02 Hunted - The Chosen

by Denise Grover Swank

  Will let out a breath of relief. “Drive up to that metal hangar ahead. Stop before you get to the double doors and stay in the car until I tell you to get out.”

  As she skidded to a halt in front of a fifty-foot-wide building, Will threw the car door open and jumped out, running to the padlocked door with his lock picking kit in hand. Headlights from the pursuing cars filled the paved runway.

  The lock fell to the pavement. “Can you blow those things up before they get close enough to shoot us?”

  “I don’t know.” She ran to the hangar. “I’ll try.”

  Will pushed a metal door open enough for both of them to slide through. Industrial fluorescent lights flicked on overhead as they entered the metal building, which housed two planes and a jet.

  “Stay behind the door while I figure out which one we can use.” He ran to the middle plane and ducked under the overhead wings.

  Her irritation over the situation already heated the stone on her neck and pushed aside her fear. She let her anger build. Soon the churning mass of energy burned in her chest.

  “This one will work.” Will shouted around the plane door. “I’m going to start the engine so it’s going to get loud. When I wave to you, slide the doors open and run and get in the plane. Now would be a good time to take care of some of those cars.”

  Her back to the metal door, the electricity in her body was to near capacity now. She turned and stood in the opening of the doors as three cars screeched to a halt in front of the building. Car doors flew open and men scrambled out, pointing guns toward her.

  Energy gathered in her palms. Sweat trickled down her neck, every nerve ending raw. Could she do this?

  “Emma, what the fuck are you doing?” Will screamed behind her.

  The men hesitated as she watched them, her hands her only weapon.

  “Just come on out, Ms. Thompson. We don’t want to hurt you.”

  Her entire body burned, shocks jumping from one hair to the next. She raised her palms as a glow surrounded her.

  Bullets whizzed over her head.

  Without thinking, she released the energy and pushed it to the closest car. The vehicle exploded into flames, metal pieces raining down on the asphalt. She swallowed the vomit that rose in her throat, flooded with self-disgust. How easy it was to kill.

  The plane engine roared to life behind her. The wind whipped her hair around her face while the energy grew and replaced what she’d used. The power removed all fear and she faced her attackers as they regrouped.

  The men shouted, but their words were lost on in storm of wind and energy. When she heard the shots, she blasted the other two cars, the force of the explosions pushing against her. She held her ground. If she killed these men, the least she could do was witness it. She looked out into the street for signs of other cars. Headlights shone off in the distance, approaching their direction.

  What has she become, that she could so callously kill? The glow from the stone began to fade.

  She turned to look at Will, who sat in the cockpit wearing headphones, his head bent over the control panel. Gas fumes filled the air and she breathed in through her open mouth to keep from gagging. The flaps on the wings moved in rapid succession, as well at the tail. The plane rolled forward a few feet and the engine revved louder. Emma’s hair blew in all directions and she reached up and tried to control it as she looked out the crack in the door. The headlights in the distance were closer and the three fires burned fifty feet from the building like funeral pyres.

  Will glanced up and waved. She leaned into the metal door and pushed. The heavy doors slid open, the scrapping of the metal wheels barely audible over the roar of the engine. She looked out to the road and saw the headlights turning onto the side road.

  They were close. Shit. She ran for the plane, giving a wide berth to the propeller. Grabbing the handle of the side door, she scrambled in as the wind forced the door shut behind her.

  Will handed her a pair of headphones. “Here. Put these on,” he shouted over the roar of the engine.

  She slipped them over her ears as Will rolled the plane to the entrance, easing through the opening. Once out, he made a sharp turn, barely missing the side of the building in an effort to stay clear from the burning cars.

  Headlights entered the airfield.

  “Can you do anything to them while you’re inside the plane?” Will asked through the microphone on his headphones.

  “I don’t know!” she shouted. “I have no idea if I can do something through glass. I suspect I can’t.”

  Once around the burning cars, Will revved the engine as they turned, heading for the runway. He cast her a quick glance. “The window will tilt open, although not very far. You’d have to be careful with the wings overhead. They’re filled with gasoline.”

  Emma looked in the backseat and saw the shotgun. “Fuck that.” She grabbed the gun and opened the window, sticking the tip out the opening at the bottom.

  The cars spread out, two barreling toward them on the outer strip and two coming down the runway.

  “Shit, I don’t have enough room to take off.” Will slowed the plane.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You’re going to have to lose a few of them, otherwise we’ll never get off the ground.”

  “Great.”

  The two cars on the outer road drove past, heading away from the plane. Emma shot several rounds at the nearest car. The back tire blew and the car swerved to the side before it crashed into the hangar. The two cars on the runway split up and drove on either side, driving to the end of the runway but not firing any shots.

  “I don’t suppose I can open the window in the back?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.

  “No.”

  The two cars behind were now approaching on either side. Emma tried to aim at the car on her side, but the window didn’t open far enough. She considered trying to blow up the cars by opening the door, but a glance up at the wing full of a highly flammable substance stopped her.

  “Grab my shirt and make sure I don’t fall out.” Jerking off her headphones, she grabbed the handle on the door.

  “What?” He watched her push the door open. “Emma!”

  She ignored him, turning sideways in the seat, she lay backward so her head and shoulders were outside the plane. Will grabbed her shirt as she rotated her shoulders to face them, gun in hand. The wind from the propeller slammed the door into the shotgun butt and her body jerked as she tried to hold onto it.

  Gunshots from the car hit the back of the plane.

  “Emma!” Will’s grip stretched the fabric of her shirt. “Get back inside!”

  Ignoring her racing heart, she steadied herself and aimed for the windshield. She squeezed the trigger twice, thankful that one of the shots actually hit the target in spite of the bouncing plane.

  Will tried to pull her in and she braced her feet against the seat. “I haven’t taken care of them yet,” she tried to yell over the roar of the engine. She doubted he even heard her.

  “Emma!”

  She aimed again, both shots connecting with the windshield, but more shots echoed from the cars. The plane bounced violently and the door slammed into her scalp. She saw black spots and shook her head, sharp pain accompanying the movement.

  “Emma, get your goddamned ass in the plane! I have to turn the corner and I can’t do it holding onto you.”

  She reached in and grabbed the seat belt and pulled herself up. “Then turn.”

  He scowled as he let go, putting both hands on the yoke.

  They neared the end of the runway and she was about to lose her opportunity. She looped her arm around the shoulder belt and leaned back again.

  “Goddamn it, Emma! What the fuck are you doing?”

  She was prepared for the banging door this time so she braced herself as it slammed. Tensing her back muscles to hold herself up, she aimed and released multiple shots into the windshield over the driver’s seat. The car swerved out of control before
it jerked away and rolled off into the grass. She lost sight of it as the plane turned the corner and she pulled herself in.

  Will turned onto the runway and faced the car headed toward them. “Son of a fucking bitch.” He shot her angry look. “You try to go out the door again and I’ll drag your ass back in by your hair.”

  “Yeah, you’re welcome,” she sneered as she put her headphones back on. But she knew she’d scared him.

  Will jerked the plane to the right, off the runway, and onto the grass. The car drove past and Will turned back onto the asphalt. The aircraft barreled ahead, nearing the end of the runway.

  “Aren’t you going to take off?”

  “I can’t. I have to turn around.”

  “Then we’ll be back in the same situation, facing the fucking car.”

  “I need the headwind to take off.” He turned onto the taxi lane.

  One car followed behind. The other turned onto the outer road and drove toward them

  “Hang on, we’re going to take off from the outer road.” Will revved the engine then the plane hurtled down the pavement. The car from behind moved to Will’s side. Will ducked down and popped the latch on his window. “Give me the gun.”

  She passed it over and he grabbed it with one hand.

  “Grab the yoke and hold it while I shoot.”

  “I don’t know how to do that!” she shouted.

  More shots rang out, one flying through the window.

  “It’s like holding a steering wheel. Just hold tight but don’t pull back.”

  She gripped the handles, the vibrations shaking her hands and arms.

  Will picked up the shotgun and jammed the tip through the window, firing at the car on their side. The car swerved back and forth but steadied itself.

  Will sat up and looked over the dashboard as more shots hit the plane. “Fuck!”

  Emma raised her head to see the car in front heading toward them. The bullets whizzed through the back window and into the roof. She ducked down.

  Will shot at the car again. “Emma, pull back on the yoke!”

  “What?”

  “Pull back on the yoke!”

  Her breath came in short bursts as she pulled the handles, only to meet resistance. She pulled harder and the nose of the plane lifted up. “Oh, God.” She looked out the window to see the wheel on her side inches off the ground.

  The bullets came in a more rapid succession. “You have to pull back more!” Will shouted.

  She yanked harder and the plane lifted off the ground.

  The yoke jerked toward her in a sharp movement. She panicked before realizing Will had grabbed his handles and pulled back. The plane lifted higher and flew over the car in front, barely missing the roof.

  They flew higher, over the trees on the other side of the road, leaving the cars behind.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Will flew east and lifted the landing gear as they continued to climb. The motor whirred until the wheels stopped in the belly of the plane with a thud.

  Emma jumped in her seat. “What the hell was that?”

  “It’s just the landing gear. Relax, it’s normal. Are you really afraid to fly?”

  Her knuckles turned white from her fingers digging into the seat cushion. “Yeah,” Emma took a deep breath, but her back remained stiff. She reached a hand to the back of her head and pulled it down. In the light of the control panel, Will saw dark red pools on her fingertips.

  His stomach dropped. “Are you hurt?” He looked her up and down. Please God, don’t let her have gotten shot again.

  “I’m okay. I just banged my head on the door when I was hanging outside.”

  “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “It had to be done.”

  He reached over and checked her shirt and pants for signs of a gunshot wound. He lifted her hair from the nape of her neck. Blood trickled down her neck. He grabbed his backpack from the backseat, setting it on Emma’s lap. “We’ll discuss that stunt later. There’s a first aid box in there. Get out some gauze to stop the bleeding.”

  She opened the pack and pulled out a gauze square, pulling her hair over her shoulder to access her wound. He worried about the amount of blood on her neck but reminded himself it was a head wound.

  She winced as she dabbed the pad on her head and tilted her head to look out the window. “Shouldn’t we be flying higher?”

  “Yeah, but we’re not out of the woods yet. They could send someone after us so I’m trying to hide.”

  “What do you mean hide?”

  “If we fly low enough we can stay off the radar, great in theory but terrible with this terrain which is about to get pretty rough. It’s even worse that it’s night.” He nodded his head to her lap. “There’s a small flashlight in the backpack. Can you get it out and look around and see if you can find a map?”

  “Like a road map?”

  “Kind of. A topography map. It’ll show us anything tall like the hills or towers. Any obstacles we might encounter.”

  She pulled out the flashlight and turned it on, looking all around the plane. “Nothing.”

  “I thought that would be too easy,” he sighed. “I need you to help me keep an eye out for anything we could fly into.”

  “Shit.”

  “Exactly.”

  She sat straighter, looking out the window. The glow of the instrument panel on the windows reflected the anxiousness on her face.

  Will decided he’d gone far enough east. Since they were flying over a field, it would be a good time to change direction. He banked the plane in a hard right, turning southwest.

  Emma pressed her back into the seat, bracing her feet against the floor. “Oh, God. We’re going to crash,” she choked out.

  “No, we’re just turning.”

  “In the future,” she said through gritted teeth. “could you please tell me before you do something like that again?”

  “I’ll try.”

  The field gave way to gently rolling hills, but he knew they were about to get bigger. His current direction was south toward Nebraska, skirting the Black Hills but heading toward the Badlands. Not exactly ideal conditions for flying illegally low. The brewing clouds to the west didn’t help matters.

  Emma eased her grip on the seat, although she still held on. She looked out the window, scanning the horizon. “Where are we going?”

  “South then west into Wyoming. The more distance I can put between us and them the better. We’re definitely not flying straight to Montana. That’s the first place they’ll look for us. ”

  “But—”

  “We’re still going to Montana, just not flying. It’s a lot easier to track a plane than a car.”

  She nodded, biting her lip.

  He knew it had to be hard being this close to finding Jake and yet still be so far. He reached over, wrapping his fingers around her hand that gripped the seat edge. “We’re going to get him, Emma. I promise.”

  She turned to look at him over her shoulder. Tears brimmed her eyes as she nodded.

  He turned his attention back to the view outside the windshield, thankful he still had moonlight to illuminate the hills rising in the distance. Under normal circumstances, he would fly over ten thousand feet, clearing them without a problem, but if he hoped to evade radar detection he needed to fly no more than a thousand feet off the ground. With some of the hills in front of them rising two thousand feet, that could be a problem.

  The clouds in the distance billowed, glowing with lightning bursts. Will estimated the storm to be about fifty miles away. When they turned they’d be flying toward it, but not into it. He might take chances, but he wasn’t stupid.

  When they hit the Badlands ten minutes later, he sighed. “This is going to be like a fucking roller coaster ride,” he said, increasing the throttle.

  “I hate roller coasters more than I hate flying.”

  “Then your night’s about to totally suck.”

  ***

  The first hi
ll loomed ahead and Will pulled back on the yoke. The nose of the plane lifted, soaring over the top to the slope, only to dive down on the other side.

  Her fingers grew numb from gripping the seat.

  “One down, a few hundred to go,” he said as the plane dipped into a valley, skimming several hundred feet over the grassland.

  “Are you fucking serious?”

  “Maybe a few less.”

  She caught her breath, preparing for the next hill but dismayed to see a forest of jagged monoliths projecting from the ground.

  “Are we going to dive down into those?” she asked, her throat constricting in fear.

  “No, we’ll try to skim the top of them. The problem will be if a peak sticks out higher than the others. I’m going to need you to help me keep watch.”

  “Okay.”

  They approached the next batch, an endless parade of pinnacles, and she thought of Jake. Had she come this close to finding him, only to crash into a fiery ball?

  She looked over at Will. He wore the intense gaze she had seen when he was in a difficult situation, his fingers wrapped around the handles in front of him.

  “I never asked if you were a good pilot.”

  His mouth lifted into a small grin. “A little late to be asking that now.”

  Her stomach dropped when she realized it was true.

  “Relax, Princess. I’m an excellent pilot. I got us off the ground, didn’t I?”

  “Seems like I had something to do with that too.”

  “So you did.” He pulled back the yoke. “Hang on, this is about to get rougher.”

  They rose again and her guts churned in anticipation. The plane leveled out, sailing over the peaks below. Emma scanned the horizon.

  “There’s something ahead.”

  Will rose in his seat to look over the panel. “Where?”

  She pointed to her right. “There.”

  “That’s at one o’clock. It’s like we’re a clock and the nose is pointed at twelve. If you see something, tell me where it is in relation to time on a clock.”

  “Okay.”

  The wind picked up and a gust hit the plane, rocking the aircraft. “This could get a little hairy. We’ve got a gusty crosswind, which means the plane’s going to get pitched sideways a bit.” The wind blew to demonstrate his statement. He gripped the yoke and adjusted a knob. “It wouldn’t be as big a problem if we were higher off the ground. Worst-case scenario, we turn into the wind and deal with rising and falling, not tilting sideways.”