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Anne chose that time to come around.
“What happened?” she slurred, glancing around the cockpit in confusion.
“I’m guessing that Smithson didn’t mean for either of us to survive this,” Blane observed dryly.
A dry crack outside seemed to punctuate his words.
Blane tossed off the seatbelt. “We have to go. Can you walk?” Reaching over, he unbuckled her. Blood had spilled from her mouth down her chin and her teeth were rimmed with red.
“Um, yeah.” She stood and wobbled unsteadily. Her head must’ve been hit because she wasn’t fighting him, just blindly obedient. As though she wasn’t really thinking.
Blane took her arm and helped her from the cockpit.
Another crack and the plane plummeted. Anne screamed and would have fallen if not for Blane, who grabbed onto the bulkhead for support. The plane again came to a teeth-cracking halt. Blane knew they hadn’t hit the ground yet, but it wouldn’t be long. They had tomove.
He grabbed her hand and pulled.
The plane’s door was still, remarkably, in place. However, when Blane unlocked and tried to push it open, it didn’t budge.Fuck.
Thinking fast, he pulled Anne back to the cockpit and kicked out the shattered windshield. The tree branch had broken the integrity of the glass and it went easily under his boot.
“Come on,” he ordered, pulling her with him as he climbed out onto the nose of the plane. Thankfully, they were still horizontal. A miracle.
Anne slipped and slid on the nose, her eyes wide and frightened, the whites showing all around the irises. The blood on her face was stark against the pale white of her skin. She held on to his hand with a vicelike grip though.
Blane’s boots found purchase on a tree branch cradling the plane and he moved backward, coaxing Anne to move with him. He kept a tight hold on her. One wrong move and she’d plummet through the trees. She wouldn’t make it to the bottom alive.
“Where are we?” she asked, her frightened gaze betraying her confusion.
“Let’s worry about that later,” he said gently. “Come on. Keep coming. I’ve got you.”
His urgency was hardly mitigated, but he had to be calm for her. His instincts said she’d do something unpredictable if he scared her. She wasn’t in her right mind. Probably a concussion. He thought he should be worried about that, but he couldn’t right now. He was too busy trying to keep them alive.
She was moving too slow. The branches creaked and more wood broke. Blane tugged on her hand. He’d reached the relative safety of a branch right next to the thick trunk of a tree. Anne was still over an arm’s length away, her pupils dilated and her steps unsure.
What are you doing?he thought.Just let her go. All of this will go away. She betrayed you. You owe her nothing.But it wasn’t in him to do such a thing. He was a protector, even if someone didn’t want protecting. Anne was now in his care, and he’d die to keep her alive.
Another crack and he made a decision. He yanked at her, pulling her off her feet, even though she gasped in alarm. Instinctively, she tried to jerk her hand out of his. Blane wouldn’t allow it. She landed against him, one of his arms locked around the tree trunk and the other around her.
The plane fell.
Blane pushed Anne’s face against his shoulder, shielding her from the resulting explosion of wood and metal and smoke. To his surprise, the plane didn’t explode. They must make them better nowadays.
When the sound had muted, he refocused on Anne. She was trembling against him. His hand was against the back of her head and it came away bloody. The tossing in the plane had hurt her, which probably explained why she’d been acting on auto-pilot, obeying his lead.
“What’s happening?” she asked, her voice breaking. “My head hurts.”
“Shh. It’s okay,” Blane soothed. “You’ll be okay. We just need to climb down. You climbed trees when you were little, didn’t you?”
She nodded.
“This is just like that. We’re going to climb down. You can do it. I’ll help you.”
Anne again just nodded. Blood still leaked from her mouth and Blane’s heart cracked a little.
“Okay.” Her voice was barely audible. It sent an alarm through Blane. She’d hit her head. She could be bleeding inside the brain which, here—wherever here was—was a death sentence.
“Come on then,” he said encouragingly.
