Breaking Sky(79)

Pippin was dead. The truth was too much, so she lost it. She let it go. It fled upward with the smoke, leaving her alone. And then she waited. She hoped Pippin wasn’t right, that the rescue helos wouldn’t be hours away.

But Pippin was always right. Even about his own failing body.

Chase checked the sky for the red drone. For Phoenix. All she found were a few large birds belatedly heading south for winter in a sluggish formation. It was too normal. Too picturesque for what had just happened. Her breath became erratic, cutting in her lungs with each seizing inhale.

The crystal canopy Chase kept over her for so long had fractured. Fallen away. Now she was laid bare to a cruel wind. To feeling everything. The gust chapped the dried blood on her hands as she drew Ritz’s heart circle in the rough sand.

She wrote Henry in its center.

And cried.

The helicopters came with a blast of furious sound. Two of them landed beside Dragon while a third hung in the air, making the surface of the lake turn white with chop. She saw the rescuers looking for her. Saw them sprinting down the beach. They were adults, not cadets. Real airmen, like everyone at the academy pretended to be.

Chase stood up, and one of the medics wrapped a reflective blanket around her. He led her to one of the helicopters, strapped her to a stretcher, her legs elevated. He swung a flashlight over her eyes and asked her questions. Many, many questions. She didn’t bother to listen, let alone answer.

Through the open door, Chase watched Dragon being doused with white foam from the helicopter hovering over the crash site.

“You’re going to be all right,” the medic said. She started to laugh, a sick sound even in her own ears. “She’s in shock,” he yelled to the pilot. “Let’s go!”

They took off just as an alarm pierced the helo. Chase thrashed, certain that the red drone had returned to finish her. “It’s back! It’s back!”

The medic held her down. “That’s the military beacon,” he said. “There are no bogies inbound.” He pinned her arms and was leaning too close as he shouted to the pilot. His voice hit her like a smack. “What’s happening?”

“Terror alert has been raised to ‘severe.’ President Grainor is addressing the nation. He’s declared a state of emergency.”

Chase’s mind grasped at questions without understanding them. How could the president know? How long had she been on that beach? What was happening?

“What’s coming from General Tourn?” the medic yelled to the pilot. “War?”

“Grainor says Congress is in session now,” the pilot yelled back. “They’ll declare soon.”

Chase squeezed her eyes, confused and suddenly shivering. She felt war—such a small word—try to eclipse the crash, but it couldn’t. It couldn’t touch Pippin. She wouldn’t let it.

“Where’s my RIO?” she asked.

“In the other helo,” the medic replied. He stuck a syringe in her arm without warning. Unconsciousness glided over her, and the rest of his words reached her unevenly.

“That’s what…we get for…letting kids fly.”





ECHO





36


    HARD DECK


   The Lowest You Can Go


The tree line was too close. Riot yelled over and over, but his warnings were obvious. And wrong. Everything he said felt wrong.

“Shut up!” she screamed over him. Her outburst fed into her muscles, her nerves; she was jerky. Flailing.

Crashing.

Again.

Her wing caught the top of an emerald-green pine and spun out, clearing the woods with fire blazing as orange as a construction zone. Chase didn’t have her visor on. Or her helmet. She wiped the sweat out of her eyes, shocked to find herself drenched, her hands shaking. “Get it together,” she muttered. The U.S. was on the cusp of war with the New Eastern Bloc, and where was she? Stuck in the goddamn centrifuge simulator.

She shielded her vision from the neon blaze and threw the door open.

Riot got in her face. “How many times are you going to drop too low? I warned you. I even gave you a countdown to the hard deck, which Sylph never needs by the way. HOW CAN I HELP YOU IF YOU WON’T LISTEN?”

Chase’s head hung low but not in defeat. Or sadness. It was fury.

Poor Riot.

She reached back and slammed his face so hard that he crumbled to his knees, howling. Adrien tried to step in, but Chase flung the woman’s kind arm away. “I can’t fly in that stupid machine.” Chase motioned to the Star City Centrifuge. “I have to get in a jet.”

I need Dragon…and Pippin.

The words didn’t come out, but they didn’t stay deep either. They spotted her surface, tears coming on fast. Hands useless. Legs weak. She sat hard and covered her face, feeling the raw skin beneath her eyes and the weariness that now wrapped around her like a nightmare. It was exhausting to feel this much. If she could have unplugged every single emotion, she would have.

She was trying to do just that.

Riot got back on his feet, his nose bleeding. “I don’t think you broke it.”

“What is happening here?” Dr. Ritz stormed in, immediately inspecting Riot’s face. “Did you do this?”

“He tripped into my fist,” Chase said.