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“You’re saying I hurt this bad from a few bruises?”
“More than just a few. Take a look.” Houdini pulled up the camera app on his phone and handed it to me, and…holy shit. I didn’t even recognize myself. There were streaks of purple all over my face, and blood vessels in both eyes had burst, which was enough to scare anyone looking my way, myself included.
Curious about the way my upper body felt like it’d been hit by a train, I pulled down the neck of my hospital gown, and when I saw the massive black bruises across my shoulders, I could only stare.
“I heard your doc say you’re lucky you didn’t break your collarbones from the force of the straps pullin’ on you when you ejected,” Houdini said.
I had a feeling I’d see the same marks around my ribs, since it hurt to take a good breath, but I’d look later. I was alive, and that was what mattered.
I stayed silent while the nurse finished up what she was doing, and then she left to let the doctor know I was awake.
“Wanna talk about it?” Houdini said once we were alone.
“It all happened so fast…” I picked up the cup and took a small sip of water, and that small move felt like it took a massive effort.
“We were all watchin’. About gave everyone a heart attack when you made that call. Man, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Solo lose it like that before.”
“Solo? Why? What happened?”
“Well, we didn’t see ya at first, and I don’t know what happened. He went apeshit, tried to leave the room like he was gonna go rescue you himself.”
“That’s crazy.”
Houdini nodded. “I know. Rescue got to you fast, though. And almost everyone’s been by while you were out, so that’s where all those came from.”
I looked around the room at where he gestured to well over a dozen get-well and fighter jet balloons hovering around the ceiling, as well as one massive bouquet of tulips on the stand beside me. “Who are the flowers from?”
Houdini reached for the note, and when he flipped it open, both eyebrows shot up.
“What? My parents?”
“No, they brought the roses over there when they came.”
“Then who?”
Houdini didn’t say a word as he flipped the card around.
Panther,
I’d appreciate it if you tried harder not to get killed. I can’t beat you if you’re dead.
~Solo
I laughed, the vibration fucking my chest over, but I couldn’t help it. That card was about as sentimental as anyone would ever get from Solo, but that’d been part of my attraction to him, hadn’t it?
“Guess he felt guilty about not comin’ by.”
“He didn’t?”
“Nope. Funny how he freaked so hard and then didn’t even bother comin’ by to check on you. Guess that’s Solo for ya.”
Huh. There was something peculiar in that statement, and had the drugs not kicked in and made my head fuzzy, maybe I could’ve pointed it out. As it was, I was drifting slowly, my eyes flickering shut as Houdini kept up a rant about our fellow trainee.
Just before I knocked out, one question lingered in my mind: why hadn’t Solo come to see me?
2 Solo
IT WAS AMAZING how long a day could feel when you had nothing better to do than stare at a clock. But for the last two days that was exactly what I’d been doing.
Sitting. Staring. And waiting.
In fact, I’d become a damn expert at waiting. Ever since Panther’s voice had come over the comm stating there was air in the cockpit and he’d have to eject, it felt as though my life had shifted gears. From fast-paced, where everything was go, go, go, to slow motion, where nothing was happening, and I was left in this bizarre holding pattern where not even sleep could free me. I was in a waking nightmare, one that seemed determined to go on and on and on.
I stared at the adjoining wall of my room that I shared with Panther—correction, that I used to share with Panther—and threw the tennis ball so it would hit the floor, rebound off the wall, and make its way back to me where my ass was planted on the ground. It wasn’t the most productive thing I could be doing with my time, but hey, at least it was passing it.
The steady thump thump of the ball before it came back to me reminded me I was still alive, that I was still here, and considering what we’d all witnessed two days ago, it seemed like the safest option for me.
The night Panther had gone down, some of the guys had chosen to hit the bar just outside of the base. But I was not in the mood to sit around and dissect one of the most terrifying sights of my life.
Watching Panther catapult out of his jet as it nosedived to the ocean below had shaken me to my very core. Sure, we all trained for it. That moment where everything went to shit and you had to make that life-and-death decision, not knowing if choosing life would ultimately save you. But standing there safe and helpless on the ground, bearing witness to someone’s life hanging in the balance, brought home the danger of the move fucking quick.
