by Misty Evans
If he were a religious man, he’d think God was trying to tell him something.
The silver jet was the only plane on the runway, most of the small airport deserted. Of course, even diehard businessmen wouldn’t fly when storm sirens were going off.
Abdel Al-Safari might have been a cunning terrorist, but he wasn’t that smart if he thought he could outfox Mother Nature.
“They’re picking up speed again,” Colton yelled over the thunder and wind. “What do you want to do?”
As far as wingmen went, the guy had been one hundred percent solid. Jax couldn’t have asked for more. “You gotta get me as close as possible.”
He floored the gas, snapping Jax’s head back. “You got it, boss!”
Boss. The term made him feel old.
The pain in his body and the heaviness in his heart justified that feeling. After all he’d lived through, his body, heart, and mind were tired.
Old man, here I come.
But that was bullshit. He’d driven his body and his psychological state to the brink many times. This time was no different. He had a job to do. Someone to save.
This time is different, his internal voice insisted. This time, it’s Ruby.
The Jeep ate up the tarmac; the plane’s nose grew bigger as it accelerated. What exactly was he going to do to stop it? He had one handgun and his rifle. The rifle was a better weapon, but he didn’t have time to set it up and skillfully take out the pilot. Doing so could endanger everyone on board, anyway. He cared little for Al-Safari, but how was he going to stop the plane without hurting Ruby?
Jax had lost his comm in the mud, Colt’s was still working and he’d given it to Jax. Beatrice and Rory were relaying a constant stream of information he didn’t necessarily need to hear. “Feds and locals are on the way,” Rory said, his voice cutting in and out, “but they’ll never reach you in time.”
“It’s us or nothing,” Jax told Colton.
The kid nodded. “The Gulfstream 450 needs at least 5000 feet to take off. They’re going to run right into us.”
Was it too much to ask for Mother Nature to do him a solid and strike the plane with lightning?
More likely, God would hit him with a bolt just to laugh at his fucking ass.
Jax checked the cartridge and chamber of his Desert Eagle .45. It was ready. “Know anything about the location of the fuel tanks”
Colton shot him a look. “You hit the fuel tanks, the whole plane will blow.”
“Exactly. I don’t want to hit it.”
The kid knew a lot about planes. Hands clenched on the steering wheel, he gave Jax the lowdown on the Gulfstream and where to aim in under five seconds.
“Stop here,” Jax called over the driving rain.
“You sure?”
He nodded, and Colt jerked the wheel, sliding the car into a vertical barricade in front of the oncoming jet.
Throwing open the Jeep’s door, Jax unfolded his body and climbed out.
The plane was still coming. It was close enough to hear its engines roaring over the storm’s noise. He could see the pilot and co-pilot in the cockpit.
Now or never.
In his head, he heard Beatrice reciting different scenarios. If he shot the pilot, X would happen. If he shot out the tires, X and Y would happen. If he put a hole in the cabin, X, Y, and Z would happen.
All of them resulted in a dysfunctional plane and potential death for those inside.
He raised his gun. Put his finger on the trigger.
Looked down the site.
I’m sorry, Ruby.
It was a nightmare. The jet looming over him, the rain and wind lashing against him. For a moment, it seemed like he disconnected from this body, floating away because he couldn’t bear the pain of knowing he might be sending Ruby to her death.
He’d never be able to live with himself if he let her go, and yet…he was seriously contemplating it.
His finger fell off the trigger. I’m sorry, Ruby, ran through his brain again.
He couldn’t do it.
Her voice came out of nowhere, snapping him out of his reverie. “What are you doing, Jaxon? Shoot the goddamn plane!”
Was he hallucinating?
“Jaxon, if you can hear me, shoot the plane!”
Ruby! Her comm was working.
Over the wind and rain, he heard the sounds of commotion, Ruby’s voice, Rory’s voice, Beatrice’s voice. They all ran together, a steady song in the back of his head.
The plane was nearly on top of him. He had to make up his mind.
I love you, Ruby. Why hadn’t he told her that? Realigning the Eagle’s site, he put his finger on the trigger.
As the plane’s wheels began to leave the ground, Jax ignored his body’s urge to duck, following the underbelly of the plane with his gun.
In his ear, he thought he heard Ruby’s voice again, almost drowned out by the engine noise and storm. “Come on, Jax. Get me the hell out of here. Shoot already!”
The plane’s shadow falling on him, Jax raised the gun a millimeter more to line it up just where he wanted it, and…
Bam, bam, bam.
He kept firing all the way down the belly. He hit an engine, saw it falter.
The landing gear, still down, nearly winged him as he fell onto his back, continuing to unload his clip into the plane.
Bam, bam, bam. Direct hit. Engine number two faltered as well.
I love you, Ruby.
The mantra played over and over again in his head with every kickback of the Eagle. As the plane rose farther into the air, smoke billowed from several places. In the span of the next few seconds, he heard the engines catch, cut out, fire again. The plane listed to the side.
Colton stood next to the Jeep, watching the plane as it continued to climb higher.
And then the engines cut out once more and didn’t restart.
The plane slowed, suspended in the air for a long, horrible moment. Colt glanced back at Jax, a look of oh shit on his face.
Jax hauled his sore, exhausted body from the runway and started running.
Because in the next second, the plane lost its fight with gravity and crashed to the ground.
Chapter Twenty-four
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THE PLANE CRASHED onto one side, a chunk of the fuselage tearing away as it skidded and buckled. The impact rattled her teeth, a sickening, screeching noise filled her ears as Ruby kept her eyes closed and prayed.
When they finally came to a stop, she was upright once more and could see the barren field near the end of the runway through the hole in the cabin’s side.
Craning her neck, she saw Jax running all out, his face filled with fear.
Shinedown was running toward the plane, too, but Jax passed him, and it looked like he was reloading his gun as he ran.
Damn SEAL. She would have chuckled if she could have drawn enough air.
Quiet reigned inside the cabin. Al-Safari lay on the floor, knocked out or shot, Ruby couldn’t be sure. He’d thrown himself over Izala when Jax had started shooting, a loyal psycho to the end.
Ruby couldn’t see Izala, but the pilot and co-pilot were totally silent. If they weren’t crushed and lying dead, they were probably severely injured as well. The other two men who’d been inside the plane were gone, along with their seats, which had been ripped away upon landing.
Glass lay all around her, metal fragments too. Rain and wind whipped into the destroyed plane as the storm raged around it.
One of the ties around her wrist had half-broken when her body had been tossed around in her seat. She fiddled with it, bending her hand back and tugging. The angle of her bound wrist only allowed for shallow leverage, though, and she got nowhere with it.
A moan rang out. A series of fatigued curses in Arabic.
Izala, two seats ahead of hers, was still alive.
Only the webbed belt encircled her upper body and it had loose
ned in the crash as well. She leaned forward, rocked hard, leaned again. Stretching, stretching, stretching, forcing the belt to give until her teeth landed on the broken zip tie. She latched on and jerked, her sore neck and pounding head raising hell with her at the sharp motion.
Another moan, the sounds of shuffling. Part of the cabin’s wall a few feet in front of Izala’s seat had been smashed in from the fall. She heard him shifting through debris, un-belting himself, calling for Abdel.
She stretched more, jerking on the broken tie again. More wiggling with her hand and jerking with her teeth and she felt it loosen another tiny bit.
And then she saw Izala rising from his seat.
His suit was still pristine, except for a rip in one sleeve. He wasn’t even wet. He wiped a hand over his face, shuffled toward the emergency exit—what was left of it—and unlocked the metal bar.
He paused as if he felt her staring, his gaze zooming back to her.
Ruby looked down and went back to work on her wrists.
Drag, thump. Drag, thump.
Click.
Her head snapped up and she found Izala shuffling toward her, a small gun in his hand, cocked and ready.
Heart pounding, she tugged desperately against the tie at her wrist.
Drag, thump.
He was nearly on top of her now and a scream rose from her throat, her whole body lunging back and forth, trying to loosen all the ties.
Where was Jax?
The weight and friction worked, her one wrist popping free along with the belt around her chest. She dove forward just as Izala fired.
Bam, bam.
A hot poker of pain tore through her upper left shoulder, near her clavicle. Ruby buried her head between her knees and covered her ears as best as she could with one wrist still tied, slamming her eyelids shut.
Warm blood ran down her side, her leg, pooling on the floor. Her brain scrambled for an option, anything. She worked at the other wrist with her free hand, but it wouldn’t give and she had no weapon. She couldn’t move. Her shoulder, her neck, screamed in pain.
Drag, thump.
Her gaze flew up—she couldn’t help it. Looming over her, Izala sneered a satisfied smile as he held on to the still intact chair in front of her. Gun in hand, he centered it on her face.
“Put down the weapon!”
Jax. Oh dear God. He was in the plane. True to his word, he had stayed with her somehow, through all of this.
But there was nothing he could do for her now as she stared down the black barrel of Izala’s gun.
The terrorist didn’t even acknowledge Jax as he stared at Ruby, the sneering smile growing. “Do not worry, bulbul. I will take good care of your bodyguard.”
Izala is going to kill me and then Jax…
“Get back!” she yelled at Jax.
She saw Izala’s finger move, slammed her eyes shut. The crack of the gun rang out and she flinched, waiting for the pain. Waiting for death.
But all she felt was the throbbing in her head, the searing burn in her shoulder, the blood coursing down her chest, her ribs.
A wave of lightheadedness hit, her head falling back against the padded headrest. She wanted to shout another warning to Jax, but her tongue and lips wouldn’t work. Her mouth was so dry, her head so heavy…
Next thing she knew, gentle hands were on her face, her neck, stroking her hair. “Ruby?”
Her head wobbled as she lifted it, her eyes filling with tears as she forced them open. Jax knelt beside her, his face lighting up as she met his gaze.
“Jax.” She sort of fell forward and threw her arms around his neck, the restraints around her ankles and one wrist keeping her from throwing her entire self at him. “Is Izala…?”
“Dead? Yeah.” He hugged her tight. “Sorry about that, but I had to kill him, Ruby. I just…”
“I know. If you hadn’t, I would have.”
A slight chuckle from his chest radiated into hers. His voice was calm, his hands gentle as he drew back to look her over. “You’re shot.”
“I’m good,” she said sarcastically. Her lungs felt sore and couldn’t quite seem to take in enough air.
But I’m alive. Jax is alive. “Really,” she said. “Never better.”
Wind blew into the open cabin, bringing more rain with it. It became apparent in Jax’s face as he checked her pulse, pulled the shirt away from her bullet wound, and ran a hand down her side, that something wasn’t right. He grabbed a couple of bar towels from the galley behind them and pressed one to her neck, the other to her shoulder. “We need to get you to a hospital. This is going to hurt when I lift you. You’ve got a cracked rib or two.”
Jesus, maybe that was why she couldn’t breathe. Her chest felt like a marble was rolling around in it. “It doesn’t hurt, but I can’t catch my breath. My head hurts, and my shoulder hurts, but not my ribs.”
“You’re in shock, Ruby. You’ve lost a lot of blood. Can you feel your fingers and toes?”
Ruby looked down as he cut through the ties. She wiggled her fingers and toes. At least, she tried to. A couple of her fingers were doing their own thing, sticking straight out, while others curled into her palms. She couldn’t move her toes at all. Couldn’t move her feet or ankles either.
“The restraints cut off my circulation, I guess. I’ll be fine in a minute.”
Contrary to her words, she suddenly felt woozy. Jax said something, but it sounded like he was inside a vacuum. Her head fell back, her limbs went slack. Everything seemed to recede as her vision dimmed.
“Ruby.” Jax was patting her face, shaking her.
She looked at him, the face of the man she loved, and tried to get her lips to tell him how much he meant to her. How much this—his coming after her—meant. She wanted to ask him to take care of Elliot for her. But she had no voice, her pulse slowing to a dull throb under her skin. Her neck and shoulder continued to burn with a fierceness she could hardly stand.
Her heavy eyelids fell, even as she heard Jax yell her name again. She tried to tell him it was okay, she knew he’d take good care of her, but next thing she knew, death finally came.
AH SHIT.
Shit, shit, shit.
Ruby had passed out on him.
She was bleeding heavily from the bullets that had grazed her neck and hit her shoulder. A few centimeters to the right with either one of them, and she’d be dead right now.
If Jax didn’t get her to the hospital, she might die on him yet.
Her body was in shock, she most likely had a concussion, and from the sounds of her labored breathing, she had a broken rib or two.
Moving her was not recommended. He needed a goddamn ambulance and he needed it right fucking now.
Colton came running down the aisle from the cockpit. “Both of them are dead,” he announced, referring to the pilot and co-pilot.
In Jax’s ear, he heard Beatrice. “The local authorities are on their way, but the storm knocked down a tree on a nearby church where they were having vacation bible school. A bunch of kids are injured. There are no ambulances available at this time.”
Well, wasn’t that fucking nice. “You’ve got to get me some help, dammit,” he said to her. “Ruby’s in critical condition.”
“The first responders are up to their eyeballs, Jax.” This from Rory.
“You must treat her yourself,” Beatrice added.
Jax raked a hand down his face, water, sweat, and mud flaking off. “Fuck me with a spade. How am I supposed to do that? I’ve got nothing for equipment or meds.”
“Your bag’s in the car,” Colt offered. “That black doctor’s bag?”
The original one he’d come to Ruby’s with. The one with his fake credentials and a few first aid supplies. Except, he’d used most of those supplies on Hayden.
Why didn’t I restock it at the clinic?
Colt stepped past him and tapped the wall between Ruby’s seat and the galley. “This Gulfstream has a first aid center. There’s a back board, a first ai
d kit, and an AED.”
AED—an automated external defibrillator. Would have been handy to have had when Elliot had flatlined, but God, he hoped he wouldn’t need it with Ruby.
Jax grabbed the ends of his hair with both hands and pulled. He needed to work fast, but he needed more than a few Band-Aids to get him out of this mess.
“Grab my bag,” he told Colton, because what other choice did he have? “I’ll get the stretcher. We need to keep her as immobile as possible.”
The kid took off, using the inflatable ramp that had opened up when Izala had tried to go out the emergency door. Jax started reassessing what to do with the injured woman in front of him.
“How far away is the hospital?” he asked Beatrice and Rory. “Please tell me it’s close.”
“Under ten miles,” Rory said.
Ten miles. Might as well be ten thousand if he couldn’t stabilize Ruby and stop her bleeding.
She’d already soaked the white towel he’d applied to her neck. The bullet had missed the carotid, but there were plenty of blood vessels it had hit. Her shoulder was damaged too. She’d mentioned her head hurt so he had to assume concussion, which in and of itself could be fatal. Oh, and if he moved her incorrectly, her ribs might puncture her lungs.
Great, just fucking great.
He grabbed all of the onboard first aid stuff, and shuffled debris out of the way so he could lay the folded stretcher out flat.
Colt returned with his black bag as Jax was opening the first aid kit and removing gauze. The kid looked like a wet, muddy dog. “We’ve got a fuel leak.”
Of all the…
Jax raised his head and looked up at the ceiling. While the side of the plane had ripped open, the top was still intact. He yelled at the heavens anyway. “Is that it or you gonna throw something else at me, because honest to”—he almost said God, then decided not to push his luck—“fucking Betsy, I’m going to come up there and kick someone’s ass if you don’t cut me some slack here! I’m trying to save this woman’s life. Help me out, for cryin’ out loud!”
So much for not pushing his luck. If only there were someone whose ass he could kick. Colton took a step back and Jax didn’t blame him. The chances of him getting struck by lightning were pretty fucking high at the moment.