Alive at 5 (Entangled Ignite) (11 page)

“You were?” He grinned.

In her effort to put more distance between her and the jets, she teetered backward across the tarmac on her high heels.

He reached out to steady her. “Don’t lose your cool. You’re going to fall on your cute little ass again.”

“Funny.” She glared at him, hoping he could feel the fear in her stare. “You can’t just throw money around and steamroll me into taking a ride I don’t even want.”

His eyebrows lifted. “You’re serious? You really don’t want to ride in a United States Air Force F-16? Are you joking? Look, I know you’re scared to fly, but—”

He
did
think he was doing her a favor.
Oh boy.
She heard and felt each beat of her heart, drumming in her chest and at her temple.
Boom-boom. Boom-boom. Boom-boom
.

He pulled her into him and held her so tight, she couldn’t move. Not that she could have moved anyway. She was totally paralyzed by fear.

“Okay, maybe I do want to thank you. But I’m not going to tell you what to do.”

“A damn miracle.” The words were muffled against his chest. She glanced up.

“My uncle always used to tell me to face what frightens you the most. And then you’re free. You’re always strung so tight, and that anxiety is holding you back from life. From being your best possible self.”

He ran one hand up and down her back in a gesture he probably thought comforted her. Wrong.
Panic attack, here I come.

“You can’t move forward until you do this…or something like it,” he murmured. “Surprise yourself. Surprise me.”

“I can’t.” Her adrenaline must have been spiking, because she suddenly felt nauseous.

“You can’t or you won’t? There’s a difference. Take a chance and go on this little adventure.”

“Little?” she squeaked.

A firm hand jerked her out of Zack’s arms. “Are you out of your damn mind?” George demanded.

Apparently, he wanted her full attention. George put his camera on the ground, and, as she backed away from both men, she almost fell over it.

“Fucking A, if your skinny ass doesn’t get in that jet and fly with the Thunderbirds, I’ll never work with you again, you big, fat, chickenshit.” George got right up in her face. She could smell the Doritos he’d downed on the ride to MacDill. “You know how many people would
kill
for this chance to fly in a fucking F-16?”

Both she and Zack gawked at George. “Poor choice of words,” she finally said. “Why don’t
you
take the seat, if you’re so excited?”

“You know I would.” George glanced at Zack, who stood with his arms banded over his chest. “But lover boy is buying this ride for
you
.”

An image of her mother lying like a corpse in that hospital bed materialized in her mind. She couldn’t do it. A tremor rippled through her, and her fingers started to go numb.
Oh, boy.

“You don’t have to do this.” Zack’s gaze bore into her. “But you’ll stay stuck in your head, in your fear, if you don’t.”

She wondered how he knew her so well when he’d just met her. Flying
was
her biggest mental wall. And the therapist wasn’t helping. She’d always known that eventually she’d have to find a way over it. She’d never get a better chance than now. “All right.” She had to physically fight back the panic. Zack was already smiling as if he knew what she was about to say. “I’ll do it.”

This time when he swooped her into a bear hug, she was prepared. She threw her arms around his neck and held on as he twirled her around. Her head fell back, the air rippled through her hair, and she let out a loud shout.

Ohmigod, this felt good.

A sudden thought brought her crashing back to Earth. Her feet hit the ground and she spun out of his hold.

“Samantha?” She felt him even though he wasn’t touching her anymore. “What is it? Are you dizzy?”

A sick feeling washed over her. She bent at the waist and attempted to suck in air.

He put his hand on her back and kept it there until she stood up.

She turned to him, shaking. “We think someone intentionally screwed with Maxwell’s parachute, and we know someone messed with your uncle’s dive tanks.”

“Yeah…” Zack eyed her.

She swallowed a nasty mixture of stomach content and fear. “What are the chances someone could get access to and tamper with a United States Air Force F-16?”

Chapter Thirteen

First, Sam’s face flushed. Then, her fingers turned icy. “Why did I agree to do this?” she muttered.

Her heart thumped against her rib cage as the canopy on the Thunderbird closed. She could still back out. Trying to swallow the panic, it jammed in the back of her throat like a thick fist. She felt for her cell phone. In her jumpsuit pocket. Like she could call for help at thirty thousand feet.

A lock clicked. No turning back now.
Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.
She blew out air in short puffs and gripped the hose attached to her oxygen mask. Her other hand grasped the edge of her flight seat as the F-16 taxied toward the runway. Even before her mom’s plane crash, Sam had never had the courage to take this ride before, despite getting the offer a couple of times. After the crash, she’d refused to fly commercial, much less an Air Force fighter jet.

“Ready?” Pilot Dan Dorway’s voice streamed through a speaker in her helmet, calm and controlled.

The exact opposite of her voice as it wobbled out like a baby taking its first steps. “No. I’m terrified.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll give you a heads up before I pull any maneuvers. You’re going to love it.”

Yeah, because she really loved sweating, throwing up, and humiliating herself. Perspiration already beaded on her forehead, but with a helmet and flight gloves on, she couldn’t brush the drops away. She couldn’t believe she’d strapped into a jet that flew twelve hundred miles per hour—twice the speed of sound. How was she supposed to get through this flight without passing out? Or worse.

Could one
die
from fear? Maybe Robert didn’t even need to sabotage the jet…

A robotic-sounding voice from the control tower buzzed in her helmet. “Quick climb approved. Thunderbird seven, clear for takeoff.”

What the heck was a quick climb? Had she agreed to that? Was that the paper she’d signed after the so-called safety class?
Shit.
She held her breath and closed her eyes.

“Ready to hit the clouds?” Pilot Dan sounded jacked up and ready for flight.

Freaking playboy adventurers. They’re all crazy
. “Hell, no,” she whispered, peeling her eyes open.

The pilot let out a cross between a confirmation and a whoop. The engines roared, and the jet shot forward.

Ohmigod! Ohmigod! Ohmigod!

“That’s three-fifty…four-hundred…four-hundred-fifty. Here we go!”

She couldn’t tell when the jet lifted off the ground. But she knew the instant the T-Bird shifted into a vertical ascent, flying straight up, climbing effortlessly into the clear, blue Florida sky.

She sucked in the oxygen being pumped into her mask as if it were liquor. Maybe it would have the same effect and numb her.
Please.

“Wanna fly upside down?” Dan asked.

She shook her head, unable to form a word.

The jet rolled over in one smooth, quick motion.

She hung in her seat, the lap belt her only anchor to life and limb.

“That’s 4 gs, right there.”

She tilted her head back and managed a gasp. The frameless canopy of the jet offered a perfectly clear, perfectly terrifying view of MacDill Air Force Base. Upside down, the whole campus was laid out like a board game below her, the two long runways the only things she could actually identify.

“You okay back there?”

“I…oh! The blood is rushing to my head.”

“Okay.” The pilot chuckled as he whipped the aircraft back into an upright position.

The summer sky stretched out as far as she could see. Except for the muffled roar of the engine, it seemed as if the two of them were encased in a bubble of total silence, slicing through the atmosphere like a warm knife through soft Brie.

A tense laugh escaped her. A mixture of genuine fear and excitement rushed through her veins and heated her up. She’d never felt more alive than in this moment, teetering on the verge of a different type of ecstasy. She was flying again, and actually enjoying it.

She was. Enjoying it.

Right?

“How ’bout some turns?”

“I— I—”

With a
whoop
, Captain Dan rolled the jet through an escalating series of twirls and spins. The ground flashed by in a blur as if the jet itself wasn’t moving, but instead the earth and sky were spinning out of control.

That was when nausea slammed into her. “Oh,” she grabbed her stomach. The nasty taste of bacon coated her mouth. She swallowed, determined not to puke. Zack would never puke.

“Samantha, why don’t you take the jet?”

She blinked. “Take it where?”

Captain Dan laughed. “Take control.”

Did the man have a freaking death wish? She could barely keep breakfast down, and he wanted her to take over? “I don’t know how to fly a plane.”

“There’s nothing to it, and I’m right here. Flying will take your mind off the nausea. Trust me. Grab the stick.”

How did he know she felt like puking? She stared at the thin lever between her knees. Her fingers, as if they had a mind of their own, reached out and wrapped around the knob. Fine. Here goes…

“What happens if you move it forward? Oh!” The jet took a nosedive, screaming toward the earth. Her stomach stayed at fifteen thousand feet. “Shit! I’m sorry.”

“Pull back. Gently. The stick is very sensitive.”

No shit!
She did as instructed. “I’ve got it.” She loosened her grip. Tried to relax her cramping muscles. “I’m really flying this F-16?” Adrenaline coursed through her, but her fingers had stopped shaking.

“You are.”

A moment of clarity washed over her. She had gotten through all of this without a full-fledged panic attack. Or even a sign of one.

She let out a rich, full-bodied laugh, instantly addicted to the confidence that came with this new high—literal and mental. If she could face this inner terror, she’d easily be able to get over others.

She’d crossed a line, and Zack had given her the push she’d needed.

“Want to do something your friends will never, ever do?” the pilot asked.

“What?” She had let her mind wander with her finger on the control of a multi-million dollar jet. Boy, the government was crazy to let civilians fly these babies.

“Earth to Mars. Anybody out there?”

She laughed. She was thankful Captain Dan was in the cockpit in front of her. “I’m here. What could possibly top this feeling?”

“How about this one?”

The pilot took control of the jet, sending it upward into a giant loop. “Take your glove off. Hurry.”

Her glove? She struggled under the g-forces to remove one of the warm gloves issued with the flight suit. “Okay.”

“And let it go…now.”

The jet hit the top of the loop, flipped back over, and the glove floated in front of her as if suspended on invisible wires.
Weightlessness
. “Woohoo! So this is what the astronauts feel like.” Endorphins spinning in her brain, mixed with the adrenaline coursing through the rest of her body, made her whole body tingle.

“Samantha?” Captain Dan’s voice had an edge to it.

“Holy crap. Can we do that again?” She grabbed her glove from the air and put it back on.

“Samantha?” The pilot’s voice dropped a notch.

“Everything okay up there, Captain?”

“Do you remember what I talked about in the Life Support Room?”

In the safety class, Dan had detailed what they would do in the air. He’d described the maneuvers he’d do, how her body would react, and most important, what to do in case of an emergency.

Shit
. Her heart slammed into her chest. “Oh, God.”

“Seriously, I need you to remember.” He sounded distracted, as if concentrating on something else. From the backseat, she couldn’t see what he was doing. Her fingers fumbled around the edge of her seat.
The ejection lever
. Where had he said it was? Oh, God, she’d been so freaked out during her brief training course, his voice had sounded just like Charlie Brown’s teacher. “
Wa wa wa, wa wa wa
.”

She didn’t remember, and her fingers couldn’t find anything that felt like an ejection lever. Thoughts of Robert Fitzpatrick zipped through her mind. And then of Zack.

“Hold on!” the captain’s voice rushed out.

She assumed it was a rhetorical order. Her mouth went dry. Before she could ask another question, the jet flipped on its side mid-air and pulled into a sharp left turn.

With a
whoosh
, her g suit instantly inflated, pushing down on her legs and chest. The pilot had told her the suit would keep blood from leaving her brain as they pulled gs. She did remember that. Without it, she’d fall unconscious. The force of the turn pushed her body back into her seat. She felt like a thousand-pound concrete ball was sitting on her chest. She struggled to breathe. Using all her energy, she forced her lungs to expand enough to budge the invisible ball and let a little air trickle in.
She couldn’t pass out now
.

Not another word came from the cockpit. Something was definitely wrong.

Her arms had been rendered useless, lead appendages tied to her side by gravity. She feared her head would surely explode if they didn’t pull out of this turn.

She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
Oh, dear God
. Could someone have really messed with this jet?

And still the jet screamed through the turn.

The color drained out of her vision. The world turned black and white. Little dots of darkness danced around in front of her like twirling disco lights.

A silent scream bubbled up in her throat as she lost her vision completely.

The last thing to go was her ability to hear. The roar of the jet, the thrashing of her petrified heart, and then—

Nothing.