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My hand flies to my mouth, and I struggle to keep the bile from rising.
I force the image out of my head.
That is not how I’ll remember him.
I have to tell their families. I have to let them know what happened. Give them a proper funeral. Something …
I gather my courage and move back to Pete’s body, frantically searching for my bag or his. I push my hands underneath my seat but to no avail. When I turn my head, I spot my phone … under Pete’s seat.
Despite swallowing, I can still taste the sourness in my mouth, but I push on anyway. I have to get that phone, no matter how horrible it is. Crawling as low as I possibly can, I push my hand underneath and feel around, trying not to touch the body. The smell is so vile; I have to stop breathing while I’m trying to find the cell phone.
When I’ve got it, I quickly pull back and lean backward as far away as I can against my own seat. With unsteady fingers, I ram the buttons, but no matter how many times I press the start button, it won’t turn on.
Of course, it won’t.
The phone’s completely blackened with stuff leaking out of it.
The batteries have long been drained or burned.
“Fuck!” I yell, smashing it down onto the floor.
Tears well up in my eyes as I stare at the body in front of me, wishing he could speak and tell me what to do. How can I ever bring them back home if I can’t even get us off this island?
Fucking useless.
As I sit here, contemplating on what I should do, the helicopter begins to creak.
The sound makes me uneasy, so I slowly start to move back to the cockpit again. Every time I place my hands and knees on the floor, the metal screeches. It chases adrenaline through my body and makes my heart pump faster. I need to get out of here before this thing collapses. I can barely see, as the moonlight is my only source of light right now. But if I keep going in the same direction, I’ll surely bump into stuff I’ll recognize.
First the door, then the seats, and then the stick and buttons on a dashboard, which I use to push myself up from the skewed floor. As I crawl out the window and hold it tight to make my descent, the metal screeches louder than ever before.
“Jules!”
In shock, I turn my head toward the distressed voice.
There he is, a few feet away from the wreckage, holding a spear in one hand and a lit torch in the other.
He tracked me all the way here?
Suddenly, the slippery surface of the helicopter makes me lose my grip, and I squeal as my feet fall off the ledge. I barely manage to hold the broken window, but glass punctures my skin.
“Jules!” he yells, rushing toward me, dropping the spear and torch.
I try to grasp the ledge of the window with both hands, but I’m swinging from the helicopter right now … and it begins to sway.
My eyes widen as the whole thing comes apart at the seams right beside where I am.
The tremors make me lose the last inch of my grip.
I fall.
My feet hit the metal, and I bounce off, my body turning toward the ground headfirst.
Shit.
I close my eyes before I hit the ground.
Except I don’t.
Two strong arms catch me right before I do.
It all happens so fast.
The wreckage creaks and contorts, collapsing under its own weight.
One moment, Lock clutches me, holding me close to his body.
The next, he stumbles and falls.
I’m thrown forward into the scorched grass.
My body rolls out away from the crash site. I groan and cough as I recover from the fall. When I lean up, I blink and look around.
There’s nothing left of the helicopter.
Nothing … but a man underneath a large chunk of metal.
I don’t recognize the agonizing sound that leaves my throat.
“Lock!”
Chapter Seven
Accompanying Song: “On The Nature Of Daylight” by Max Richter
Juliet
In shock, I stare at the scene in front of me.
Grass burns from the dropped torch.
Metal lies scattered on the field.
Nothing’s left of the helicopter except the blades, ripped apart.
And there, right underneath one of the plates, is Lock.
As I crawl farther up, my body tumbles over, still weak from the fall.
Then, his body rises from the ashes, lifting the metal off his body with just his weight. He grunts and roars, his face red and his veins bulging as he pushes it off him. With every ounce of strength in his body, he crawls out from underneath the scorched debris, and I am in awe… my breath stolen by the sheer power he exudes.
I can hardly believe what he just did …
As I blink, all the memories of what just happened flood back in.
