Leverage

by Janie Crouch

  “What do we do?” Shelby asked. It was much easier to hear her now with no engine noise.

  “We need to find a place to put her down. Fast. Any open area.”

  It was difficult to see anything around them except trees. He definitely could not land on trees. They were losing altitude quickly. They had only minutes left.

  “What about over there?” Shelby pointed to a slight break in the trees maybe two miles away. It wasn’t a field, and definitely wasn’t a runway, but it was better than the beautiful, but deadly, trees around them everywhere.

  Plus, it was the only option. Dylan began to maneuver the plane in that direction.

  “C’mon, baby,” he muttered as the plane shuddered slightly, resisting his ease toward the opening in the trees.

  “Shelby, we’re going to be coming down hard and fast. Make sure your harness is on as tightly as possible.” Dylan did the same to his own.

  The clearing wasn’t as large as Dylan had hoped, but they were too low to do anything else now. He slowed the plane as much as possible and prayed they’d live through the next thirty seconds.

  The Cessna hit roughly on the top edges of some trees then bounced hard against the ground, flying back up, then coming down roughly again. The impact was bone-jarring, but at least they weren’t a ball of flames. Dylan slowed the plane as much as he could and then turned the yoke sharply so the plane began to slide to the side. Working against their own speed snapped them around hard, collapsing one side of the plane as the landing gear gave out, but it slowed them down.

  He watched the trees speed toward them and braced himself, hoping he had slowed them down enough not to die in the impact.

  He reached out his hand for Shelby, who took it right before they hit the tree line.

  Then there was only blackness.

  Chapter Nine

  Shelby’s eyes opened and it took her a minute to get her bearings. She was hanging in the seat sideways, the harness holding her in. The whole cockpit seemed to be tilted at some sort of canted angle.

  But she could move all her fingers and toes without much pain and didn’t seem to be bleeding. As far as she was concerned, that was the best possible outcome considering what had just happened.

  Of course, the whole plane was filled with smoke, so they weren’t out of danger yet. She wasn’t sure if anything might ignite, but she didn’t want to stay around and find out. And she hadn’t heard anything at all from Dylan.

  “Dylan? Hey, Dylan, are you okay?”

  No response. Now Shelby was even more panicked.

  “Dylan! Can you hear me?” She struggled to loosen herself from the seat-belt harness, difficult to do when it was supporting a lot of her weight. She finally managed to get the release clasp to function, and fell out of her seat onto the control panel.

  She eased her way down to Dylan’s seat, where he lay motionless against his belt. Shelby sucked in a panicked breath. Was he dead?

  Shelby was reaching to take Dylan’s pulse, when he groaned and moved slightly. Oh, thank God. Not dead.

  “Dylan? Can you hear me? We’re alive. But I think we need to get out of here because there’s smoke everywhere.”

  Shelby braced her legs against the cockpit’s small side window, which was now on the ground since the plane was mostly on its side, and used both her hands to ease Dylan’s head back from where it hung from the harness. She brushed her fingers through his black hair. “Dylan. Can you wake up? We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Maybe she was going to need to get Dylan out on her own. Maybe his injuries were more severe than hers. Shelby began to attempt to unfasten his harness, a feat much more difficult since she couldn’t brace his weight with anything. Plus, the fastener seemed to be stuck.

  And the smoke was really becoming an issue now. Something was definitely on fire. Not surprising considering they’d just crashed.

  Shelby stopped and looked around. Think. She needed to get Dylan out of that seat and out of the cockpit, which could turn into a ball of flames at any moment. She needed some sort of knife to cut through his seat belt since she couldn’t get it unbuckled.

  Hadn’t Dylan had some sort of fancy pocketknife earlier? That would be perfect. Which pocket had he kept it in?

  Shelby tried to get her hand into one of Dylan’s front jean pockets, difficult with how his body was angled in the seat. Shelby tried to force his weight up so she could reach farther into the pocket.

  “I think molesting someone while they’re unconscious is a crime.”

  Dylan’s deep voice in Shelby’s ear caused her to stumble a step backward into the control panel. She felt herself blush. “I, um, was trying to get your pocketknife. I couldn’t get your belt to unfasten.”

  Dylan smiled and pulled at the belt, grunting. “Yeah, I think the clasp is broken. My knife isn’t in my pocket, it’s in my backpack in the storage compartment behind my seat.”

  From her stance underneath him, Shelby felt something drip onto her shoulder. She touched the drop with her fingers and saw the red.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  Dylan’s voice was tight. “Yeah, I think it’s my arm. I can feel the burn.”

  Shelby realized she hadn’t even checked to see if Dylan had any injuries. But that would have to wait. She needed to get him out of the harness belt and out of this cockpit.

  “Okay, just hang in there. I’m going to get the knife.”

  The smoke was getting heavier and Shelby was beginning to cough. She maneuvered around until she was behind Dylan’s seat, careful not to step on him.

  “The storage container is to the left,” Dylan told her, coughing between words.

  From her vantage point, Shelby could see that the cabin on the plane, although intact, was definitely burning toward the rear. They had to get out of here fast or the fire would block the door.

  Shelby found the container and opened it, quickly pulling out the backpack Dylan had stored there, as well as the first-aid kit. “Where’s the knife in your backpack?”

  “Side pocket.” Dylan’s voice was noticeably weaker.

  Damn it. “Hang on, Dylan. I’ve got it.”

  Shelby threw the first-aid kit in the backpack and worked her way back down to Dylan’s seat. She got underneath his large chest and pushed up with her arm and shoulder, trying to take some of Dylan’s weight. Once she cut the straps, he was going to fall.

  “Ready?” She didn’t wait for his response, just opened the knife and sliced through one of the canvas straps at his shoulder, then the other.

  There was no way Shelby could hold Dylan once he was released from the belts. He was six foot one of sheer muscle, and probably at least seventy pounds heavier than her. But she did her best to keep him from crashing into the plane instruments below. Although all he really did was just crash into her instead.

  She helped Dylan to his feet, a little unsteady herself.

  “Okay, let’s get out of here,” Dylan wheezed, beginning the climb over the pilot seats. He grabbed some sort of map as he was on his way up.

  “We have to hurry, there’s definitely a fire in the back.” Shelby noticed Dylan’s arm was bleeding even more now and he didn’t look very steady. But he managed to pull himself up and through the flimsy cockpit door that had broken away and into the main cabin, reaching back to help Shelby.

  “I’m fine,” she told him. “You get the outer door open. I’ll get myself out of here.”

  The outer door was completely blocked because of how the plane lay on its side, but Dylan was able to get the emergency window open. Dylan climbed through, then reached back for Shelby. Both made their way outside, Shelby still carrying the backpack. Smoke poured out of the open window behind them.

  They gulped fresh air and stumbled from the wreckage toward the trees.
Shelby kept expecting an explosion behind them, but it never came. Finally they sat down against some trees, both of them breathing heavily between coughs. Shelby looked back at the plane. It may not have exploded, but the smoke and fire were now pouring out of it.

  It was a miracle she and Dylan were alive at all.

  They sat in silence for long moments, both of them trying to catch their breath and process the fact that they had just survived that burning death trap a few hundred yards away.

  “So...the landing was a bit bumpy. Sorry about that,” Dylan said.

  Shelby closed her eyes and began to laugh. “Yeah, maybe if you’d just had a few more flight hours under your belt, it wouldn’t have been so rough. Be sure to work on that.”

  But Shelby knew the truth. If it had been a less capable pilot than Dylan flying the plane, they’d be dead right now. Shelby had no doubt about it.

  “What happened up there, Dylan?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. One engine flaming out? That can happen. It’s highly unlikely, but it can happen. But both engines flaming out? No.”

  Shelby wasn’t sure what that meant. “But both did, right?”

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t a coincidence. It happened because it was helped along.”

  “You mean someone sabotaged the plane?”

  Dylan nodded. “I thoroughly checked her out before we took off. I take preflight seriously. And there was nothing out of the ordinary to be seen.”

  “What would have caused the engines to cut off like that?”

  “If I had to guess, probably some sort of fuel or oil contamination. It ate away at the integrity of the fuel, and then basically starved the engines. It would be a pretty easy way to deliberately sabotage a plane going on a route like ours through mountains and forest terrain, with no easy place to land. And a crash would burn away all the fuel, making the tampering virtually untraceable.”

  Shelby leaned her head back against the tree behind her. What could she say to that? Had someone really tried to kill her three times in the past twenty-four hours?

  “It just seems so far-fetched.”

  Dylan began to stand. “I know. Whatever those numbers are that are stuck in your head? Evidently they’re more important than you or Megan or anybody at Omega thought. We need to get you there as soon as possible.” Dylan had to grab the tree for support. Shelby scrambled to her feet to help him.

  “Before we go anywhere, we need to bandage that arm. Are you hurt anywhere else?” she asked him.

  “I don’t think so,” Dylan muttered. “It’s hard to tell. Everything hurts.” He looked up at her. “Are you okay? I didn’t even ask.”

  “Well, it’s like you said—everything hurts. But nothing hurts too much to move it. So that’s good.”

  Shelby took the first-aid kit out of the backpack. She sat down next to Dylan and rolled his sleeve up. The cut on his arm was still bleeding, but not too bad. It didn’t look like it would need stitches. Shelby ripped open a small package of antibiotic ointment and squeezed it over the wound to help keep any infection out. Dylan winced, but didn’t complain. Shelby covered the wound, then wrapped his arm in gauze.

  “Thank you,” he said softly when she was finished.

  “Thank you for getting us on the ground in one piece when almost any other pilot would’ve scattered us in little-bitty bits around the forest.”

  “Well, that’s pretty gruesome imagery. But you’re welcome.”

  * * *

  DYLAN STOOD UP and watched his Cessna burning. He was glad he was able to get himself and Shelby on the ground relatively unharmed, and not in little-bitty bits as Shelby had pointed out so delicately.

  There was an old pilot’s joke that any landing you could walk away from was a landing not a crash. But watching his plane burn, Dylan knew that wasn’t true. He felt a pang of sadness. Even though insurance would cover the cost of a similar new plane, it wouldn’t be the same. He’d traveled a lot of miles in that little Cessna. His time in that plane had gotten him through some of the worst days of his life.

  Shelby didn’t say anything to him and he was grateful. There weren’t any words that could be said. It was a pile of metal, for heaven’s sake.

  But it was also so much more than that.

  Dylan appreciated it even more when Shelby slipped her hands into his. Whatever she was thinking, it was supportive and it didn’t need words.

  Dylan stood there a few more minutes. Nothing could be saved from the plane. It wasn’t even safe to go back in to try the radio or to get their cell phones. Air Traffic Control knew their basic whereabouts, but there was no way to get any rescue vehicles up here.

  According to the GPS Dylan had grabbed, they were only fifteen miles south of a small town. The town hadn’t had a runway, but they would have a telephone.

  Dylan couldn’t ignore the fact that only Omega knew Dylan was the one transporting Shelby to Washington, DC. It was possible that the person who had run Shelby off the road both times last night had followed her from her house, but this deliberate tampering with Dylan’s aircraft could really only mean one thing.

  There was somebody within Omega working against them.

  Dylan didn’t even like to think it, but it was the only thing that made sense. Whoever had sabotaged his plane had done it last night during the storm. Dylan had flown the Cessna yesterday and there hadn’t been anything wrong with it.

  And over the past year, all his siblings had grumbled about the possibility of a mole in Omega. Problems here and there within operations, but never anything that could be proven. But standing here watching his plane burn, knowing neither he nor Shelby should’ve been alive after that crash, Dylan had all the proof he needed of a mole.

  And while Dylan wouldn’t directly accuse anyone without more proof, he had to admit that a lot of this was pointing right at Dennis Burgamy, his old boss. Burgamy had sent Shelby to him, had known they’d be using Dylan’s plane.

  That was pretty damning evidence.

  “We’re not going to have to walk all the way to Christiansburg, are we? That’s sixty miles away, right? I heard you tell Air Traffic Control.” Shelby looked up at him, brows furrowed.

  Dylan put his hand against her cheek and smoothed his thumb over her brows to ease the worry lines before he even realized what he had done. He rubbed his thumb over her lip and stepped closer to her, but then stopped himself. He lowered his hand and stepped back. Touching Shelby was not a good idea.

  Dylan cleared his throat. “Um, no. There’s another town closer. About fifteen miles. With this terrain, it should take us five or six hours to walk. We should get started.”

  Dylan turned away from her, trying to remember all the reasons why he needed to keep his distance. Damned if he could think of a single one of them.

  Chapter Ten

  Dylan had insisted on carrying the backpack, although Shelby had offered because of his wounded arm. After touching her so gently, then completely backing away, Dylan had busied himself taking everything out of the backpack. She noticed he was quite careful not to touch her again.

  The backpack was obviously his overnight bag. It contained mostly a change of clothes and some toiletry items. But he also had a can of soda, a few packs of trail mix, some bottles of water and even a couple of trash bags. Plus the lunch he had packed for himself.

  “Lunch?”

  “I packed it last night while you were sleeping. The airstrip we would’ve used for Omega only has vending machines. I thought I might be turning around to go home right away.”

  “Weren’t you going to see your siblings while you were in town? Have lunch with them?”

  Dylan shrugged, but didn’t look her in the eye. “Maybe. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to be in the way of whatever you were doing.”

  In other wor
ds, he would’ve visited with his family if it meant he wouldn’t have to spend extra time with Shelby. But just in case being in Shelby’s presence was unavoidable, he had packed a lunch so he could make a quick getaway in his plane.

  “Nice,” Shelby muttered. She wasn’t sure why she was so hurt. Dylan Branson had made it abundantly clear multiple times he wanted to spend as little time with her as possible.

  “Look, it’s nothing personal,” he told her, taking the useless items like shaving cream and toothpaste out of the backpack.

  “It feels pretty personal.”

  Dylan looked up from where he was crouched, his hazel eyes pinning her. “Yeah, I suppose it would.” He rubbed his fingers over his eyes. “There are elements to this story that you’re not aware of. And I’m sorry I keep hurting your feelings, but it’s just better for both of us if I stay away from you.”

  Shelby had no idea what she was supposed to say to that.

  Not that she was going to get a chance to anyway. Dylan left the pile of items he deemed useless for their hike, repacked the helpful things—the clothes, food, drinks, trash bags—into the backpack and stood up. “We need to get going.”

  He turned and began walking. Shelby was left with the choice of following or being left behind. They walked in silence for a while. The terrain wasn’t easy; there weren’t any roads or paths this far away from civilization.

  As trees and bushes got thicker, Shelby found herself walking closer to Dylan. He had wrapped his extra shirt around his good arm so he could move limbs and bushes out of their way without getting scratched. After the first time of Dylan having to wait holding a branch for Shelby to catch up, she stayed right behind him.

  As they marched on, the weather became less cooperative. The temperatures were already cold and the clouds were beginning to threaten storms again. Shelby found she could keep the core of her body warm by the constant moving, but her fingers were freezing. Her feet were wet from the soggy ground and she had lost feeling in her toes an hour ago.

  When it started to drizzle, Shelby just ducked her head down and pushed her chilled hands into her pockets, although it didn’t help much. The cold rain occasionally dripped down her neck, but Shelby plowed on. She reminded herself that just a couple short hours ago she had been sure they were about to die. Being a little wet and uncomfortable was bearable.