I reach around her. My chest brushes against the canvas of her jacket. I release the latch. The straps fall away. I grip her shoulders, assessing her stability beneath the winter gear. She is solid enough to hold steady under my grip without flinching.
"Can you move your legs?" I ask, my gaze scanning the crushed floorboards. The metal has crumpled inward, trapping her boots against the firewall.
She tugs her left leg. It comes free easily. She tugs her right. It catches on a jagged piece of aluminum.
"Stuck," she says flatly. No panic. Just a simple reporting of facts.
"Hold still."
I fold myself down into the cramped gap between the seats. The sharp edge of the console digs into my ribs as I wedge my hands beside her boot. I brace my shoulder against the seat frame and pull. The aluminum groans, then bends. The trap opens.
"Pull it out," I grunt.
She yanks her boot free. I straighten as far as the crushed ceiling allows, my head pressed against the buckled metal. I offer her my hand. She looks at my palm for a fraction of a second. A calculated assessment. She takes it. Her grip is strong. I pull her up from the seat. She wavers on her feet as the vertigo of the crash catches up to her. She falls forward.
I catch her. I pull her flush against my chest.
She is solid against me. The top of her head tucks under my chin. Her hands press flat against my chest. She freezes against me for one long, suspended second.
“I’m fine,” she mutters, pushing back with a stubborn shove.
She steps away, creating distance. I let her go, but I track her.
"The go-bag is under the rear bench," she says, turning her back to me to inspect the jammed door mechanism. "Grab it. We have less than three minutes before the fumes ignite if a spark hits the electrical panel."
I turn and rip the rear bench seat from its mounts. The canvas survival bag sits wedged beneath a pile of loose luggage. I haul it out, slinging the strap over my shoulder. My own tactical bag is still wedged between the front seats where I dropped it before impact. I grab it on the way past—a clean change of clothes, two extra magazines, and an encrypted burner are not items I leave behind. I sling it over my other shoulder.
Reese kicks the mangled door of the cabin. It does not budge. The frame is warped.
"Step back," I order.
She glances at me over her shoulder. She reads the absolute focus in my gaze. She takes a single step back.
I face the jammed door. I do not test it. I do not assess the hinges. I lift my leg and drive my boot into the center of the warped aluminum. The metal shrieks. The latch shatters. The door blows outward, tearing free from the hinges and tumbling into the deep snow outside.
Brutal, sub-zero air floods the cabin. It steals the breath straight from my lungs.
The wilderness awaits. A vast, unbroken sea of white powder and towering evergreens. The sky is a bruised purple. The storm that brought us down is still raging, dumping flakes of snow into the open wound of the cabin.
"Ladies first," I say, my voice deadpan.
Reese glares at me. Her sassy, practical nature refuses to die, even in the face of disaster. She climbs over the twisted threshold and drops into the snow. The powder is waist-deep.She sinks immediately, floundering for a moment before finding her footing on a submerged branch.
I follow her out. The snow bites through my pants instantly. The wind attacks any exposed skin. I pull the survival bag higher onto my shoulder.
"We need to move uphill," Reese shouts over the howling wind. She points toward a dense cluster of massive pines about fifty yards away, sitting on an elevated ridge. "If the fuel catches, it will blow the debris down into the ravine. We need the high ground."
She does not wait for my approval. Exhausted and bleeding, she trudges through the waist-deep drifts, using her arms to part the snow like water. She leads. She breaks the trail.
I follow in her wake. I watch the sway of her hips fighting the resistance of the snow. I watch the determined set of her shoulders. I have spent my entire life surrounded by lethal men. Men who kill for money, for territory, for respect. None of them possess the unadulterated willpower of the curvy pilot currently dragging herself up a frozen mountain.
She is a force of nature. I will keep her breathing.
We reach the tree line. The canopy of the pines provides a slight reprieve from the snowfall. The ground here is relatively bare, covered in dry, rust-colored needles. Reese collapses against the trunk of the largest tree, chest heaving. She swipes the back of her glove across her bleeding temple, leaving a crimson smear against the canvas.
I drop the survival bag at her feet. I stand over her.
"Sit down," I instruct.
