Thrill Ride (Black Knights Inc. #4)(15)
She instinctively obeyed and was sure as hell glad she did when he grabbed hold of a rope she hadn’t seen dangling from an upper branch. Before she knew what he was doing, he stepped off the platform, and then…
Nothing.
Just the thick, wet jungle air between her and a forty-foot drop into oblivion.
Biting back a terrified squeal, she wrapped her legs around Rock’s waist and, even though she was still partially blinded by the flashbang, squeezed her eyes closed all the same.
This isn’t happening. This isn’t happen—
Oh, yes, this was definitely happening.
She was swinging through the jungle, Tarzan-style—uh, Jane-style?—while bullets whizzed by her head. Even with all her senses reeling, she was still painfully aware of the feeling of displaced air near her ear when a round barely missed her.
Holy cow, they were trying to kill her.
Those bastards! They’re actually trying to—
And then she didn’t have time for thought, because Rock dropped onto a small platform secured to a massive tree trunk opposite the tree house. He landed with enough force to jar the teeth from her head, so it was a good thing she had her jaw clenched. Working solely on instinct, she went to release her hold on him but was stopped when he immediately shuffled around on the barely foot-wide ledge to the back of the tree. There he stopped beside a ladder similar to the one she’d climbed to get to his tree house.
“Swing around to my back, chere,” he instructed, his tone amazingly calm considering there were groups of men, dressed all in black, repelling from out of the sky while simultaneously shooting at them. Of course, Rock and Vanessa’s current position behind the humongous tree trunk gave them a moment’s reprieve, but she knew it would only be a moment. Now that she’d recovered from the shock of the flashbang, she could hear the rhythmic muttering that’d initially alerted Rock to the approaching trouble. Glancing overhead, she caught a glimpse through the swaying canopy of not one but two fabled stealth Chinook helicopters shining bright spotlights into the forest below, lighting up Rock’s tree house like a Christmas ornament.
Oh, hell. She nearly swallowed her tongue.
Because there was a legend within the spec-ops community that went a little something like this: if an operator ever makes an error of egregious proportions, then regardless of who he is or where he is, a mysterious black Chinook arrives, and that’s the unqualified and unmistakable signal that the spec-ops community no longer requires that particular operator’s services.
When a black stealth Chinook shows up on your doorstep, you know one thing for sure—it’s time to bend over and kiss your ass good-bye because you’re completely and unequivocally f*cked six ways from Sunday.
Well, not if I have any say in the matter…
Dropping down to the narrow ledge, she hastily tiptoed around Rock until she was pressed against his back and could once more hook her arms around his neck. He barely gave her time to adjust her hold before he grabbed on to the side rails of the metal ladder. Only he didn’t use the rungs to scale down the sucker. Oh, no. That would’ve been far too natural a descent. Instead, he hooked his boots on the outside of each rail and once again…
Nothing but air.
For interminable seconds they were hurtling toward the earth at breakneck speed, the thick air rushing by them, the lush bromeliads growing on the trunk rushing by in a kaleidoscope of colors muted by the darkness. Then Vanessa felt every muscle in Rock’s body bunch and strain and felt a deep grunt build in his chest as he tightened his grip on the rails of the ladder. Miraculously, their momentum slowed. And to her amazement, instead of slamming into the ground at terminal velocity, they landed with a soft, controlled thud.
She marveled at his sheer strength even as she dropped to the ground behind him. A split second later, he had her hand secured firmly within his own, yelling, “Run!” as he jerked her into a sprint through the thick undergrowth.
***
Thirty yards north, and twenty yards west. Inside the hollow of a dead tree whose roots protrude from the ground like little brown fingers…
Oui, that’d be where his nearest cache of gear was stored and, dieu merci, thank God his dear ol’ daddy didn’t raise no fool.
Rock half-carried, half-dragged Vanessa along behind him as he ran, heart pounding steady as a metronome despite the danger, mentally keeping count of his steps while simultaneously cursing himself for putting her through this.
The poor woman was scared to death, realizing for the first time the severity of the shit-storm circling around him, and undoubtedly regretting, with every fiber of her being, her decision to come and find him.
And could he blame her?
Uh, that’d be a big, honking negative.
Because avoiding a ballistic lobotomy was enough to scare the bark out of any dog, even an old hound like him who’d been trained in the fine art of keeping his cool when the world around him was exploding. So, oui, if he was nervous—which he totally was; there were a lot of men dropping out of the sky—that meant she had to be absolutely terrified.
Because the truth of the matter was, she may be one hell of a communications specialist, but she didn’t know jack shit when it came to handling the melee of full-on battle. And that’s exactly what they had going here. Battle.
Case in point: the bullet that slammed into the trunk of the tree not ten inches from his face, ripping away bark and blasting it into a dozen razor-sharp slivers. Vanessa squealed at the same time one of those slivers sliced into his neck. He felt the hot trickle of blood but paid it no mind. He had to get to his gear and secure Vanessa in one of his hiding spots. Now. Five minutes ago…