Page 106 of Keeping Penny

At least this time they hadn’t left the country. The team was in North Carolina, to help with evacuations in the middle of a hurricane. To the same part of the state that was also experiencing devastating flooding.

The amount of rainfall was unheard of. Forget a hundred-year flood, this was more like a thousand-year flood. It had been raining around Asheville, the area where they’d be working, for the last week, and that was before the hurricane was even predicted to make landfall. It didn’t help that the rain and wind was sticking around because of an unprecedented pressure system.

It was an extremely dangerous situation, which was why the Night Stalkers were called in. Their expertise in flying in unstable conditions was legendary, and Chaos was ready.

The footage from the news channels was horrifying. Houses being washed away, roads taken out by rivers that hadn’t existed a week ago. People trapped in cars, on roofs, in trees, all desperate for help, with not nearly enough available.

The team was currently discussing the day’s plan of action. They had two helicopters at their disposal, and Chaos volunteered to let Casper take his pilot seat alongside Edge. He would be in the back, helping get people onboard.

Chaos wasn’t sure why he’d relinquished his position onboard to Casper. Not that his team leader wasn’t capable; he was. More than. Something in his gut had just screamed at him to not get behind the controls. That he was needed elsewhere.

His mom had always drilled into him to pay attention to his “sixth sense.” She was what most people would call eccentric. Lived in Maine off the grid. Grew her own food, had chickens and pigs and chopped her own wood for the winter. She was his idol, and Chaos had never regretted going with his gut. It had saved his life, and the lives of his teammates, more than once.

So when something told him that he needed to be in the back of the chopper, he didn’t hesitate to volunteer his seat to Casper.

The flight to the area they’d been assigned was choppy at best. It reminded Chaos of flying through a sandstorm in the Middle East on a previous mission. It wasn’t until he’d landed that he’d realized how tense he was and how fucking scary that flight had been. He wasn’t afraid now though. He was focused on the ground below.

The spotlight they had mounted on the bottom of the aircraft was focused downward so they could see in the dark, and the door of the chopper was open, which meant he was being pelted by wind and rain, but it was important to have an unimpeded view of the countryside in order to spot anyone who needed immediate evacuation.

Buck and Obi-Wan were flying close behind them, all the pilots connected via their headsets.

There’d been accusations from people not in the area blaming the victims of the horrible weather for their current predicament. Saying they should’ve evacuated when they heard about the flooding. Or the hurricane. But the thing was, many of the people who needed rescuing now had homes and businesses well above the normal flood plains. Again, rivers had formed where they hadn’t been before. And they were raging. No one could’ve predicted the destruction from the storms and the rain.

Chaos’s gaze was fixed on the landscape. The devastation. He saw the first people who needed help. It looked like a family on top of a roof, waving their arms frantically as the water raged around them. He called in the location to Buck, who replied that he saw them and they were going down.

Seeing people standing next to holes, indicating that they’d forcefully broken through their own roofs, reminded Chaos of the footage he’d seen after Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. Except then, it wasn’t the hurricane itself that had caused such devastation. It was the failure of the levees that had flooded New Orleans and the surrounding parishes.

Chaos forced himself to concentrate as Casper and Edge carefully circled the home, keeping watch as Buck placed a skid on the roof to allow the family to climb aboard. And so it went. The two choppers working in tandem, finding and rescuing dozens of people. Once their helicopters were full, they turned to go back to base. To drop off the evacuees, fuel up, then head out once more. They’d continue the cycle until they couldn’t find anyone to evacuate. Which could be days from now.

They’d just circled back around to head to base when something caught Chaos’s eye. He squinted, trying to figure out if he’d actually spotted something in the darkness or if he was seeing people who weren’t there.

“Holy shit, wait! Casper, stop!”

“What do you see?” his team leader asked, bringing the chopper to a hover. Buck and Obi-Wan also stopped a hundred yards away, waiting to hear what it was that had Chaos so concerned.

“There! Three o’clock. Do you see it? Is that someone in a tree?”

Several seconds went by while Casper manned the spotlight, shining it into the trees in the area. And then Edge said, “Holy fuck, yeah, I think it is!”

Chaos’s heart beat fast. The person clung tightly to the tree, which was bowing under the force of the water cascading around it. It wouldn’t be long until the tree succumbed to the pressure of the river, tossing its occupant into the churning water filled with branches, parts of houses, and thick, life-consuming mud.

That sixth sense that Chaos had been taught never to ignore roared to life. “Bring us down. I’m going to see if I can rescue them with the rope.”

Casper didn’t immediately lower the chopper. Instead, he looked back at Chaos standing at the edge of the door. They were at capacity, bedraggled and terrified-looking passengers huddled together, soaking wet and wanting nothing more than to be on the ground.

But Chaos couldn’t in good conscience ignore the person hanging on for dear life to that tree.

“It’s unlikely they’ll be able to grab the rope and not fall into the water,” Casper said.

“If we leave, he or she won’t be here when we get back,” he retorted, believing that down to his core.

Casper nodded, then turned his attention back to the controls and began to lower the chopper.

Chaos looked back down at the tree, and it seemed to him that it was bowing even more toward the water. He sought out the person he’d seen, and through the distance, the rain and wind, their eyes met.

It was a woman.

Something clicked between them. Something Chaos didn’t understand.