The Tortured Rebel (4 page)

She was about to die and Jet Munroe was trying to save her.

The irony of the situation barely registered before the cacophony of sound and light around her vanished and everything became black.

H
E WAS
fighting for his life.

For Becca’s life, too. Man, that look on her face was pure determination without a hint of fear. She was so small and fierce and seemed to believe that she could wrestle the force of Mother Nature and an out-of-control aircraft into submission.

The impression would have been laughable if it hadn’t been so incredibly fleeting. Shoved aside with a million other, irrelevant thoughts as Jet let an automatic part of his brain loose. The part that stored emergency procedures backed up by remarkably honed survival skills.

Even so, in that mental maelstrom he recognised another motive to win this challenge. Maybe he had to do this for Matt. It was too late to save his best mate but he could save the person who’d been so important to him. The small, lonely girl that he’d tried so hard to be a substitute parent to. As well as a big brother and best friend all at the same time. Matt would have given his life in a heartbeat to save his sister.

Jet could do no less.

Except … they weren’t going to die, dammit. Not if he could do anything about it. He added his weight to Becca’s to fight the controls and, for a split second the
sickening downward spiral lessened and he could see straight ahead. Towards the foam of waves breaking on unforgiving black rocks. And past the rocks to a tiny area of shingle beach. Would solid land be a better option than an icy ocean and the pull of its current?

Not that he really had much choice in the matter but the instantaneous, clinical evaluation of potential options filled those last few seconds before speed, gravity and the total failure of this machine to respond well enough combined and they hit.
something.
Hard.

Hard enough to knock him out?

He couldn’t be sure. His head was spinning, filled with a roaring sound and bright flashes of light. He could be regaining consciousness after God knew how long or … this could be moments after the crash and the window in which he could escape.

And survive.

Something overrode that pure survival instinct, however. The knowledge that he hadn’t been alone.

‘Becca … Becca …’

He couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t open his eyes. Something was digging painfully into his face and it took a moment to realise that the pain was caused by broken pieces of his flight helmet visor. He wrenched them clear and pulled his helmet off, ignoring the warm, sticky sensation of bleeding.

Now he could see surprisingly well. Red light, like a fiery dawn, surrounded them. The Perspex of the helicopter was cracked and a horribly bent rotor blade was directly in front, framed by a large hole. A spray of water suddenly came through the hole and soaked him, cold enough to wake him up completely. Were they in the sea? No. He could feel something solid beneath them
and the crumpled chassis of the chopper was rocking. Grinding on something hard.

The rocks. They must be caught on rocks, probably close to dry land. A wave could lift the wreckage and put it at the mercy of the ocean at any moment and that wouldn’t be a good thing. The spray had barely stopped but Jet had released his harness and his attention was focussed on the crumpled body of his pilot.

‘Becca.
Can you hear me?’

The groan that came in response was the best sound Jet had ever heard.

She was alive.

Stripping off the gloves he’d been wearing, Jet moved to wedge himself between what was left of the Perspex bubble and a flight control panel that was bent and broken. A couple of faint, flickering lights caught his attention as he moved. Hopefully, one of them might be the emergency locator beacon activating. The other one was on the radio and, on the off chance it was still operational, Jet pulled on the curly microphone cord to wrench it clear of the central controls it had fallen into.

‘Mayday, mayday,’ he sent. ‘Flight zero zero three down.’

Even if they got the message, they wouldn’t be sending another rescue chopper. Flying into volcanic ash was impossible. The only hope of assistance would come from the ship already diverted towards Tokolamu and, what had they said about its ETA?

Thirty-six hours. A day and a half.

They were on their own.

Apart from another group of survivors on this island
who still needed help, of course. Jet depressed the button on the side of the microphone again.

‘Abandoning aircraft,’ he said decisively. If this transmission was getting through, at least nobody would waste time trying to search the crash site later. ‘We’ll head for the settlement.’

A faint crackle emanated from the radio then another spray of salt water came through the windscreen and the electronic equipment fizzed and died. He had wasted no more than about thirty seconds on what was probably a useless attempt to communicate with the outside world but it still felt like way too long.

Becca needed him.

Dropping the microphone, Jet used his hands and eyes to try and examine her. These weren’t the worst conditions under which he’d done a primary survey on an injured person but they were nudging the top spot. He could feel the wash of the waves around the helicopter chassis and getting sucked out to sea and then smashed onto rocks again would be pretty much as dangerous as being under enemy fire.

Airway. Breathing. Circulation.

Becca groaned more loudly and mumbled some incomprehensible words but the attempt to speak was a good indication that her airway was clear. Breathing? Jet put his hands around her ribs, oblivious of the fact that he was cupping her breasts as he concentrated on what was happening below her ribs. Were her lungs filling well? The same amount on each side? Was her breathing too fast or too slow? God, she was so small.

Fragile.

Her breathing seemed OK. Jet ran his hands over the rest of her body. Feeling her abdomen to see if it
elicited a pained response. Checking her legs for the deformity of a broken bone or the wetness of major bleeding. Amazingly, he found nothing. Until he checked her arms, anyway. When he felt her left arm below the elbow, Becca cried out and opened her eyes.

‘It’s OK,’ he told her. ‘You’ve hurt your arm.’

Broken it, quite likely, because of how hard she’d been gripping the controls at the point of impact. Her flight suit was ripped and she was bleeding badly. Jet ripped the sleeve farther and tied the strips tightly over the wound. There was no time to do more right now. This first check might have only taken sixty seconds but it was past time to get out of there.

‘Becca? Can you hear me?’

Her eyes opened but she said nothing.

‘Does your neck hurt?’

Her head rolled from side to side but she still made no sound.

‘Can you move your feet?’

He felt rather than saw the attempt at movement because he was busy easing her helmet off and unclipping her harness. The queries had been automatic, anyway. Even if she did have serious neck or spinal injuries, he had to get her out.

The door on the pilot’s side was crunched against solid rock. They were tilted slightly nose down and another huge rock was blocking the door on the passenger side. That left the side door in the cabin and the back hatch under the tail. One of those was bound to provide an escape route but it would take precious seconds to get there. A wave rolled them enough to lift the tail and knock him off balance even as he considered the options.

Becca’s eyes were wide open and well illuminated by the eerie, red glow from the outside. Could she hear the frightening roar of the volcanic eruption that was almost enough to cover the horrible grinding of metal on rock? She was clearly putting the pieces together and starting to realise what had happened and where they were.

He saw the moment that fear kicked in.

A new surge of adrenaline came with the renewed urge to protect Becca. Turning and bracing himself on the back of the seat, Jet used his heavy, steel-capped boots to smash the edges of the hole in the Perspex to make it bigger. Big enough to climb out of with a small woman in his arms.

The world had turned itself inside out. It was threatening to crush her and there was nothing Becca could do about it.

She hadn’t felt this afraid since.

Since the moment she had known Matt was going to die.

Nobody had taken her into his arms back then and held her as though he was capable of keeping the chaos and pain away.

Maybe this was simply an illusion now but if she was going to die, Becca would far rather be cradled in a pair of powerful arms that made it feel like her life was of the utmost importance to someone else than curled up alone in the pilot’s seat of a crashed helicopter.

She’d obviously been knocked out on impact and the memories of her last moments of consciousness were patchy and strange. So was what she could remember about waking up.

Jet’s hands on her breasts. Pressing on her abdomen. Tracing the shape of her whole body.

She’d known they were
his
hands. She’d always known what it would feel like to have them touching her because it had happened in so many, many dreams. It was muted in reality, however, because in those dreams her skin had always been bare.

The pain of having her arm moved had chased any pleasure away. It had woken her up too much, as well. Enough to make sense of where she was and what was happening. To realise that the weird red light was a reflection that had to be coming from molten lava spewing from a very nearby volcano. To feel how unstable the remains of this helicopter were and that it was seawater splashing inside at regular intervals to pool around her feet.

Fear overrode any pain at that point and only increased as she watched Jet kick the remnants of Perspex from in front of them. He was going to escape, wasn’t he? The way he had when Matt had been lying there dying in the intensive care unit. She would have to cope alone again and she was so horribly, horribly afraid.

But then he bent over and gathered her into his arms. She was rocked wildly as he completed the enormously difficult manoeuvre of climbing through a hole with jagged edges, holding such a large burden, trying not to get them caught or injured. Then there were sharp, slippery rocks to negotiate and Jet had to use one hand to steady himself every few seconds. Somehow, he still managed to hold Becca with one arm. She could feel it across her back and tucked under her thighs like the sturdy branch of a tree. Maybe it was helping that she’d
wound her arms around his neck and had her face buried against his shoulder.

A roaring noise surrounded them that was far more than the sound the sea could make against rocks. The ground shook beneath them at intervals, as well. How on earth did Jet manage to keep them moving? Upright enough to avoid a nasty fall on this alien landscape of ancient, volcanic rock. Becca clung to him as tightly as she could. She fought hard when something threatened to prise her arms loose.

‘Let go.’ Jet’s voice was a command. ‘It’s all right. It’s safe now.’

Reluctantly, Becca let him unwind her arms. He was kneeling, she realised with surprise, and she was sitting on a flat area of shingle, having been deposited so carefully she hadn’t noticed.

She looked around cautiously. Good grief … they could be on Mars. A lurid red sky and barren dark rocks were the only things she could see until she lifted her line of sight. And there, well out on the rocks, cradled in a wash of sea foam, she could see the sad wreckage of her beautiful chopper.

‘Oh, my God,’ she breathed, wrapping her arms around herself for comfort as the enormity of the situation became suddenly very real.

‘Give me your arm.’

‘What?’ Becca stared at Jet in confusion. He’d just removed her arms from where she’d been clinging to him like a frightened child.

An eight-year-old, maybe? How did he do it? Strip away all her skills and hard-won strength to make her feel so incredibly vulnerable. And lost now. She couldn’t
pretend to be in control any more. She hadn’t protected herself very well, had she?

She hadn’t protected either of them. This was
her
fault. She could have turned back. She’d risked her life, which was bad enough, but she’d also risked Jet’s life and that was … appalling. And he was hurt. There was blood on his face. Without thinking, Becca reached up to touch. The urge to find out how bad it was … to make it better somehow … was too powerful to resist.

‘No.’ Jet pushed her away. ‘Your left arm.’ He was leaning closer. Frowning. ‘Where are you?’ he demanded.

He didn’t want her to touch him. Weird how much that hurt. ‘H-here,’ Becca stammered, confused again. ‘With you.’

‘Fair enough.’ There was a curl happening to one corner of his mouth. Almost a smile. ‘You got knocked out, Becca,’ he said with a curiously gentle note in his voice. ‘I’m trying to assess your GCS. Can you tell me where “here” is?’

‘The island. Tokolamu.’

‘Good. And what’s my name?’

‘Jet.’ Becca said it slowly because it felt good. Like permission to go somewhere she had been denied access to for so long.

‘My real name?’

‘James Frederick Munroe.’

‘Ouch!
How on earth did you remember my middle name?’

Becca felt herself grin. ‘I remember lots of things.’

What an understatement, a part of her brain chided. Did you really think you’d locked all that stuff away? It’s still there. Every detail. The way he could scowl
so fiercely whenever anything remotely emotional was happening. The astonishing intensity of his dark eyes when he was interested in something. The way his hair looked when sleekly wet coming up from a dive into a swimming pool, or damp and tousled by a towel after a shower. The way he’d sat with a small child and played Snakes and Ladders when he could have been doing far more exciting teenage stuff like playing video games or raiding her parents’ well-stocked liquor cabinet. The dreams that had started a long, long time before any sexual content had crept in.

Dreams that had only gained momentum the night of the party.

The excitement of dressing up like an adult. Of finally being grown up enough to.

To have no hesitation at all in grabbing that opportunity when she’d been alone in the kitchen with Jet when they’d both gone to find a drink at the same time. When they’d been side by side in the narrow space between the open fridge door and the wall.