Chapter Eleven
Linc couldn’t believe he was about to tell Harper the full story of what happened after he’d crashed his jet.
He swore to himself a long time ago that he’d never tell anyone the absolute worst parts of his experience.
There would be no tell-all book, no one would ever know the specifics of what he’d done and felt during that week on the run.
And yet, here he was, about to spill all his secrets to the one person who could destroy him with her disdain.
How could he do anything else after her bravery in telling him about Kash’s conception?
He was still beyond furious about what had happened to her.
The fact that she’d literally been thrown away in an alley like trash after who knows how many men had violated her had him wanting to track down every single one and kill them with his bare hands.
But that was impossible. She’d come to terms with her past; he had no choice but to let it go.
He could make sure her bravery didn’t go unrewarded, however. Even if hearing his story might not be the reward he thought it was. He might lose her as a result. But better to know now than after he was too invested in this relationship.
He knew it was already too late though. He loved this woman.
It was almost laughable that the bullied boy had fallen in love with his tormentor.
But as he’d told her time and time again, they weren’t the same people they were back then.
They were . . . seasoned. Maybe they clicked now because of their experiences.
Because they’d been through hardships. Could appreciate what was right in front of their faces in a way they couldn’t when they were younger.
Focusing, Linc realized several minutes had gone by while he was lost in his head. But Harper didn’t look impatient in the least. She held his hands and waited to hear what he wanted to say.
“You know about my crash.”
He waited until she nodded.
“I was on a recon mission over North Korea. I was flying high, above radar range with two other birds . . . jets . . . when something happened. Later, I found out it was a freak thing, something that had only happened one other time before, and engineers believed they’d fixed what had caused the first crash.
It’s technical, but suffice it to say, it wasn’t anything I’d done, or anything that could’ve been prevented.
It just happened at the worst possible time.
“I immediately started losing altitude. I knew I’d be picked up on radar any second, and that wasn’t good.
Not at all. I had time to hear my wingmen tell me they’d send help before my seat auto-ejected.
I’d been well educated in the mechanics of ejecting.
Had even trained for it. But the reality is something else entirely.
“I broke my collarbone and felt my arm break when I hit the aircraft canopy. I watched the jet crash, the fireball erupting below me as I descended. It seemed to take forever for my parachute to open. And when it did, the pain as my body jerked was immense. I knew I was still in North Korean territory, and I needed to get the hell out as soon as possible. Unfortunately, my only options were China or Russia. Neither were very friendly, especially toward a US Air Force jet pilot who was flying in airspace their governments wouldn’t be happy about.
“My landing was hard, but I was alive. I took precious minutes to use some of the parachute material to make a sling for my useless arm and gather up some of the ropes to maybe use in traps later on, dumped my helmet, and headed north.”
Linc recited what had happened almost emotionlessly. He’d talked about the crash itself many times before. To doctors as they tried to put him back together and to the Air Force personnel who were tasked with investigating.
It was what came next that he’d kept to himself. At least, the details.
Harper was stroking his hand, her gaze locked on him, all her attention completely focused. If it had been anyone else, Linc might’ve felt uncomfortable with that kind of scrutiny, but all he saw was empathy and sadness for him in her gaze. No pity. Thank goodness.
“I estimated I was about a hundred miles from China, and just slightly less from Russia. And that made my decision for me. The second I started walking, I knew I was in trouble. Every step was excruciating. I’d been in training accidents before, but my spine hurt like hell from the ejection.
The sight in my left eye was blurry, and I was extremely dizzy, probably with a concussion.
Those slightly fewer miles to Russia could’ve literally meant the difference between life or death.
And not just because being caught inside North Korea was the worst-case scenario.
“So I walked toward Russia. It was cold and the terrain was hilly, with deep, narrow valleys. Thankfully there were a lot of trees, which served as great camouflage. I walked all day, every day, putting one foot in front of the other, even when I was almost delirious with pain. If I’d been captured, the pain I was in would’ve seemed like a walk in the park compared to what the soldiers would do to me to get intel about why I was in their airspace.
“I was fairly sure the US government would be coming for me . . . if I could get out of North Korea. I had a tracker. It was an experimental program; the Air Force had worked with a former Navy Seal to obtain them. But I was on my own at that moment, and I knew it.
“It was a weird experience. To feel so completely alone. To know people were probably watching a small red dot on a computer screen, so they could see where I was, but could literally do nothing for me. I was being hunted, I could feel it, and my only saving grace would be reaching the border before they found me.”
“I can’t imagine,” Harper whispered.
“No, you can’t. And I’m glad,” Linc said fiercely. “I wouldn’t wish what I went through on my worst enemy . . . well, that’s not true. I one hundred percent wish it on those assholes who violated you. On Kash’s biological father.”
He was startled when Harper let out a small huff of laughter.
Looking up at her, he was surprised to see her smiling. It wasn’t huge, but it was there. She amazed him. Her strength. She’d also been through something he couldn’t even imagine, and yet she could still find humor in her experience.
As he watched, she sobered. “Finish it, Linc. Tell me all of it.”
She was right. He was dancing around the worst of what happened to him. He needed to get this done so he could never speak of it again.
“I drank water where I could find it, and that was my mistake. I had nothing to filter it with, but I had to drink. I couldn’t keep walking at the pace I was without liquid.
The stomach cramps started first, then the vomiting, then the diarrhea.
Sometimes all three at the same time. I soiled myself .
. . shit was literally dripping down my leg inside my coveralls, but there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I had to keep going.
“I had nothing to eat, couldn’t stop to try to trap something, I was too worried about who was behind me and how close they were.
I ate grass, leaves, and even dirt once, just to have something in my belly.
I was on autopilot, putting one foot in front of the other, not really even seeing where I was going at that point.
“And I was always on alert. Twenty, thirty, forty times a day I would think I’d heard something, someone, and would dive to the ground.
I’d crawl with one arm, burying myself under anything I could use to hide .
. . shrubs, leaves, whatever. I’d wait a couple of minutes, and if I didn’t hear anything, I’d force myself to get up and walk again.
“I honestly don’t know how I did it. I was filthy.
My stomach hurt so bad from whatever was in the water and from the random crap I’d swallowed, trying to fill the emptiness that felt like it was devouring me from the inside out, that I couldn’t walk upright anymore.
My ass and thighs were raw from the diarrhea, and my feet were torn to shreds inside my boots.
But I didn’t dare take them off to check on them—my boots, not my feet. ”
Linc didn’t know why he was trying to make a joke, other than because he felt completely exposed. Turned inside out. Talking about what he’d been through made it feel real all over again. Even now his belly clenched, remembering about how he’d felt back then.
“I only slept for ten, fifteen minutes at a time, terrified that I’d wake up to soldiers standing over me, pointing their rifles in my face.
I had no idea when I actually crossed the border.
It’s not as if there’s a line on the ground indicating where North Korea stops and Russia starts.
I did know that I couldn’t cross straight into Russia though, there’s a river that separates the two countries, so I had to go into China, and then over to Russia.
“Luckily for me, it was dark when I must’ve crossed over, and in the north of the country the borders aren’t as heavily secured as they are in the south, or in other more populous places.
I thought I should’ve gone far enough to be out of North Korea, but I wasn’t completely sure.
So I just kept walking. Staying in the trees, away from people.
I figured eventually I’d either be caught, I’d fall over dead from whatever bacteria was wreaking havoc on my body, or my own countrymen would come get me.
“Thankfully, the latter happened. One moment I was stumbling along, delirious, munching on a fucking pine cone, and the next thing I knew, I heard a helicopter over my head. I thought that was it. I was dead. But in fact, it was the United States Army. Night Stalkers, more specifically. They’d attempted to get permission from the Russian government to come in to get me and were denied.
But thankfully, my countrymen didn’t take no for an answer.