Fly With Me (Wild Aces #1)(62)
Four words. With four words, she brought my entire world crumbling down.
I grabbed the TV remote off the nightstand, my cell phone sliding out of my other hand.
Noah.
His name thundered through my head like a prayer, terror flooding my body. I flicked through the channels, panic filling me until I hit the news station and the panic became something else entirely. Something I’d never felt before.
F-16 Crashes in Alaska.
Four words. Four words that before Noah wouldn’t have meant much to me, but were now everything.
I turned the volume up, heart pounding, scanning the headline, waiting for them to say something about the pilot. I should know, shouldn’t I? If something happened to him, I would know. Someone would have called me. This couldn’t be Noah. This couldn’t be happening.
F-16 Crashes in Alaska.
I heard my sister’s voice yelling at me through the speaker and I picked up the phone.
“Jord.”
“I have to go.” I struggled to get the words out, fought to push them past the panic clawing at my throat. “I need to call Noah.”
“Call me as soon as you hear anything. If you need anything, Jord—”
“I have to go.”
I hung up on my sister, my fingers shaking as I called Noah.
“Please answer. Please.”
I just needed to hear his voice, just needed to know he was okay. It couldn’t be Noah.
His voice mail picked up immediately and the first tears began to fall.
“Babe, if you get this, please call me.” Tears ran down my cheeks. “Please. I need to know you’re okay.” I choked on a sob. “I love you, Noah. Please call me.”
My body curled into a ball, numbness spreading through my limbs. I pulled up the Internet on my phone searching for news, something, anything.
F-16 Crashes in Alaska.
Each news article said the same variation of that one line. They told me nothing. Absolutely nothing. A feeling of helplessness hit me, followed by frustration and rage.
I wanted to scream. I couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t stop the tremors wracking my body.
It was surreal, sitting here, seeing my life—my entire f*cking world—on television like that. How many times had I seen a similar headline and not thought twice about it? How many times had I heard a story about a soldier who died serving his country? And each time I’m sure I’d thought it was sad. But I hadn’t ever thought about it like this. Hadn’t ever thought about the fact that at that very moment there was someone waiting to hear if their loved one would come home.
It had never seemed real before. And now those four words were a knife in my chest.
I needed someone to call me. Someone to tell me Noah was okay. I needed to hear his voice. I needed to know if the pilot had made it. They could eject. Noah had told me about that. What if the pilot had ejected?
Why didn’t they say something?
If it wasn’t Noah, if God, please, if Noah was okay, then it hit me that those four words still meant that someone else was sitting at home with the same terror and panic I felt. I thought of all the families I’d come to know, of guys like Easy, of the kids I saw at the barbecues and parties. And it hit me like another knife to my chest that even if Noah was okay, we’d lost someone tonight. Or almost lost someone.
Oh my God.
Dani.
If anyone would have news, it would be Dani. It was early, but maybe she was up. Or maybe someone had called her. Surely, she would have heard something. I needed to call Dani.
I dialed her number, taking deep breaths, struggling to keep my tears under control, to keep my voice from cracking. She answered on the first ring.
“Jordan?”
“Did you hear?” The words were a whisper that sounded like they came from someone else.
“Yeah.” Her voice was calmer than mine, but I could hear the fear there. “I haven’t heard anything beyond what’s on the news, though.”
“What do we do?”
Her voice was grim. “We wait. Notification can take a while. They have our contact information from the emergency forms the guys filled out. They’ll notify the family when they have information. Until then, none of the guys will be able to call out or contact anyone. It’s standard procedure to make sure the family is notified through official channels. The news won’t release a name until twenty-four hours after the family has been notified.”
“Will the news tell us—” My voice cracked. “Will the news tell us if the pilot’s okay?”
“The Air Force is usually faster when it comes to that.”
“So we wait.”
“Yeah.” Dani’s voice shook. “Do you want to come over? If you have your cell, that should be enough. You can leave a note on your door or something to let people”—we both knew what she meant—“know where you are. Just make sure you bring your cell in case Noah or someone needs to get ahold of you. I don’t want to be alone. I need to handle some squadron notification stuff to explain that there’s been an incident and we’re waiting for information.”
The last thing I wanted was to be by myself tonight. And I figured if I was going to be with anyone, at least it would be with someone who understood this feeling pummeling me.
“Okay.”
*