“Kinley, how are you with heights?” Jordan asked.
Her brows pinched together. “Okay, I guess. Why?”
“The helicopter can’t land here, so we’re going to have to hoist up.”
“What does that mean?”
“The engineer is going to drop a cable, we’re going to hook into it, and they’re going to pull us up.”
Kinley’s eyebrows rose while she opened and closed her mouth. “Oh. Uh…okay. What about Shane?”
“They’re going to do the same with him,” he said.
“His wounds—”
“They know what they’re doing, Kinley.”
She swallowed hard while her heart whomped, whomped in her chest. Shane was so pale. They’d cut his shirt off and had his chest wrapped in wide green and white bandages. Blood was already seeping through. There was no other choice but to trust them.
The wind whipped up and grew more and more forceful. The whomp, whomp wasn’t her heart, but the rotor blades of the black helicopter hovering over them.
“Come over here,” Jordan shouted. He led her out from under the belly of the helicopter and pulled her down to a kneeling position, tucking her head down and covering most of her body with his.
The wash from the blades whipped her clothes and hair around her, throwing up leaves and sticks.
“Keep a hand over your eyes,” he shouted near her ear. “Keep your eyes on the ground, I’ll lead you over and hook you up. Okay?”
“Okay!”
He took her upper arm and led her back toward the group. She curved a hand over her eyes to protect them and kept her head bent when he stopped.
“Raise your arms,” he shouted.
She did as he asked and he slipped a wide, thick canvas loop under her arms.
“Hold on here.” He took her hands and placed them on the canvas, almost in front of her face. He shimmied into a second loop, then raised and lowered one arm.
“Hang on!”
A sharp squeak escaped when the cable drew taut and her feet left the ground. She squeezed her eyes closed. Maybe she hadn’t given enough thought to whether or not she had an issue with heights. Of course, she hadn’t had all the information when he’d asked that question. Had he asked whether she had an issue with being dragged up in the air on a cable and a loop, she might have answered differently. The force of the wind from the blades whipped her hair around her head and face, lashing the skin around her eyes and mouth with the ends.
They stopped moving and she felt Jordan lean close again. “Lift your feet. The engineer is going to grab you and pull you back.”
Sure enough, as soon as she lifted her feet in front of her, hands grasped the material at her hips and pulled her back until she hit the rough floor of the helicopter with a jolt. She blinked her eyes open. Jordan’s feet were braced on the edge of the opening while he held on to a bar over his head. The man next to her lifted the loop over her head and handed her a set of large headphones attached to a cord. He gestured for her to put them on and she slipped them over her ears. They immediately muted the noise from the helicopter.
“Move back,” he said.
Kinley glanced behind her and scooted back on her butt, using her feet to propel across the floor. He helped her into a seat and snapped the harness around her.
Jordan hooked a cord from his belt to a ring on the inside ceiling of the helicopter and slipped from the loop. Then he leaned out of the helicopter.
She gasped, expecting him to fall, but the cord kept him in place. Another cry escaped when she saw the top of Shane’s head appear. Jordan leaned down and helped haul him into the helicopter. Devon and Harrison appeared quickly.
“We’re in,” one of the men said. His voice sounded hollow coming through the earphones.
The group unhooked from the cable and snapped their cords to rings in the floor. Jordan and the man who helped her in moved the metal arm that held the winch into the helicopter and slammed the sliding door shut.
“All secure.”
