Lover at Last (Black Dagger Brotherhood #11)(36)
Author: J.R. Ward

He and Rhage filed into the hangar and flicked on their flashlights. The airplane was right where they’d left it in the back corner, looking like it was the ugly stepchild of some much prettier mode of transportation that had long since fled the scene. Closing in, Qhuinn saw that the propeller appeared to be sound, and, although the wings were dusty, he could hang his weight off of them.

The fact that the door hatch squeaked like a bitch when Rhage opened the way in was less than good news.

"Whew," Rhage muttered as he recoiled. "Smells like something died in there."

Man, must have been one hell of a stinky if the Brother could differentiate it from the rest of the smell inside the hangar.

Maybe this wasn’t such a hot idea.

Before Qhuinn could offer a second read on the stench, Rhage turned himself into a pretzel and squeezed through the oval hole. "Holy shit – keys. There are keys – can you believe it?"

"How about gas?" Qhuinn muttered, as he swept his flashlight beam around in a wide circle. Nothing but that dirty-ass floor.

"You might want to step back there, son," Rhage hollered out of the cockpit. "I’ma try and fire this old lady up."

Qhuinn eased away, but come on. If the thing was going to go up in flames, like fifteen feet was going to make much of a difference –

The explosion was loud, the smoke was thick, and the engine sounded like it was suffering from a mechanical strain of whooping cough. But shit evened out. The longer they let it run, the more even the rhythm became.

"We gotta get out of here before we asphyxiate," Qhuinn yelled into the plane.

Right on cue, Rhage must have put the thing in drive or something, because the airplane eased forward with a groan like every nut and bolt in its body hurt.

And this thing was going to get airborne?

Qhuinn jogged in front and hit the double bay’s seam. Gripping one side, he threw all the power in his body into the pull and ripped the thing apart, various latches and locks popping free and going flying.

He hoped the airplane didn’t take inspiration from those fragments.

In the moonlight, the expressions on John’s and Blay’s faces were pretty f**king priceless as they got a good look at the escape plan – and he knew where they were coming from.

Rhage hit the brakes and squeezed out again. "Let’s load him up."

Silence. Well, except for the wheezing plane behind them.

"You’re not taking it up," Qhuinn said, almost to himself.

Rhage frowned in his direction. "Excuse me."

"You’re too valuable. If that thing goes down, we can’t lose two Brothers. Not going to happen. I’m expendable, you are not."

Rhage opened his mouth like he was going to argue. But then he shut it, a strange expression settling onto his beautiful face.

"He’s right," Z said grimly. "I can’t put you in jeopardy, Hollywood."

"Fuck that, I can dematerialize out of the cockpit if – "

"And you think you’re going to be able to do that when we’re in a spiral? Bullshit – "

A smattering of gunshots came from the tree line, piffing into the snow, whizzing by the ear.

Everyone snapped into action. Qhuinn dived into the plane, pulled himself into the pilot’s seat, and tried to make sense of all the…fucking hell, there were a lot of dials. The only saving grace he had was that he’d –

Rat-tat-tat-tat!

– watched enough movies to know that the lever with the grip was the gas and the bow tie – shaped wheel was the thing you pulled up to go up, and pushed down to go down.

"Fuck," he muttered as he stayed in a tuck position as much as he could.

Given the popping sounds that followed, John and Blay were shooting back, so Qhuinn sat up a little higher and glanced at the rows of instruments. He figured the one with the little gas tank was what he was looking for.

Quarter of the tanks left. And the shit in there was probably half condensation.

This was a really bad idea.

"Get him in here!" Qhuinn yelled, sizing up the empty, flat field to the left.

Rhage was on it, throwing Zsadist into the airplane with all the gentleness of a longshoreman. The Brother landed in a crumpled pile, but at least he was cursing – which meant he was with it enough to feel pain.

Qhuinn didn’t wait for any door-shutting bullcrap. He released the foot brake, hit the accelerator, and prayed they didn’t skid out in the snow –

Half the glass windshield shattered in front of him, the bullet that did the damage ricocheting around the cockpit, the whiff! from the seat next to him suggesting the headrest had caught the slug. Which was better than his arm. Or skull.

The only good news was that the plane seemed ready to get the hell out of there, too, that rusty-ass engine spinning the prop at a dead run like the POS knew getting off the ground was the sole way to safety. Out the side windows, the landscape started striping by, and he oriented the middle of the "runway" by keeping the two sets of trees equidistant.

"Hold on," he yelled over the din.

Wind was ripping into the cockpit like there was an industrial fan filling up the space where the pane of glass had been, but it wasn’t like he was planning on going high enough to require pressurization.

At this point, he just wanted to clear the forest up ahead.

"Come on, baby, you can do it…come on…."

He had the throttle down flat, and he had to tell his arm to ease off – there was no more juice to be had, but breaking the goddamn thing was guaranteed to f**k them even harder.

The din got louder and louder.

Trees moved faster and faster.

The bumps became more and more violent, until his teeth were clapping together, and he became convinced one or both of the wings were going to unhinge and fall by the wayside.

Figuring there was no time to waste, Qhuinn pulled back as hard as he could on the steering wheel, gripping the thing tightly, as if that could somehow be translated to the body of the plane and keep it all together –

Something fell from the ceiling and fluttered back in Z’s direction.

Map? Owner’s manual? Who the f**k knew.

Man, those trees at the far end were getting close.

Qhuinn pulled even more, in spite of the fact that the wheel was as far toward him as it could go – which was a crying shame, because they were out of runway and still not off the ground –

Scraping sounds raked down the belly of the plane, as if underbrush were reaching up and trying to grab onto the steel plating.

And still those trees were even closer.

His first thought as he stared death in the face was that he was never going to meet his daughter. At least not on this side of the Fade.

His second and final was that he couldn’t believe he’d never told Blay he loved him. In all the minutes and hours and nights of his life, in all the words he’d spoken to the male over the years they’d known each other, he’d only ever pushed him away.