“When I tell you,” he says without looking at me, “grab the support strut behind you. Don’t let go.”
I twist to look. The strut runs along what used to be the roof, now the wall beside me. My hand finds it without thinking, and the metal feels solid under my grip despite the destruction around us.
“Got it,” I manage.
He nods once. Then his hands move to Mara’s vest straps, trying to free her from it. If he can’t move the metal, maybe he can slide her out—
The helicopter lurches.
I scream.
Not a subtle shift this time. A full drop, maybe six inches, before something catches and holds. The groan of stressed metal fills the cabin, high and terrible. Through the broken windshield, I watch dirt and small rocks slide away into nothing.
The edge is crumbling beneath us.
Luke’s head snaps up, and for the first time since I regained consciousness, his eyes find mine. There’s blood on his face, a smear across his cheek, but it’s his eyes that make my breath catch. They’re not quite human anymore; amber bleeding through the brown, dragon rising to the surface in response to a threat.
I can practically see his mind working. He’s running scenarios. Probabilities. Making the kind of cold assessments that come from too many years in situations exactly like this.
But under the calculation, I see something else. Something raw.
His dragon can’t save her. And he knows it.
“Ember,” he says. My name in his voice sounds different from how it has before. Not commander to subordinate. Something urgent. Something almost—
The rest of his sentence disappears into a sound like the world tearing open.
The helicopter drops.
Not falling—not yet—but sliding. The ground beneath the nose section gives way completely, and suddenly, we’re tilting forward at an angle that defies physics. My grip on the strut is the only thing keeping me from tumbling toward the windshield.
Toward the drop.
Luke’s hand shoots out and catches Mara’s vest, holding her even as the wreckage shifts and the opening widens. His other hand finds purchase on the frame, both hands occupied, body locked in position between two impossible choices.
Then the floor beneath my feet buckles.
The strut I’m holding tears free from its moorings with a shriek of metal. I slide forward, hands scrambling for purchase on smooth surfaces, nothing to grab, nothing to stop me from—
Luke’s eyes cut to me.
I see the calculation happen in real-time. Mara: unconscious, pinned in wreckage that won’t move. Me: conscious, sliding toward certain death, seconds from going over.
Another lurch.
His hand releases Mara’s vest.
Then he lunges.
Not toward her. Toward me.
Time stretches. I see his arm extend, scales rippling up from his wrist; stronger now, brighter, like his dragon is overriding every other priority. His hand closes around my wrist as my feet leave solid ground.
Heat. Dragon-hot, burning through my sleeve. The grip doesn’t hurt; it anchors. For a half-second suspended over nothing, I’m not falling. I’m caught.
His strength pulls me up and back as the ground fractures completely beneath the helicopter’s nose. My body slams into his, and his other arm comes around me, solid and unbreakable. For one absurd moment, I feel safe. Protected. Like the world could end, and this would still be the safest place to be.
And then reality crashes back in.
