“I don’t have to pull anything or use a back-up if it doesn’t work?”
“It will work. Once you’re in the water, release the straps from the pack. The pack will keep you afloat. Look for the orange lifeboat and climb inside.” Her gaze seemed unfocused, but she nodded. He knew that was the best he was going to get.
She swallowed hard and looked into the sky in front of her.
“Now, on the count of three.” He knew she would hate him for this, but they were out of time for her nerves to settle. “One...two...” He pushed her lightly, and with a small cry, she lost her footing and went through the door.
He grabbed the douche canoe that had tried to pummel his face in, wrapped a separate harness around them both, and dropped backwards through the door. He watched his aircraft, the thing he loved more than anything else in the world, fly on without him, pissed beyond belief to be in a situation like this. He really regretted taking this job. Too late to worry about it now.
All he knew was that this had better pay off in the end.
As he held tightly to his unwanted passenger strapped to him with an extra harness, he made the effort to roll his body over until he was staring down at the water far below him. He heard the missile long before he heard the explosion and felt the intense heat of his airplane flying apart above him. Pieces of it bombarded his back, but nothing bigger than a few pebble-sized pieces of metal. Most of the plane fell in a giant hunk of flaming remains toward the massive body of water below. The attacking aircraft flew on, but Kai knew they’d be back.
He tried not to think about the enormous loss of his livelihood. Or the loss of freedom it represented. Or the fact that Hollyn, he, and the fool strapped to him currently were about to be at the mercy of the open ocean. He also knew the people who shot down his plane would come back to look for them. There was no way they got away without someone seeing.
For a while, it felt like he wasn’t getting any closer to his goal, but after only a minute or two, he heard the release of the parachute, and he grabbed the handles of the long lines he would use to steer himself closer to Hollyn and/or the raft. He heard the hum of the plane above him. They wouldn’t have long to try to make it to the large cargo ship before the plane figured out where they were. He just hoped the crew of the ship weren’t a bunch of pirates, but he knew that was the most likely possibility.
Once he was a couple hundred feet from the water, he felt the gravity of two bodies under the same parachute carrying them quickly to the splashdown below. They hit the water, and Kai held his breath as they went down into the water. He felt the tug of the pack pulling them back upward, and he kicked his legs to help them resurface.
He broke the surface of the water and pulled the head of Hollyn’s father’s henchman up as well. Kai pulled in a deep breath and made quick work of unbuckling the parachute from his pack.
Once he was free, he began looking around for a flash of orange or any sign of Hollyn.
“Kai! Over here!”
He glanced in the direction of her voice and saw Hollyn already sitting inside the lifeboat, waving him toward her.
With effort, he swam toward the boat, dragging the dead weight of the henchman behind him. Even though he’d told Hollyn the henchman was on his own once they hit the water, he dragged him along.
He fought the waves, which were a little bigger than he’d like, but with effort, he made it to the boat. Once there, he pushed the henchman against the side of the boat and Hollyn reached over, holding him up with her hands while Kai pulled himself inside. It wasn’t easy and took him a couple times, but he rolled over the side and laid on his back a few minutes before slowly pulling himself up and making his way toward Hollyn. With both lifting, they managed to get the man into the boat. As soon as the henchman was unconscious but breathing in the bottom of the boat, Kai collapsed backward, resting his head against the rim of the boat, trying to catch his own breath.
“What do we do now?”
He stared at the sky. “Try not to get spotted by that plane before we get picked up by that ship.” He threw his index finger in the direction of the cargo boat, which was now closer than expected. It loomed on their immediate horizon, still a few hundred yards away.
“Should we do anything to get their attention?”
“I don’t know how they could have missed us with that exit.”
