Page 8 of Rescued

It exploded, sending gunmen flying in all directions. The bullets stopped, and they flew away.

Chapter 4

Breanna sat in the helicopter seat, eyes closed, her fingers aching from gripping the strap of her bag. Please don’t let me die. Please don’t let me die.

They’d found her. Somehow Quentin’s men had found her, and her supposedly safe place wasn’t safe anymore.

There wasn’t anywhere for her to go, and she’d just been shot at, and now she was flying off into the night with a terrifying pilot who’d threatened to kill her only a little while ago.

She felt sick. And she had to pee. Really bad.

Finally, she managed to open her eyes. Very carefully, she reached over and tapped the pilot’s arm. He turned and gave her an I-wasn’t-kidding-about-throwing-you-out glare.

“I have to pee,” she yelled.

He frowned, like he didn’t understand. She pointed at her crotch, then spread her fingers in a spraying motion and yelled louder. “I have to pee, you flying maniac!”

His steely glare turned into comprehension, and then annoyance. He rolled his eyes and muttered, “You have got to be fucking kidding me.” She didn’t even need her headset to get that one.

He shook his head like he wished he’d never gotten into this, and then punched up something on the navigation screen. He was still muttering under his breath, and for the first time she was glad she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

She felt like her bladder was going to explode by the time he set the helicopter down in a dark field in the middle of another part of nowhere. He cut the rotors and she scrambled out.

He said, “Hurry up. We probably have ten minutes before somebody gets curious and calls the cops to come see if we’re drug dealers.”

It was dark and windy, and there was nothing but a little clump of scrub nearby to hide behind. She stumbled over to it, still clutching her bag, pulled up her skirt and squatted. Her legs were trembling all of the sudden, and she had to grab onto a bush to keep from falling over.

After she was done, Breanna managed to find some tissues in her bag to wipe herself, and stood up. She wanted to cry, and scream, and lie down and go to sleep all at the same time. Going to a ‘safe house’ with strangers had been bad enough, but now she was in the middle of a field with a scary man who wanted to throw her out of his helicopter, and they’d almost been shot down in a ball of fire, and they’d probably killed people on their way out, and what was she even doing here?

A wave of nausea swept over her, and suddenly she was on her hands and knees vomiting. She’d hardly eaten anything tonight so there was nothing much to come up, but she just kept heaving and couldn’t stop.

Suddenly there was a voice saying, “Oh, fuck. Come on now. You’re okay.”

She gave another heave, and then hands gathered her hair away from her face. “You’re safe. It’s just shock barfing, from the adrenalin. You’ll be fine.”

She couldn’t believe the psycho pilot was holding her hair while she threw up. Her body shuddered as she gave a couple more ugly heaves. She felt his hand awkwardly rubbing her back, and somehow the nausea subsided.

Like he was the barf whisperer.

He eased her back until she was sitting on her heels, and brushed her hair down in an oddly comforting gesture. Then he handed her a rag that only smelled slightly of engine oil, and she wiped her face.

“Here.” He gave her a small metal bottle, and she took a sip. Not water. Bourbon.

“Holy shit.” She rinsed her mouth out anyway, though, and spit it out.

“Don’t waste it.” He went to take the flask back, and she glared at him, then took another sip. It should have made her feel sicker, but oddly, it warmed her stomach.

Or maybe it was his hand, still in the middle of her back.

She wiped off the mouth of the flask with his rag and handed it back. “Are you supposed to be drinking bourbon when you fly?”

He gave her a bad-boy grin. “No.”

She didn’t say anything more. He didn’t have liquor on his breath, and anyway he’d done some spectacular flying to get them away from both places he’d landed tonight. She had no complaints about his abilities, drunk or sober.

And she wasn’t exactly a poster child for following the rules.

She said softly, “So what happens now?”