Wonder Woman: Warbringer (DC Icons #1)(75)

She unleashed a howl of rage and broke his hold, shoving at him with all her strength. He shot upward and struck the roof of the jet, then crumpled in a heap.

Diana pulled herself to her feet, clutching her side, and her blood turned to ice. The other soldier had Alia in his arms. He leapt from the plane as the wind caught Alia’s cry.

“Oh no you don’t,” snarled Diana.

She grabbed the lasso from her hip, wedged herself against the ragged metal side of the door, and cast the rope after the soldier with all the force she could muster. It shot downward in a gleaming arc, a lash of golden fire against the blue sky.

The loop closed over Alia and the soldier, snapping tight as Diana yanked back hard. The soldier’s head connected with the lip of the door as he was pulled back into the plane. He and Alia toppled inside, but his body was limp. Nim and Theo fell on them, drawing Alia close as she clawed at the lasso, trying to get away from the soldier.

Diana gave a shake of the knot, and it slithered loose. She leaned against the wall of the jet, panting. She could feel her body healing—a cool, crawling sensation that rippled over her flesh. The wound at her side had closed, but she was still reeling from the pain, from the wet feel of her own blood on her fingers. At least the bullets had gone clean through.

At that moment, the wail of the alarm picked up speed.

“Incoming,” Ben’s surprisingly calm voice noted over the speaker. The plane banked hard left. They tumbled against the seats.

A sound like a thunder crack split the air, and the jet quaked with a cacophonous boom. A strange quiet descended as the alarm and the engines went silent. For a moment, they were in free fall. Then one of the jet’s engines roared to life, and Ben pulled them out of the dive.

“Kids, it is time to exit the aircraft in an orderly fashion,” he said over the radio. “I will not be setting this bird down.”

Diana dragged herself to her knees, pulling Alia up with her. “Go.”

“You don’t have a parachute—” Alia began.

Ben appeared in the cockpit doorway, a pack strapped to his shoulders. “We can go together,” said Ben. “I’ll take her.”

Another clang sounded above them. Footsteps racing toward the door. Who were these men? How were they doing this? All Diana knew was they were determined to see Alia dead.

“We only have one chance,” said Diana. “I’ll block them; you all get out. No arguments. Ben, get behind me with the others.”

Ben cocked a pistol. “With all due respect, ma’am, a SEAL doesn’t hide behind a lady’s skirts.”

A flood of soldiers dressed in black poured through the door.

“Now!” Diana shouted. She and Ben rushed the soldiers. She heard gunfire, felt the sear of a bullet grazing her thigh, and then she was grappling with one man, two.

These soldiers were strong, better equipped and better trained than those she had faced at the museum. Maybe Alia’s foes had realized what they were up against.

The pain in Diana’s side was slowing her movements, but all that mattered was getting Alia and the others clear. She allowed herself a swift glance at the door and saw Nim leap with a shriek and vanish from view. Theo must already be gone. Alia met Diana’s eyes, touched her fist to her heart. Sister in battle. Then she squeezed her eyes shut and jumped.

Diana grunted and seized a wide wrist, felt bones splinter, kicked hard. The soldier screamed and collapsed, but another soldier was already at her back, grabbing her arms.

In horror, Diana saw Ben slumped against the banquette, eyes blank and staring, his chest riddled with holes. Apparently, courage couldn’t stop bullets, even for a SEAL.

Two soldiers had hold of her now, yanking her wrists behind her. One of them drove a fist into the still tender wound at her side, and she screamed as pain exploded through her, stealing her breath.

“Heard about you,” said one of the soldiers from behind his black helmet, advancing on her with a notched knife in his hands. “Heard you can take a bullet. Let’s see how you do when I carve the heart out of your chest.”

From the corner of her eye, Diana glimpsed movement, but her mind refused to believe what she was seeing. Someone was clinging to the wing of the plane.

Jason was clinging to the wing of the plane.

Impossible. No mortal had that kind of strength. But as she watched, he pulled himself over the side and launched himself back into the jet.

He slammed into the helmeted soldier, knocking his knife free, and with one swift gesture snapped his neck.

It can’t be.

The soldiers reached for their guns and took aim at Jason. Diana seized them and threw them hard against the walls of the jet. They slumped to the floor.

For a moment, she and Jason stared at each other, the jet shaking as it plummeted toward the earth.

“You lied to me!” she shouted over the roar of the wind.

Jason bent and pulled the parachute from Ben’s back, looping it over his own shoulders. “No more than you lied to me.” He offered his hand. “Is it worth dying over?”

Diana took his hand. He yanked her close.

“Hold tight,” he said, and then the sky had them.





The terror of the fall came at Alia like a wave. The world rushing up to meet her, her brain trying to remember everything about skydiving at Jason’s birthday party and instead spitting out a list of the bones in the human body—every bone she was about to break.