Chapter 31 #4
“Get us in the air!” Tobin yelled over the roar of the rotors and the fire. Her mic hadn’t reconnected to the system despite being back inside the helicopter.
“What do you think I’m trying to do?” Eddie screamed in response. Fear was etched across her face. Panic wouldn’t serve them now, and Tobin knew she had to stay calm—or they’d feed off each other’s terror, rendering them both incapacitated.
“Get us in the air, and then I’m going to swing us toward the cliffs,” Tobin said, with a conviction she didn’t feel.
“Tobin, we’ve had enough crazy for a lifetime. You want me to fly over the cliffs?” Eddie’s voice edged on hysteria.
“From the fire comes the phoenix, Eddie. Just get us off the ground… then start praying.”
“If we survive this, remind me to never underestimate your crazy ever again,” Eddie said as she shifted them into a hover.
When they were ten feet off the ground, Tobin deftly used the pedals beneath her feet to begin rotating them. In the span of a breath, they were pointed directly toward the cliffs, with the lake behind it reflecting the flames from the fire. The inferno danced and waved, beckoning—or taunting—them.
She clenched her teeth, wishing desperately she could be the one in control of the chopper, but refusing to relinquish her hold on Grier. She was never letting go again.
“Edge toward the cliffs. Gain altitude if you can, but don’t push it. If we’re still floundering by the time we get to the cliff face… we’re executing a cliff launch maneuver.”
Tobin felt rather than saw Eddie’s double take in her direction, “You say that like we aren’t about to die.”
Tobin shrugged. “We are absolutely about to die if we sit here any longer. I’d rather take my chances with the cliff. Now move!”
Eddie muttered something unintelligible beneath the roar of the fire and guided the helicopter into the air for their final, reckless escape attempt.
The fuselage ducked and rolled with them inside, at the mercy of the shifting pockets of hot air as they bobbed over the cinders of the coastal forest. Every time Eddie lifted them, they jump-skipped a few yards before crashing back to the earth.
The heat from the scorched ground rose into the helicopter; Tobin felt it through her feet and along her ass.
She tried to pull Grier’s body away from the bulk of the captain’s seat as best she could, but it wasn’t designed for two.
Fear gripped her as the increasing scent of burning hair suggested Grier’s head might be in danger, lolled against the doorframe.
Tobin repositioned her, cradling her head higher into the crook of her arm, but it elicited a painful moan from Grier’s unconscious throat.
She gave up trying, hugging her close, and prayed to a god she didn’t believe in that her crazy plan was just crazy enough to work.
They were getting closer. Tobin could hear grunts and frustrated gasps from Eddie as she fought to keep them airborne longer with each leapfrogging jump toward the cliff.
“The starboard skid is melting! We’re imbalanced,” Eddie shouted as they slammed back to the blackened earth at an angle, throwing their bodies forcefully to the right.
“Keep going!” Tobin encouraged. “Two more jumps and we’re over the cliff.”
With great, silent effort, Eddie complied, skipping them twenty yards closer to the cliff.
Driven forward by sheer desperation, she lifted them off the ground, propelling them forward.
With a violent jolt and the jeering scream of scraping metal, they slammed to a stop, suspended in a shallow hover—mere yards from freedom.
Eddie’s throat loosed a feral, frustrated cry, “We’re caught on something! The skids are stuck!”
“Keep us level,” Tobin ordered. “I’ll try to spin the nose,” Tobin ordered while engaging the pedals at her feet to help rotate their position and dislodge whatever was restraining them.
She gently shifted them left, then right, and then left again.
With the sound of scraping fuselage, they felt the helicopter give way beneath them, free from the debris of the forest fire.
Tobin shifted beneath Grier, trying to see what had captured them. Smoke obscured most of the view, but she recognized the long, spindly fingers of a branch still clinging to the skid beneath her.
Without any warning from Eddie—other than the deafening absence of her breathing—Tobin capitalized on the momentum from the skids’ release and launched them heroically over the cliff ’s edge.
The helicopter sputtered briefly, still fighting for purchase in the thin, superheated air, then gave in to its fate. They plummeted.
One hundred feet passed in the blink of an eye. Two hundred feet in the breadth of a heartbeat. Three hundred feet in an ephemeral eleventh hour.
Eddie pulled up on the collective. The wind roared around them.
The rotors began spinning into the familiar, frenzied hum they could feel in their deepest sleep.
The fuselage rattled as the beaten, burned Bell 206 began catching its blades in the cooler air above the lake.
Their descent slowed into a controlled fall, then a hover, and finally— miraculously—they gained altitude.
“For the record,” Eddie said casually, “you’re fired.”
Tobin chuckled, unfazed by her friend’s empty threat, “Nah, we have too much fun!”
“Too much crazy…” Eddie retorted quickly. Tobin caught a smug smile twitching at the corner of her lips, “But the stories are unbelievable!”
They laughed. Tobin laughed so hard she felt hours of tension melt from her shoulders. She laughed until she roused Grier who was coming to in her arms.
Grier groaned. The groans turned into gasps.
And the gasps became broken words, clinging to her singed throat as they tried to escape.
Finally, a piercing scream filled the box office as Grier’s throat connected with the cooler, clean air away from the inferno that had nearly claimed her. She screamed for Tobin.
“Shhh, shhh!” Tobin soothed. “I’m here, Grier.
You’re safe. I’ve got you,” she cooed into Grier’s ears.
Grier fisted her shirt in her hands and sobbed into Tobin’s chest. They were out of the fire, but Tobin’s heart ached with the heavy knowing of what lay ahead for Grier. Her recovery was just beginning.
She knew they’d get through it—together. Because Grier was her forever, and their forever was just beginning.
Tobin cradled Grier on her lap, stroking her soot-darkened hair away from her eyes and wiping away her tears.
All the while, she whispered, “I love you,” on repeat.
She said it like a mantra, calming Grier and grounding her in her arms, reminding her she was there and that she was safe.
She said it like a promise—that she would be there from now on.
She said it like a gift, and like a prayer.
She said it like an echo from tomorrow, full of fantasy and infinite promises…
But mostly, she said it simply because she meant it.