian who spoke with Air Control. Luca experimented some more, shifting slowly and carefully around the cramped confines of the chopper, which was hardly made for ease of movement anyway.
It seemed stable and he let out a little sigh of relief.
‘Bad news.’ Brian’s voice interrupted Luca. ‘The weather has worsened. High winds and driving rain are going to make rescue impossible for a while. It’s too dangerous to send another chopper and a winch crew. Meteorology think the system’s going to hang around for quite a few more hours so we’re stuck up this tree until daylight. Like the bloody Swiss Family Robinson.’
Mia heard Brian laugh at his own joke then suck in a breath on a deep guttural groan.
‘We’ve got to see to him,’ she said.
Luca nodded. ‘I think the chopper’s stable enough to drag him out of his seat and onto the stretcher. It’s going to hurt, though.’
Mia nodded grimly. Hell, yeah. ‘We could get him to splint his leg first—we carry vacuum splints—it might help a bit.’
Luca nodded. ‘Okay. Let’s do it. Unbuckle, but slowly. And leave your helmet on. Let’s make sure this bird can take both of us moving around before we get too carried away.’
Mia unbuckled and stood slowly. Luca held out his hand and she glanced at him as she took it.
‘You’re freezing,’ he murmured, enclosing her hand within his.
Mia was surprised to realise she was—she’d been in survival mode and hadn’t realised it. ‘The wind’s getting in somewhere,’ she said absently, caught up in the warmth of his hand.
Despite how soaked his shoulders and arms were, his hands were like a toasty pair of gloves. In fact, his mere presence was like a beacon of light in this cold, dark, scary scenario they’d landed in.
Luca was here and he was warm and solid and one hundred per cent in control.
‘Near Brian, I think,’ Luca murmured, steadying her. ‘Grab the splint,’ he said. ‘Slow and easy. I don’t know how much weight distribution is aiding stability.’
Mia nodded and reluctantly let go of Luca’s hand. She’d felt safe under the influence of his touch. Which made no sense. They were still stuck up a tree. In a helicopter. In the middle of a storm.
Which just went to prove what she’d always thought—love was crazy!
She took a tentative step and then another towards the storage cupboard. Like boats, helicopters made excellent use of space and Mia knew what was in every nook and cranny. The floor felt solid beneath her as she inched her way closer.
She grabbed the splint and the pump and turned to face Luca. ‘What now?’
/> He held out his hand and she passed him the gear. He gestured her close. ‘I’m going to drag him out from behind. You stand by at the stretcher for when he’s out. Let’s get an IV going and give him some morph.’
Mia looked at the cramped confines of the single pilot’s seat. The end of the stretcher protruded into the front cab area where in most commercial choppers there would have been a second seat.
‘Are you going to be able to manoeuvre him out from behind?’
Luca grimaced. ‘I hope so. I’m not sure how stable the chopper will be if I have to climb up onto the stretcher and pull him from there. The tail’s wedged fairly solidly so I doubt it’ll tip backwards. I’m not so sure it won’t tip forward.’
Mia swallowed. So this was the meaning of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. But Luca seemed so confident—like GI Joe, Action Man and Inspector Gadget all rolled into one.
‘It’s going to be fine, Mia.’ He smiled. She returned his smile with one that was suddenly wobbly and thanked any and all deities out there that if she’d had to be in a helicopter crash, at least Luca had been with her.
‘Okay. Let’s do it.’
Twenty minutes later, after a lot of effort and pain, Brian was on the stretcher, an IV had been inserted, fluids were running, nasal prongs with a trickle of oxygen had been applied and, because they could, he was being monitored. His badly fractured leg had been left in the splint and he’d drifted off to sleep on a morphine cloud.
Finally they both settled back into their seats. The wind howled around the chopper and whistled through the shattered glass at the front. She could feel the slight shuddering of the aircraft as the wind buffeted it from what seemed like all directions. The steady beep, beep, beep of the monitor seemed alien amidst the wild brutality of Mother Nature.
‘How long do you think the oxygen will last?’ Mia asked into the growing silence.
She knew that Brian didn’t really need it but she was aware it was a finite commodity and that they had no idea how long they’d be there. They’d completed a thorough primary and secondary survey of Brian’s injuries but what if they’d missed something? What if his condition worsened?
‘Quite a few hours, I expect. It’s only running at one litre.’
Mia nodded. Would that be enough? How long would it be before they were rescued? The way the wind howled and the rain beat incessantly against the window, it didn’t look like any time soon.
She tried really hard not to think about the precariousness of the situation. Their position might feel stable enough but that didn’t alter the fact that they were still in a great deal of danger.
‘So, now what?’ Mia asked.
‘We should get some sleep too,’ Luca said into the silence.
Mia shook her head, reaching across to feel once again for the pulses in Brian’s foot. They were there but feeble and Mia guessed the injury was compromising the blood flow lower. ‘I’m worried about the circulation,’ Mia murmured. ‘It’d be awful to survive a crash like this then go on to lose your leg.’
Luca, who was worried too, gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Hopefully we’ll be out of here before it comes to that.’
Mia nodded. Suddenly aware she was still wearing her helmet, she pulled it off.
Luca placed a stilling hand on her forearm. ‘You should leave it on,’ he said.
Mia shook her hair free and finger-combed it. ‘I’ll feel ridiculous sitting here for the next who knows how long in this stupid helmet.’
Luca sought her gaze. ‘If whatever’s supporting us gives way, that helmet could be your lifeline.’
Mia glanced away from the stark reality she saw in his deep, dark eyes. ‘Well, I doubt very much it’ll prevent my neck from being broken, which is the most likely outcome if this thing plummets to the ground.’
Luca knew she was right. Spinal compression injury would be the true killer. That and the many other possibilities in between flitted through his mind as he watched Mia with a growing sense of helplessness.
He hated being powerless to affect change in this situation. That all three of them were dependent on things outside his control—the weather, branch structure, the expertise of others.
He’d been taking care of himself for a long time now. So, he suspected, had she. This kind of impotence was reminiscent of his past. And he’d had a little too much of that already this last week.
He took off his own helmet and ruffled his hair.
‘We’re going to be fine,’ he murmured. If he had to hold this helicopter in place through sheer force of will, he would. He wouldn’t let Mia down. He tapped the top of her helmet. ‘Keep it close.’
Mia nodded. ‘I don’t suppose Air Control said what was happening with the patient we’re supposed to be evac’ing?’ Luca had talked with Air Control while she’d been inserting the IV.
‘They’re coming in by road. No choice now.’
Mia knew that would be an hour or so’s drive in these treacherous weather conditions, even with lights and sirens. The mountain roads were dangerous when wet and low cloud would further inhibit speed.
‘Hopefully the patient’s spinal condition is minor,’ Mia commented, rubbing absently at her arms. Although she doubted very much they would have been sent out on such a night for a chipped vertebra.
‘You cold?’ Luca asked.
‘A little,’ she admitted. The breached cabin was a perfect conduit for the freezing wind and the temperature inside the crippled aircraft had dropped considerably.
They’d covered Brian in a space blanket but now her adrenaline had settled and their activity had ceased she was starting to feel cold gnawing at her arms. ‘You must be too,’ Mia said. ‘Your overalls are wet around your shoulders and chest.’
Luca wasn’t really. His body was still on high alert, his metabolic rate steaming along like a whistling kettle. But they were probably going to be there for a while…
He leaned across and dragged a pack out from under the stretcher, locating the stash of space blankets folded neatly into playing-card-sized packaging.
‘Here,’ he said, passing her one. Then he opened another and unfolded it. The thin, metallic, foil material crinkled noisily, like a chocolate wrapper, as he proceeded to scrunch it up.
‘What are you doing?’ Mia asked as she unfolded hers and stood so she could wrap it around her entire body.
‘I’m going to plug the hole with it,’ Luca murmured.
‘Ah…good thinking,’ she said as she moved aside to give him more room to manoeuvre.
Luca carefully leaned over Brian’s seat and gingerly stuffed the whistling hole with the scrunched-up foil blanket. ‘That should do it,’ he said, standing back to admire his handiwork.
‘Sounds like it,’ Mia agreed as the whistling magically stopped.
He smiled down at her and in the confines of the helicopter a hunched Luca seemed to take up all the space. She hadn’t had time to think about her startling revelation from earlier, but now it was all she could think about.
She was in love with Luca di Angelo.
For better or worse. And surely this had to be the worst?
‘It’s going to be okay,’ Luca murmured, lifting his hand to cup her cheek. ‘You’re going to be okay.’
Mia wasn’t sure if she’d ever be okay again. She’d gone and done something she’d sworn she never would—fallen in love. How could life ever be okay? How could it ever be the same?
The air seemed to thicken as they stood hunched over in the middle of the helicopter, staring at each other. The howl of the wind and the steady beeping of the heart-rate monitor twirled around them like a symphony.
Brian chose that moment to stir, crinkling the space blanket and setting off the monitor alarm. Luca’s hand dropped as he started guiltily and immediately switched his attention to the stretcher.
Luca placed his hand on the pilot’s shoulder. ‘Hurting, Brian?’
Brian’s eyes drifted open and he gave them a goofy smile. �
��Nope. Everything ish wonderfullll,’ he slurred. ‘That morphine is gooood stuff.’ And his eyes drifted shut again.
Mia, who was once again checking Brian’s foot pulses, smiled. Obviously the pain relief was working.
‘How are they?’ Luca asked.
‘The same, I think. The foot seems a little cooler, though.’
They resumed their seats, Luca wrapping himself in a space blanket as well. He checked his watch. ‘Nearly four-thirty,’ he said as he peered out the rain-spattered window.
They sat in silence for some minutes, both looking out at the watery blackness. ‘This wasn’t quite how I imagined my first visit to the Blue Mountains would pan out,’ Luca murmured.
Mia’s gaze slid from the window to his profile. ‘I recommend driving next time.’
There was a pause as their eyes met and then they both laughed. Mia’s stomach rumbled. ‘Are you hungry?’ She grabbed her backpack from its hidey-hole. The foil of the space blanket crinkled with her every movement. ‘There’s usually some exceedingly fattening, sugar-loaded snacks in here.’
She gave a triumphant whoop when she located two chocolate bars and handed him one. She tore off her wrapper and sighed as she savoured that first sinful bite. ‘To think, this could be the last chocolate I ever eat.’
Luca glanced at her sharply. ‘Don’t talk like that.’
Mia shrugged as the other lasts competed for equal placing. Last time smelling eucalyptus. Last time seeing rain.
Last time being with Luca.
She wondered if she confessed to these crazy new feelings whether Luca would pretend that he reciprocated. He could renege when they were safely back in Sydney, she wouldn’t hold him to it, but if she was about to meet her fate then…why not utter the words?
Because she didn’t want her last moments filled with an awkward silence and an even more awkward Luca trying to figure out how to let her down gently before they crashed to a fiery death.
Or worse—watch him lie to her.