“And survived.”
“That was the objective.”
She crossed her arms, and he turned back to the gauges. Oil pressure was holding. Allegedly. Minutes passed. The controls softened under his hands. Hydraulics were struggling.
“How did you learn to fly?”
He almost allowed the engine noise to fill the space, but she’d asked it too quickly. As if the silence was worse.
“Military.”
“What branch? Special forces?” She was looking at him again. “My uncle, Fox, was special forces. Is that how you know him?”
He rubbed the tender spot between his eyes.
“You’re not going to tell me anything, are you?”
“No.”
She huffed a breath. “Must be exhausting. Being this closed off.”
“No more than talking when you should be listening.”
That landed. A sharp breath, a half-second pause before she regrouped.
“I’m just trying to?—”
“I know what you’re trying to do.” He flexed his aching fingers on the cyclic.
“And what’s that?”
“You talk so you don’t panic. Fill the silence and stay functional.” He checked the altimeter. “Process your fear out loud instead of inside.”
When he glanced sideways, she glared at him with an unreadable expression.
Her chin lifted. “Maybe that’s what I’m doing.”
“It’s working?”
“Yes.”
A beat.
He nodded. “Now do it quieter.”
Her mouth opened. Closed. She turned to the windshield, and he turned back to the gauges, and for a full minute neither of them spoke.
The errant fuel gauge was now creeping toward the red. Rotor noise in his ears. Not his own—a second rhythm in the storm where there should have been none.
Light.
A column of white cutting through the storm from above, sweeping across the snow like a searchlight. Because it was.
Christ.
The helicopter materialized—bigger, heavier, military-grade. A Mi-8 or something close to it, its rotors beating the air with a deep, percussive thud that vibrated through his ribs. The light swung and pinned the cockpit in white glare.
Pav thrust left, dropping the nose. The helicopter banked and dove, the storm swallowing them again.
