For the moment we were alive, and that was worth celebrating.
Even if we both knew it was likely to be cut short.
CHAPTER 20
RACHEL
The parachute slowed us down, but the ground still hurtled toward us. Between the pitch black of the night and Lea’s face in front of mine, I struggled to see how close we actually were.
Then Lea released her hold on me and landed on her feet, dipping into a squat. The parachute was still attached to me, so I was seconds behind her. I landed on my feet and then pitched forward when the parachute deflated behind me. The wind picked up, blowing sand in my face and grabbing hold of the chute, tugging me a little across the gritty earth.
I reached up and unbuckled the pack from my chest, frustrated as my fingers shook.
“Rachel? You okay?”
“Just peachy,” I grumbled, dropping the pack to the earth. “You?” I glanced around to gauge where we were, but all I could see was scrub grass and pieces of plane raining down around us. Shit, this was not good. I dropped to my knees and started pulling the chute toward me.
“Fine.” She walked closer. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to hide the evidence that we survived the explosion. Where are Ivan and Antonio?”
“I don’t know.”
“We need to find them and get the fuck out of here.” I had most of the chute gathered around me and began stuffing it into the pack. The question was where could we hide it? The answer was nowhere. I would have to take it with us. “Where were we when we were shot down? Iraq or Turkey?”
“Iraq.”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and switched it on, glad I’d turned it off during the flight from London to conserve the power.
“You planning to make a call?” she asked in disbelief.
“No, I’m using the compass to see where the fuck we are.” I pulled up the app, saying a silent prayer of thanks when the longitude and latitude numbers popped up. “Oh, God.” I patted my hip, not surprised to find my bag wasn’t there. “The computer. All the papers. They’re gone.”
“Fuck.”
“The coordinates for the facility,” I said. “Do you remember them? I can’t remember the exact numbers.”
“Yeah. I’ve got them.” She rattled them off. “30.5 N 47.816 E.”
I entered them into a message on my phone and then powered it off. “Based on our coordinates, we’re fairly close to a town where I have some contacts. We can get supplies and a vehicle from them. We’re too far from the facility to walk, but right now, we need to get your pet and the slime he carried with him and get out of here.” With any luck at all, Antonio had plummeted to his death, but guilt washed in behind the thought. I didn’t want him dead. I just wanted him gone.
“Maybe we can find some of our weapons in the rubble,” Lea said, then pointed to the east. “It looks like a lot of debris landed that way. We might find Ivan and your friend too.”
I slung the pack over my shoulder and started hiking in that direction. “He’s no friend of mine,” I spat out.
“You sure got friendly with him earlier.”
“And you know why.”
“Oh, yes. To get information.”
I spun around to face her, stopping in my tracks. “I needed information and I used what I had at my disposal to get it. I will never let a man deceive me and use me again,” I spat through gritted teeth. “Are we clear on that?”
She lifted her hands in surrender. “Sorry.”
“The asshole needs to go. I say we find Ivan and leave Antonio behind.”
“You know it won’t be that easy,” she said softly. “He will go where we go whether we want him to or not. It’s better to keep him with us so we can watch him.”
“And I say we can’t trust him. I’d rather try to lose him.”
Her chest puffed with irritation. “I am in charge.”
Choose your battles, my father had always said. Just because Lea thought she had the last say didn’t mean she actually did.
After we hiked several hundred yards, Lea called out Ivan’s name.
“Over here,” I heard the pain in his voice.
We found him sitting on the ground, his leg twisted at an unnatural angle. “Complex fracture to my femur.” Spittle shot through Ivan’s gritted teeth. “I couldn’t set it myself.”
Antonio was squatting next to him, looking up at me.
“Why didn’t you set it for him?” I demanded as I dropped the parachute pack to the ground.
“Not my problem” was his harsh reply.
“You know werewolves heal fast, yet you left him like this?” I turned my attention to Lea, who gaped at me in surprise. Probably because I was showing concern for Ivan. “Can you reset it?”