More shots echoed through the canyon, sounding as if they came from above and to their left. Mystery tried not to scream. Axel didn’t let up, just kept charging toward the ridge in the distance. He dragged her to an angle slightly right but still toward the rise in the distance—their only chance at freedom.
As another bullet dive-bombed the ground just behind them, she kept chugging, one foot in front of the other, the impact of each step booming through her body. The watery mirage of the landscape in front of her began to come into sharper focus. A stitch ticced in her side. Her lungs felt ready to burst. But she didn’t stop, wouldn’t drag Axel down.
They sprinted closer to the ridge, still taking a slight angle to the right. The shots behind them sounded farther away, missed them by a wider margin.
“Almost there,” he shouted.
Mystery hoped she made it that long. And that no violent gunmen awaited her.
Finally, they reached the base of the hills flanking the valley on the right, and he dragged her into shadow. He slowed their pace to a jog. She had a thousand questions, but now wasn’t the time. Besides, she was panting too hard to talk.
He took a path between two hills, rounded behind one, then began ascending, staying out of sight of anyone in the valley.
“We’re going to use the cover of these ridges to creep closer to the chopper. Stay right behind me.”
Compared to her, he didn’t sound winded at all, but like he’d simply been taking a leisurely stroll. If she made it out of this, she would get in better shape and learn to use a freaking gun. And she’d thank Axel profusely.
The ascent up the hill wasn’t necessarily easier than the sprint across the valley. Her thighs ached and her lungs burned by the time they reached the last hill. The pilot sat in the chopper, walkie-talkie in hand, looking around nervously.
Axel knelt on the uneven ground and tried to get a steady stance as he lifted his rifle and aimed, but not toward the pilot. Mystery looked in the direction Axel pointed his barrel—and caught sight of the man who’d been shooting at them earlier. Or rather, she saw the business end of his rifle. He’d set up behind a rock, his weapon peeking over the top as he waited for them to come into view so he could pick them off.
“Stay here,” he demanded. “I’m going up.”
He’d be visible and vulnerable on top of the next rise. Mystery hated that she had no idea how to help him. “Be careful.”
“If something happens to me, you know what to do and where to go.” Then he grabbed his weapon, shirked his pack, checked the ammo in his pockets. Then he was gone.
In less than a minute, she heard multiple shots ring out. The reverberation of some were really close. Axel’s rifle, she supposed. Others echoed around the valley.
The two exchanged gunfire for tense minutes. Worry gripped her. What was going on?
Mystery crept up the hill just a bit, enough to see the bottom of Axel’s boots, toes down.
“I hear you.” He didn’t sound pleased.
“I’m worried about you.”
“I do my job better when I’m not worried about you. Get back down.”
Mystery crouched, staying where she could just see the heels of his boots. The air around them went still. As far as she could tell, Axel didn’t move. She tensed. The waiting was killing her.
Suddenly, more gunfire erupted, a rapid tat-tat-tat of bullets. The sound came from a different angle, one higher up.
Axel scrambled off the hill and came barreling down, wrapping an arm around her. “Let’s go.”
She didn’t have the chance to ask where, just picked up their packs and did her best to run beside him as he shuttled her down the hill and around the back, still closer to the helicopter.
Once it came into view, she saw the pilot sitting inside, still on the walkie-talkie as he scanned his surroundings. They were a bit behind him and to his left. He hadn’t seen them yet, but it wouldn’t be long.
Axel grabbed her arm and brought her up short. “We’re going to make a run for it. When we get close to the chopper, hurry around the back, to the other side. Dive in. Keep your head down. Wait for me. Got it?”
“Yes, Axel.” She wouldn’t let him down.
“Go!” he urged in her ear.
Together, they ran, his big body on her left, blocking her from the last known position of the gunman, his arm around her protectively, keeping her crouched low.
Mystery saw the moment the pilot spotted them. His eyes widened. Thankfully, he didn’t appear to have a gun. But he spoke animatedly into the little handheld communication device.
When he noticed the rifle in Axel’s hand, he scrambled from the vehicle, shaking hands held in the air. He looked close to fifty, dark hair slicked back, showing off his clearly Italian genes. “I’m just a hired pilot. I don’t want anyone else hurt.”
Axel gave her a little nudge toward the back of the helicopter. She took that as her cue to dart to the far side of the flying contraption, like he’d instructed.
She glanced inside the cockpit for anything that obviously resembled a radio, but saw so many buttons, dials, levers, and switches. She had no idea if any of them would allow her to communicate with the outside world.
Quickly, she flung herself and the packs inside, then leaned forward and stared out the window. Axel was bearing down on the pilot, who backed away. That wasn’t happening. Axel grabbed the pilot by his arm and—
Another round of shots ricocheted around them. Axel slammed the pilot to the dirt. A bullet struck the helicopter. Mystery heard the metallic ping of the impact. Feeling like a sitting duck, she scrambled out and onto the hard ground.
Another shot struck the vehicle. Then another. She heard a thump, a grunt, then . . .
“You okay?” Axel called.
“I don’t know,” she called back.
Tears stabbed her eyes. Damn it, now wasn’t the time to fall apart. Later, when she was safe—or dead—she could freak out. Right now, she had to pull her shit together.
“Are you hit?” he asked.
“No. Just scared. I’ll be fine.”
Axel darted around the back of the chopper’s tail and clapped eyes on her. The hard warrior stamped all over his face softened for a moment. “I know. I’m going to get you out of here.”
He squeezed her arm, then scooted past her, toward the front of the aircraft, and raised his rifle.
Seconds ticked by in silence. She watched Axel, his wide shoulders set, barely rising and falling, though his heart rate had to be sky-high and adrenaline shooting through his system. His seeming calm set her at ease. Maybe he knew where the shooter was. Maybe he had a plan. No, probably. She hadn’t known Axel long, but he’d do everything to keep them safe. No one would be better in a life-or-death situation.
Finally, he gave an almost imperceptible movement in his right arm. She leaned around to get a better view. He pulled the trigger.
The shot arrowed across the valley.
Seconds slipped past, punctuated by a silence that made her want to crawl out of her skin, her pulse race. She didn’t hear any return fire from the other gunman.
When nearly a full, still minute had passed, Axel glanced at her over his shoulder. “Get in.”
Before she could comply, he disappeared around the front of the aircraft again. Mystery wrenched open the door—and found a bullet hole in her seat where she’d been sitting only minutes ago.
On the other side, Axel opened the chopper door and zeroed in on her. He must have seen her frozen because he followed the direction of her gaze. And cursed. “It’s okay, princess. He’s gone. He’s not coming back. Get in so we can get you home.”
Mystery started trembling. His words pinged around her brain before she finally nodded. “Okay.”
Closing her eyes, she hoisted herself into the seat. No way would she look at the hole in the leather and think about the fact that if she hadn’t followed her instinct and gotten out, she’d be dead now.
Pushing the pac
ks into the back of the vehicle, she tried to bring her shaking under control as Axel got in after her and started the helicopter. It started up, the whirring of the blades a jarring sound that ultimately soothed her. She could go home.
“You shot the guy trying to kill us?”
Axel hesitated and looked her over. Getting a read on her mental state?
Finally, he nodded. “He got impatient. When he couldn’t find me to get a good shot from his previous location, he poked his head up to look. I was waiting.”
Mystery swallowed hard. “And the pilot?”
“He wasn’t armed. I hit him over the head. He’ll be conscious in a few minutes.”
Small comfort. Six people dead in the last twenty-four hours just to keep her alive. All but his two buddies had been criminals, but she still felt oddly guilty for being the one to survive. “I’m sorry.”
Axel shook his head, his blue eyes completely reassuring. “You didn’t ask for this.”
But if she’d followed her father’s rules, none of this would have happened. She and Axel had already had this argument, so she wasn’t going to waste her breath or his time having it again.
Then she noticed him fiddling with something in the aircraft’s complicated console. “I looked for the radio, but I couldn’t figure it out.”
He pointed to a few wires sticking out. “I’m betting the pilot disabled it on the gunman’s instructions when it didn’t look like they’d end up on the winning side.”
Crap. “So we can’t alert the police or tell anyone we’re coming?”
“I’m afraid not.” He flipped a few more switches and turned some knobs.
“Then what are you doing?”
Was this the helicopter equivalent of hot-wiring a car?
“Disabling the IFF transponder.” He focused on the buttons in front of him, studying.
“What’s that? Some sort of GPS?”
“It stands for ‘Identify Friend or Foe.’ It transmits a four-digit octal identification code with the aircraft’s tail numbers. If I don’t disable this, local air traffic control might be able to identify me. Until we know whose side they’re on . . .” He yanked it free. “Better to be safe than sorry.”
Mystery was so grateful he’d thought of all that. Without him, no doubt she’d already be dead.
He grabbed the controller, and the helicopter began to rise off the ground. Now probably wasn’t a good time to mention that she’d always been deathly afraid of them. She tensed and clenched her eyes shut. Better not to look.
Then it hit her. She really was going home—to her father, to everything familiar.
To life without Axel.
He lifted the chopper off the ground. It surged back, then he pulled on the controller. They gained altitude before they lunged forward. The brown of the brush-scrubbed hills rose up in front of them, the obstacles she hadn’t been sure how they’d cross to get out of this blasted valley. But suddenly they were flying above them. A sense of euphoria gripped her.
They were going to live. They were saved.
Suddenly, Axel cursed and gave a mighty yank on the controller. Despite that, as soon as they crested the rise of the hill, the nose of the aircraft leaned down. Mystery braced her hands and feet anywhere in the cabin she could find so she didn’t splat face first into the windshield.
“Put on your seatbelt,” he demanded. Beads of sweat popped out along his forehead, at his temples.
A terrible thought occurred to her. “You don’t know how to fly this thing?”
That would be bad. So, so bad . . . She scrambled to buckle her restraint. It wouldn’t save her if they crashed and went up in flames, but she’d hope for a better outcome. She hadn’t come this far to die in some mechanical contraption designed to get her the hell out of danger.
“I do,” he assured as the aircraft started spinning in circles. “But I think we’ve lost the manifold pressure in the engine. It probably got damaged by gunfire. I can’t control the chopper anymore.”
That made Mystery’s heart stop. She did her best not to panic or scream, especially when they seemed to be losing altitude fast. The nose of the craft tilted down even more. She tried to reach across the space and grab the steering contraption and give a mighty tug.
The fact that he didn’t object told her they might be in serious trouble.
“I don’t think I can recover.” He swallowed.
And the ground raced up toward them as the aircraft itself started spinning faster and faster.
“Oh, God . . .”
“Now might be a good time to say your prayers.”
Mystery’s heart stopped. “Can we do anything?”
He hesitated only a split second to look at the complicated dash of dials and indicators. “On my count, pull on the yoke as hard as you can. We’ll see if we can even this up. We’re still going to autorotate down. Get ready for a bumpy landing. One . . . two . . .” He gritted his teeth. “Pull!”
Bracing her feet on the floor, she wrapped her fists around the yoke and used every ounce of her strength to bring it back up. Axel did the same, the tendons in his neck standing out, his biceps bulging.
Mystery tugged with all her might, but it was like pulling a pole through concrete. The thing just wasn’t budging. They began to spin around faster and faster, the landscape coming at her in dizzying speeds, disorienting her. She wanted to close her eyes to cut down on the nausea. She didn’t dare.
The one bright spot was that it appeared they’d made it over the hill and stood a decent chance of putting this thing down on level ground. She only hoped that they didn’t burst into a ball of flame the moment they did.
“Get ready for impact,” he barked.
How was she supposed to do that? But they didn’t have time for questions. “Got it.”
Axel took in deep breaths and kept trying to steady the yoke. The blades stirred up the dust around them. She choked as it invaded her nostrils and clogged her throat. The tail of the craft kept whirling around, adding to the dizzying spin. God, she hoped they made it out of this alive. If she did, Mystery swore she’d do so many things differently.
The back of the aircraft hit the ground below, pushing them forward and destabilizing the entire aircraft. The legs at the front hit with a jarring thud. Her head snapped back as her body slammed to the seat. Like a teeter-totter, the little craft ambled back and forth, rocking in place, before finally settling on the ground.
Axel killed the engine, then panted a few deep breaths, obviously trying to bring his adrenaline under control. “You all right?”
Other than her heart racing like a mad thing and being scared half to death? “Yeah.”
And, damn it, she still had to pee.
He turned to her, stared, said nothing for long moments. He curled his fingers into fists. Sweat poured down his face. He looked taut, as if holding himself back.
Mystery frowned. “You?”
Her question seemed to jolt him. “Fine.”
She wasn’t sure she believed him.
He reached behind them and grabbed the packs from the back. “Can you carry yours?”
Testing her fingers, wrists, arms, and legs, she was relieved to find that nothing felt broken or even hurt. “I should be able to.”
“Let’s go. We’ll have to walk again. Getting over that range of hills was a big help. It saved us hours of hiking. We might find some shelter ahead before nightfall.”
But their water supply was running low. He didn’t have to tell her that, even if they made it through today, they’d likely be empty by tomorrow. Then what? She didn’t need an expert like him