He hoped the airplane didn’t take inspiration from those fragments.
In the moonlight, the expressions on John’s and Blay’s faces were pretty fucking priceless as they got a good look at the escape plan—and he knew where they were coming from.
Rhage hit the brakes and squeezed out again. “Let’s load him up.”
Silence. Well, except for the wheezing plane behind them.
“You’re not taking it up,” Qhuinn said, almost to himself.
Rhage frowned in his direction. “Excuse me.”
“You’re too valuable. If that thing goes down, we can’t lose two Brothers. Not going to happen. I’m expendable, you are not.”
Rhage opened his mouth like he was going to argue. But then he shut it, a strange expression settling onto his beautiful face.
“He’s right,” Z said grimly. “I can’t put you in jeopardy, Hollywood.”
“Fuck that, I can dematerialize out of the cockpit if—”
“And you think you’re going to be able to do that when we’re in a spiral? Bullshit—”
A smattering of gunshots came from the tree line, piffing into the snow, whizzing by the ear.
Everyone snapped into action. Qhuinn dived into the plane, pulled himself into the pilot’s seat, and tried to make sense of all the…fucking hell, there were a lot of dials. The only saving grace he had was that he’d—
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
—watched enough movies to know that the lever with the grip was the gas and the bow tie–shaped wheel was the thing you pulled up to go up, and pushed down to go down.
“Fuck,” he muttered as he stayed in a tuck position as much as he could.
Given the popping sounds that followed, John and Blay were shooting back, so Qhuinn sat up a little higher and glanced at the rows of instruments. He figured the one with the little gas tank was what he was looking for.
Quarter of the tanks left. And the shit in there was probably half condensation.
This was a really bad idea.
“Get him in here!” Qhuinn yelled, sizing up the empty, flat field to the left.
Rhage was on it, throwing Zsadist into the airplane with all the gentleness of a longshoreman. The Brother landed in a crumpled pile, but at least he was cursing—which meant he was with it enough to feel pain.
Qhuinn didn’t wait for any door-shutting bullcrap. He released the foot brake, hit the accelerator, and prayed they didn’t skid out in the snow—
Half the glass windshield shattered in front of him, the bullet that did the damage ricocheting around the cockpit, the whiff! from the seat next to him suggesting the headrest had caught the slug. Which was better than his arm. Or skull.
The only good news was that the plane seemed ready to get the hell out of there, too, that rusty-ass engine spinning the prop at a dead run like the POS knew getting off the ground was the sole way to safety. Out the side windows, the landscape started striping by, and he oriented the middle of the “runway” by keeping the two sets of trees equidistant.
“Hold on,” he yelled over the din.
Wind was ripping into the cockpit like there was an industrial fan filling up the space where the pane of glass had been, but it wasn’t like he was planning on going high enough to require pressurization.
At this point, he just wanted to clear the forest up ahead.
“Come on, baby, you can do it…come on….”
He had the throttle down flat, and he had to tell his arm to ease off—there was no more juice to be had, but breaking the goddamn thing was guaranteed to fuck them even harder.
The din got louder and louder.
Trees moved faster and faster.
The bumps became more and more violent, until his teeth were clapping together, and he became convinced one or both of the wings were going to unhinge and fall by the wayside.
Figuring there was no time to waste, Qhuinn pulled back as hard as he could on the steering wheel, gripping the thing tightly, as if that could somehow be translated to the body of the plane and keep it all together—
Something fell from the ceiling and fluttered back in Z’s direction.
Map? Owner’s manual? Who the fuck knew.
Man, those trees at the far end were getting close.
Qhuinn pulled even more, in spite of the fact that the wheel was as far toward him as it could go—which was a crying shame, because they were out of runway and still not off the ground—
Scraping sounds raked down the belly of the plane, as if underbrush were reaching up and trying to grab onto the steel plating.
And still those trees were even closer.
His first thought as he stared death in the face was that he was never going to meet his daughter. At least not on this side of the Fade.
His second and final was that he couldn’t believe he’d never told Blay he loved him. In all the minutes and hours and nights of his life, in all the words he’d spoken to the male over the years they’d known each other, he’d only ever pushed him away.
And now it was too late.
Dumb-ass. What a fucking dumb-ass he was.
’Cuz it sure as hell appeared that his library card was getting stamped tonight.
Straightening up so the full force of that cold blast hit him square in the face, Qhuinn glared into the rush, picturing those pines ahead that he couldn’t see because his eyes were watering from the wind. Opening his mouth, he screamed bloody murder, adding his voice to the maelstrom.
Goddamn it, he wasn’t going down like a pussy. No ducking, no pathetic oh-please-God-no-saaaaaave-me. Fuck that. He was going to meet death with his fangs bared and his body braced and his heart pounding not from fear, but from a whole boatload of…
“Blow me, Grim Reaper!”
As Qhuinn was trying to get airborne, Blay had his gun muzzle pointed into the tree line and was pumping off rounds like he had an endless supply of lead—which he didn’t.
This was a total goat fuck. He and John and Rhage were without any cover; there was no way of knowing how many slayers were in those woods; and for the love of God, all that ancient airplane was doing was leaving a toxic cloud of smoke in its wake as it rattled off like it was on a Sunday stroll.
Oh, and that POS was far from fucking bulletproof, but evidently had gas in its tank.
Qhuinn and Z were not going to make it. They were going to slam into that forest at the end of the field—assuming they didn’t get blown up first.
In that moment, when he knew that one way or another a fireball was imminent, he split in half. The physical part of him remained plugged into fending off the attack, his arms sticking straight out, his forefingers squeezing out bullets, his eyes and ears tracking the sounds and sights of muzzle flashes and the movements of his enemy.
The other part of him was in that airplane.
It was as if he were watching his own death. He could imagine so very clearly the violent vibrating of the plane, and the out-of-control bumps over the ground, and the sight of that solid line of trees coming at him—sure as if he were staring out of Qhuinn’s eyes and not his own.
That foolhardy son of a bitch.
There had been so many times when Blay had thought, He’s going to kill himself.
So many times on and off the field.
But now this was the one that was going to stick—
The bullet struck him in the thigh, and the pain that raced from his leg to his heart suggested that his full attention needed to shift back to the fight: If he wanted to live, he had to completely focus.
Yet even as the conviction hit him, there was a split second when he thought, Just end this all now. Just be done with all the bullshit and the punishment of life, the almost-theres, the if-onlys, the relentless chronic agony he’d been in…he was so tired of it all—