6. Powertrain
”What the fuck”s going on!” I barged into the cockpit, the sight before me was that of a frantic situation yet oddly calm Bandit.
”Mechanical failure.”
”I”m not dying in this piece of shit, Barry!”
”Neither am I!” He yelled back while flipping switches.
”Strap on!” He yelled back at me as he pulled up on the wheel, I got jerked into the seat beside him. I quickly scrambled to get my seat belt on just as he practically grazed a peak of a mountain.
”If this doesn”t kill us, I will Barry!”
”Not comforting at the moment,” he uttered as he steered the plane over the mountains as best he could.
I flinched at the sound of one of the side panels scraping rock and although I don”t scare easily, I did ask God to forgive me for last night”s job gone wrong.
I heard the woman on the other side of the door scream in terror. I looked at Bandit and grabbed him by that cheesy shirt of his.
”Can you land this plane!”
”If you get your hands off me, I can.” He stated simply.
I narrowed my eyes on him. ”Then, do it!”
I managed to scramble back out to the main cabin. With terror in her eyes, Whisper looked up at me.
I was supposed to bring her back to Washington in one piece, not in several. Macabre had warned me this wasn’t going to be an easy trip, but he’d forgotten to mention the raging lunatic part. Although she was a pretty lunatic, but one, nonetheless.
Whisper was cursing up a storm at me as I jostled my way toward her. I undid her seat belt and tore her out of the seat, grabbing onto her and the seats as the plane continued its descent.
”Where are you taking me now!”
I pulled her toward the emergency exit, listening to her exclaim how incompetent I was and if she could, she would tear my guts out. All the time, knowing full well, that would never happen. It was a litany of empty threats that I had to endure as I strapped a parachute onto her and then sat her back down.
“Do not move,” I warned, before running back toward the cockpit.
Bandit met me halfway and I slammed the parachute into his chest.
”You know Jameson”s gonna have a field day with you.”
”I’ll worry about that later. Let”s go!” He shouted, brushing past me.
Her clear bright eyes met mine once again, true fear in their depths, and I actually held some empathy for her. She watched in horror as Bandit tore the door open. We were currently gliding.
He turned to us and with a big smile he gave me a brief salute and flung himself backward.
”Shit!” She cried out, grabbing onto me as we teetered onto the edge of the doorway. “Where’s your parachute?” She asked, patting me down.
“You’re it, sweetheart.”
She blinked twice, registering my words and then she shook her head. ”You wear it! You need it more than I do!”
She tried to remove it and I clamped my hands down on her shoulders, holding the thing in place. “You take this off, you die!”
“What about you?” She screamed.
I looked out the doorway and grabbed her by the straps. “Okay. You take this off, we both die!”
“I can”t do this. I can”t.”
”We”ve got ninety seconds before we graze mountains again! And no one”s pulling this tube up! We jump, and we lock our legs together, got it! I’ll walk you through it!”
She looked down into the clouds and then back up at me. ”Please don’t die,” she said quietly.
It was the most sincere thing I”d ever heard from a person. But it surprised me that she was more concerned about my life than hers. The look in her eye tore at me. This was the real her. A scared little girl who wanted to run away. I knew that feeling all too well. But now wasn”t the time to reminisce. We had to go.
Securing my hands around the straps, I flung myself back, tugging her into me as we fell out of the plane. She closed her eyes, not making one sound as we plummeted to the ground. I slid my legs around hers, and she locked them like I’d told her to. This wasn’t an easy feat and I had to hold on for dear life when the chute opened.
”Pull on the cord when I tell you to! The chute is going to open and then we’ll glide! When we’re about to reach the ground, you start running and pull on the straps.
”No,” she whispered. “I don’t know how to do this!”
”I won”t let you die.” I told her, before I pulled the cord for her.
The chute jerked us first left, then right, and I continued to hold on as we shot into the wind. We reached the ground moments later. She’d been running but my weight was too heavy for her, and we began to roll down the mountain, hitting sharp rocks as we fell. It was a hard landing, and I could feel the intense hit of each hard rock jabbing at my sides. I’d lost Whisper along the way.
When my body finally jerked to a stop, it took me a minute to finally get my breath back. Slowly, I stumbled up, my body screaming for me to stop moving but I couldn’t do that. I had to find Whisper. I started walking back toward the open chute which billowed over the edge of a cliff. I could make out her limp form lying on the rocks and toughening it out, I held onto my sore side as I ran up the mountain we’d rolled down on.
I couldn”t see Bandit anywhere and hoped for the best. He”d been through worse shit than this. This, on the other hand, had been the first time she”d ever been out of a plane. Macabre was seriously going to kill me if anything happened to her.
Don”t die.
Her words echoed in my head as I ran faster, falling to my knees beside her. Brushing her Raven black hair out of her eyes I looked her over. She had a few scrapes and cuts from the fall but nothing major and hopefully nothing internal.
”Whisper?”
It was the first time I”d said her name since I met her. It felt odd, alien. As it rolled off my tongue.
”Whisper,” I said her name louder, slapping her cheek lightly. She didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.
”Come on my pretty lunatic, wake up.”
In the distance I heard what sounded like an explosion that came against the side of a mountain.
“Well fuck me!” Bandit”s voice behind me startled me.
“Jesus!”
“Nah man, Jesus had nothing to do with it. That there was pure lady luck. Is she dead?” He gestured at Whisper.
“No. But you fucking will be. What the fuck were you thinking back there?”
He crouched down beside me pointing at the dark smoke billowing up out of the mountain.
“I was thinking I didn”t want to lose my damn Plane. The only plane we fucking have.”
I stared at him for a long second and then grimaced when I saw the blood seeping down his arm. I pulled back on the vest he was wearing, and his injury looked fucking lethal.
“You”re fucking bleeding out!”
He fell back on his haunches and took a big whoosh of breath. “No wonder I”m fucking woozy.:
“Ah shit!” I helped him lie back and reached back into my boot, taking out my blade. I ripped through his chute needing to make bandages to hold in this stupid motherfucker”s guts.
Crouching down before him, I searched his pockets for a lighter. Finding it. I lit a small fire and placed the blade on it. I put pressure on his wound, waiting a few minutes for the blade to heat up.
“Don”t you fucking die on me, motherfucker.”
Awww, didn”t think you”d care for me, Treasurer.” I swatted at his hand as he patted me on the cheek. It fell limply to the side as I pressed the hot blade to his wound. He groaned in pain, but I did it again. I had to stop the bleeding somehow and cauterizing the wound was all I could think of at that moment.
After wrapping him in the makeshift bandages, I pulled my cell phone out from within my vest, and hoped to God that Hoax would answer his phone.
The call was answered on the second ring. “Why is my plane no longer seen on our radar?”
I froze. It wasn”t Hoax on the line; it was Jameson. I could hear Hoax in the background.
“Sorry, brother. I had to tell him. I thought you were all dead!”
Jameson”s voice was stoic and cold as fucking ice. “You all alive?”
“For now, Prez.”
“Where”s Bandit?”
I looked down at both Whisper and Bandit who was now knocked out beside her.
“He”s not doing well, Prez. To be honest, he’s starting to look a little purple.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“He”s injured. We all are.”
“Whisper?” He asked, his tone full of brotherly concern.
“She”s a little banged up but alive.”
“When that crazy bastard wakes up, tell him he”s going to get me a new fucking plane by the end of this week.”
“Yes, Prez.”
“Can you walk the two miles into town?”
“I think so.”
“Don’t fucking think. Just do. You’re in fucking New Mexico. I”ve got Tarak waiting on you. He”ll get you anything you need.” Tarak was the President of the Santa Fe, NM chapter. They came from Indigenous roots out here in the desert and went by a whole new set of rules.
“Two miles, got it.”
“Don”t let me down, Powertrain.”
“I won”t. Prez.”
I looked down at Bandit and realized I was in deep shit. Two miles. I searched the grounds and realized I had no fucking clue in what direction. And there was no way I was calling them back.
Whisper moaned and I slowly lifted her head. “Breathe, my pretty lunatic.”
“Stop calling Me that or I”ll take a bat to your balls.”
I chuckled, mostly in relief that she was talking. She was a fucking spark in this shithole I’d somehow dragged us all into.
“You didn’t die,” she stared up at me.
“No, I didn’t,” I whispered, sliding her hair back off her forehead.
“Did I die?” She asked.
“No. Just hit your head against a rock but you’ll be okay.”
She groaned as she tried to get up and I gingerly grabbed her, helping into a seated position.
“Do you think you can walk?”
“Are you sure I”m not dead?” She groaned as I slipped her arm over shoulder.
“I”m pretty sure. Now I need you to walk.”
She looked at me. “You ever do that to me again, and I”ll kill you myself.”
I nodded. “Deal. Come on. We have to go.”
She moaned and held the side of her head.” I pressed a hand over hers, but she quickly shoved it off.
“I”ll live.”
“Well, ain”t that fucking fantastic.” I glared at her. My ego shot down as she”d shoved me away.
She met my gaze for a brief second before realizing there was someone lying beside her.
“Oh my God! Bandit!” She knelt down next to him.
“Don”t move him!” I crouched down beside her. “He”ll be fine for now. I cauterized the wound, but he lost a lot of blood, and he needs medical attention.”
Dragging her back onto her feet. I gave her Bandit’s backpack. “Let”s go. We need to be back before sundown.”
“What about him?”
“That”s why I need to be back before sundown. Let”s go!”
“No! There could be coyotes or wolves. What if they come and eat him?”
“Jesus!”
The vision of his mangled face stared back at me, and for the life of me, I friggin’ didn”t have the heart to leave him.
“What do we do?” She asked me, expecting me to know, and hell, with all my training, I had no clue.
“We could make a gurney,” she said. “I did it once when my mom hurt herself. We can use the chute, come on.
Two hours later we”d made a gurney out of the chute and whatever we could find in the middle of nowhere. We managed to roll Bandit into it without any problem.
“Do you know where we”re headed?” She once again gave me that expectant look and I hated that I had no answer for her.
“No fucking clue. Just look out for road.”
I heard her deep sigh and picking up the gurney, we finally took off into the shrubbery ahead.