“He blew the left engine, and seriously damaged the right,” Dylan elaborated, coldly calm in the face of our impending doom. “The best I can do is try and control our crash. But we will crash.”
I looked to Beck in panic, but he just nodded. “Do your best.”
“Do your best?” I repeated in a shriek. “That’s it? We’re about to die in three seconds!”
“Not that quick,” Dylan replied, still totally devoid of emotions. “Cessna Citation XLS travels at a maximum altitude of twelve to fifteen thousand feet. On average, we would drop at approximately five hundred feet per minute. We’re currently at nine thousand feet, give or take a bit. That means we have a full eighteen minutes until impact, but I’ll round it to ten minutes to account for the fact that our engines are on fire and we’re in a nose dive.”
“Right, ten minutes,” I repeated, my voice high pitched with terror.
My life would be over in ten minutes. There was so much I hadn’t had a chance to do. So many experiences I had missed out on.
“Looks like I’ll see my parents sooner rather than later,” I said stupidly, and for a moment, that was a comfort. I didn’t want to die, but if they were there on the other side, it wouldn’t all be bad.
Beck was looking at me, I could feel his steely gaze, but I was focused on Dylan. Watching as he wrestled the Cessna, doing whatever it was he was doing to slow our deaths.
“You’re not going to see your parents,” Beck bit out, finally dragging my attention to him. “This isn’t our first plane crash, and it won’t be our last. Someone is always trying to take out Delta’s successors. To weaken us. But those fuckers always underestimate Dylan’s skills and my determination to live so I can put a bullet in each of their skulls.”
My stomach lurched as the plane rattled again. It was so rough now that I almost felt like my insides were going to be shaken out. No doubt I’d have bruises where the seat belts were cutting into me.
“How in all fuck is this not your first crash? Like … what the fuck?”
His eyes were merciless. “We’re important people. The inheritors of a fortune that out masses the rest of the world’s combined. We control so much more than you can even imagine … and we have enemies.”
“Oscar?” I whispered, realizing that this was a decent explanation for my brother’s death.
Beck shook his head, a scowl tipping his gorgeous face into something darker. Sinister. For a moment I almost believed he was as invincible as he implied.
“Oscar’s death was not by their hand.”
Before he could elaborate, Dylan swore again, and for the first time some of the cool detachment from his face disappeared. “Get into brace position,” he barked.
I looked around frantically, finally noticing that the ground was a hell of a lot closer than it had been before. Below us was what looked like a world of trees, and I wondered if we were still in America. Was I about to die in another country? Would anyone find us or would we be a bunch of burned corpses?
“Are you fucking deaf, Riley,” Beck snapped. “Brace yourself!”
I’d never been on a commercial flight, but I had seen movies before, so I leaned forward best I could with the harness belt. It was doing a really good job at holding me in place, and I hoped that harness trumped brace position.
Dylan never took his hands off the plane, fighting to save us until the very end. Panic almost had me passing out when we first clipped the top of the trees, and everything after that was a blur of screaming and pain and fear. We crashed for what felt like forever, thrown around like clothes in a washing machine on the fastest cycle.
Eventually I stopped screaming because my breath was completely knocked out of me, and everything went fuzzy when my head slammed hard against my chair.
12
Darkness must have stolen me for some time, until I eventually woke to frantic hands running over me. With a groan, I tried to wave them away, only to have shooting pains in my arms, tearing more cries from my mouth. They were weaker this time, and for a moment, I forgot what had happened.
Until… “Butterfly, don’t make me strip you down again and check for injuries. You need to open those gorgeous blue eyes and tell me where you’re hurt.”
Whether it was the unexpected of Beck giving me a compliment or whether it was the sudden realization that I’d just been in a plane crash, I gasped and forced my eyes open.
Beck was crouched before me, holding me up from where he’d clearly undone my seatbelt.
“We’re alive?” I whispered, almost unable to believe it.
Beck shrugged. “Most of us.”
I gasped again. “Dylan? Jasper and Evan?”
“Dylan is fine, that bastard is too tough to die.”
Apparently so was Beck. Outside of what looked like a small cut on his temple, I couldn’t see another injury on him.
“Jasper’s hurt,” he said, voice tight. “We don’t know how badly right now; Dylan is patching him up.”
“And Evan,” I whispered. He’d said most of us were alive, which meant someone had to be dead.
“He’s good,” Beck replied, and my heart slowed down.
That only left one other than the pilot though. Looked like the flight attendant hadn’t made it, and that had my stomach lurching as I tried to pull myself up. Beck stayed with me, his strong hands lifting me with ease.
My stomach screamed at me when I straightened, as did my broken arm, and the side of my head. “I think I’m okay,” I whispered, testing out my limbs. “Just bruised.”
Beck touched a finger to the side of my face, pulling it away to show me the fresh red of my blood. “Dylan will have to patch you up as well,” he said abruptly. His face cold again. “Come on.”
He turned and started to push his way through the door of the cockpit. I followed slowly, still working out my aching body. On the other side it was a mess: chairs had been ripped out on impact as the cabin was torn up, and there was shit everywhere. I understood why Jasper had been injured; his chair was basically ripped in half, that side having taken most of the impact.
Beck was standing over his friends … his brothers.
“How bad is it?” I heard him ask Dylan.
He got a grim stare. “He has broken ribs, a large gash on his thigh, and any number of internal injuries I can’t assess with the equipment I have.”
Jasper let out a weak laugh, and I choked in some air at the relief he was at least conscious. “I’m fine, assholes. You know nothing gets me down. Besides, Dylan has stitched my thigh, taped my ribs, and acted like a pretentious dick. He’s practically a doctor.”
He coughed, and it sounded raspier than I would have liked.
Hobbling forward, I peered around Beck, and met Jasper’s stare. “Spare, you made it,” he said, sounding almost cheerful. “I was afraid you’d die on us. Then what would Deboise do … they’d be fresh out of heirs.”
I wanted to kick him in the balls, but the dude already looked like he’s been kicked by a bull, so I settled for smiling sweetly. “Maybe it’ll be Eddy joining me in the old-white-man club instead, you know, if you don’t make it.”
Dylan’s lips twitched, and he looked up from where he was fussing with Jasper’s leg. Our gazes met, and some of my ire died off at the worry I saw there. Shivering, I rubbed at my arms, wondering why it was so freezing in here. Evan popped his head in from somewhere near the back of the plane then, snow coating his hair. Where the hell had we landed?
Evan hurried along to us, his walk an uneven gate like he’d been hurt in the crash as well, but was managing. “The forest is huge,” he said, talking to his friends. “I went pretty far and didn’t see any signs of civilized life. Anyone work out where we are?”
“Canada,” Dylan and Beck said at the same time.
“It’s the only trajectory that makes sense,” Dylan continued. “The pilot deliberately took us off course. This crash … and location was planned.”
Beck swore, and when he spun around and I saw his face for the first time, I shrank back. Holy scary motherfucker. I waited for him to bowl me over as he set off in my direction again, but he didn’t. His hands were firm as he lifted me out of the way before he strode past and disappeared back into the cockpit. He emerged a few minutes later with two guns clutched in his hands.
I gulped. “Uh, what do you need those for?”
“This was a setup, and they’re going to make sure they finish the job.”
“Who? Who is going to make sure they finish the job? What job?”
I looked frantically between the four of them, trying to calm my breathing, but with each of their expressions growing grimmer, my panic only increased. “Riley,” Dylan barked, clearly seeing hysterical when it was about to happen. “You need to pull yourself together. We’re not the spoiled rich boys they seem to be expecting. We’re not going to let you get hurt, and we will kill every single person who comes after us.”
“That’s a promise,” Beck added, checking both guns and sliding them into the waistband of his jeans.
For some reason, their calm confidence helped me calm down as well, and I decided that I wouldn’t be a liability to them. Well, not too much of one. Starting at the front of the cabin, I searched through each of the drawers and overhead compartments I could find, gathering together anything I thought was important. I ended up with three fluffy blankets, two medical kits, a few snacks and bottles of water, and a shit-ton of cash. The cash was probably useless, but maybe we could bribe someone in the forest to help us.
There were two duffle bags which held guys’ clothing. Dumping the contents, I found a couple of thick jackets, and a few more snacks, and even more cash. “Riley, we’re moving out now,” Dylan said from where they were still crouched around Jasper. “We can’t stay here … they’ll be coming for us, and we’re not in a good spot to defend ourselves.”