Midnight Sun (16 page)

The blip grew closer and Marcus strained to look out the window, trying to find the crash site visually. Would it be in one piece or several? The blowing snow on the surface made everything hard to see. For all he knew, it could have covered up the plane already.

No, there it was, broken in two, missing a wing. His pulse skipped—hope or fear, he couldn’t name. Carl pointed to what looked like an engine several hundred feet away. The plane had crashed before it reached the mountain. At least Harris had a chance of surviving.

He checked on Brylie again. “You have the space blankets ready?”

She patted the pocket of the survival bag she’d packed.

Just then, the helicopter dipped again, and this time Carl cursed, muttering about goddamned wind shears. Above them, the sound of the rotor changed from a chug to a whine, and instead of ascending after they did after the last bump, they continued on a downward incline. For a moment, Marcus hoped Carl was taking them in close to look at penguins or something, but the flow of obscenities from the man’s mouth made that doubtful. The older man’s arms flexed with the effort to pull the helicopter up, to no avail. Above them, the rotors slowed. Dread clumped in Marcus’s throat.

“What the hell?”

Carl shook his head. “Not now.”

“Can I help?”

Just then the rotors stopped, and everything was deathly quiet. Then the helicopter tipped its nose down and plummeted to the earth.

Chapter Nine

Marcus’s back hurt like hell, and he was goddamned cold. He opened his eyes and saw nothing but white in front of him. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. Right. Snow. It had poured in through the broken windshield and coated the console, where it was splashed with red.

He whipped his head—bad idea—to see Carl slumped away from him, a gash slicing from his temple to mid-cheek, deep. Marcus watched for the rise and fall of the other man’s chest, but didn’t see it.

Brylie
.

He pivoted toward the backseat, nearly strangling himself with the seatbelt. She was out, her head lolled to one side, but no blood, and he could see she was breathing.

Thank God
.

He fumbled to release his seatbelt and lunged toward her. “Brylie.” He worked her seatbelt free and she went limp against him. “Oh, hell, no.” He reached beneath her jaw to feel her pulse. There, and strong, and now she stirred in his arms. Those reddish-blonde eyelashes fluttered and she looked up at him.

“Marcus?”

“The helicopter went down. Are you hurt?”

She frowned and shifted on the seat as if testing herself out. “Everywhere. But no place in particular. You?”

He wasn’t thinking about that now. “Help me with Carl.”

“How long have we been down?” she asked as he climbed between the seats to check out Carl.

Shit, his right ankle was messed up. Sprained or broken, he couldn’t tell yet, and wouldn’t try to figure it out until they helped Carl.

“No idea.”

Though come to think of it, he wasn’t too cold, considering the windshield was broken, so it couldn’t have been long. He unbuckled the seatbelt as Brylie opened the first aid kit he wasn’t sure they’d need. He checked the older man’s pulse as he’d done Brylie’s. Nothing. Shit. He trailed his hands down Carl’s arm. Nothing. His chest—no. But his body was still warm.

“Help me get him into the back seat.” If he could stretch him out, he and Brylie could perform CPR. Marcus had learned when he’d become a snowboarder, though he hadn’t been recertified in awhile.

Together he and Brylie wrested the older man into something of a prone position, a trick with Marcus’s bad hand.

“Chest or mouth?” he asked.

Since she was wedged in a position near his head, she made a face, her gaze on the blood coating one side of his face. “Mouth.”

“Right.” He opened Carl’s coat for better contact. “You know how to do this?”

“You count.”

Keeping his good arm straight, he pumped Carl’s chest, then watched as Brylie formed a seal around his mouth and blew. She rose up as Marcus pumped again, keeping her hand braced against the back of the pilot’s seat before she bent to blow again. They made a good team, aware of each other, so he soon was able to stop counting.

And then Carl sucked in a deep breath. Brylie rolled back on her heels to rest against the side of the helicopter as the old man blinked, trying to get his bearings. Marcus zipped up Carl’s coat again. He’d worked up a sweat, but the old guy might be cold.

Carl rolled onto his elbow and tried to push himself up. Marcus stopped him with a hand to his chest.

“Take it easy. You have a pretty good gash there.” He pointed to his own head.

Carl lifted his hand to his head and pulled it away to look at the blood. “We crashed?”

“Looks like.”

“Where?”

“I don’t think we’re far from where the plane went down.” Marcus leaned back into the front seat and searched for the GPS tracker. He swore when a piece of metal sticking up through the floor sliced through his glove and into his finger. Suddenly exhausted, he leaned heavily against the side of his seat.

Brylie shifted onto her knees and touched his cheek. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m all right. Just need to find that doohickey.”

She grabbed his bleeding hand and drew off his glove. His finger was bleeding pretty good. “What happened here?”

“Floorboard’s torn up pretty bad. Maybe the tracker fell out.”

She scowled at the injury. “Hope you’re up to date on your tetanus. You may need stitches.”

“Won’t be the first time. I had a shot a couple years back. Can’t remember just what that injury was, though.”

“Put pressure on it,” she told him, reaching back for the first aid kit.

He let her disinfect it, but drew a line at stitches. “Just wrap it for now.” His leg muscles were quivering from being cramped between the seats, and while he was worried about their situation, he was also thinking of his brother, and how he would get to him now. How far from the plane had they crashed?

“Might be a good idea to get out of here,” Carl echoed his thoughts, using the back of the seat to pull himself up to a sitting position. “No telling how stable we are.”

“I’ll go see. See if I can find the tracker, too.”

Marcus needed to get out of here anyway, feeling too confined, needing to know what situation they were in. He tugged his torn glove back on and shoved at the door, but it was jammed. Of course. He climbed across to the pilot’s seat and found that door even worse. Great. He dropped into his seat and, lifting his legs above the console, he kicked out what remained of the windshield. Safety glass showered down on him.

“Okay back there?” he asked over his shoulder, and saw that Brylie had covered Carl’s face with one of the space blankets. Good thinking.

“Don’t go far,” she said, her voice tight.

He met her gaze. “Don’t worry. I’m just going to walk around the helicopter, and maybe see if I can see the plane from where we are. I’ll be back in a minute.”

When he climbed out, he understood her concern. Snow was blowing everywhere. He could easily get turned around and lost in this, especially if the snow covered his tracks and drifted against the helicopter.

The blowing snow probably meant that the damned tracker was buried, too. Great.

The good news was, the helicopter was on solid ground, no chance of it tumbling off a cliff or into a crevasse. He marched up the shifting snow to stand as close to the battered rotor as he could, and looked out over the landscape. Yeah, hell of a lot easier to see from above. All he saw now was white, everywhere. He couldn’t even see the mountains. And since the sun was on the other side of the mountains, everything here was in shadow.

“Marcus!” Brylie’s voice called from under his feet.

He slid down the slope, keeping his feet under him—he didn’t want to get wet if he didn’t have to—and walked back to the broken window. Brylie was leaning on his seat, holding the tracker in her gloved hand. And they were right on top of the beeping.

Already Brylie was cold beneath her thermal underclothes, her knit shirt, flannel shirt, sweater and coat, her two pairs of socks and flannel-lined jeans. The wind was dry, and while it was behind them, it still managed to work its way through the layers.

The snow felt weird underfoot, shifty, more like sand than precipitation. The inside of her nose was dry from the lack of humidity in the air. But she wouldn’t say anything, since she had asked to come along.

She kept a concerned eye on Carl, who staggered, and Marcus, who limped, though he hadn’t said anything about injuring his leg. The idea was to get to the plane, since it looked like most of the fuselage was intact, and hole up there until the rescue plane came. That way they’d know what happened to Harris and the crew, could help them if they were able, and would have more room. She didn’t know if it would be warmer, but she would prefer it to being trapped in the tiny helicopter.

“We’ll have to make sure it’s secure before we go in,” Carl said. “Don’t want to be inside if it decides to slide down a slope.”

Marcus nodded, but Brylie noticed his shoulders were tight. Pain or fear? She powered forward to catch up with him. She wished she could see his eyes beneath the polarized lenses.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“Crash screwed up my right leg a bit.”

“Cut?”

He shook his head.

“Marcus.”

“I’ll be fine once I know how my brother is.”

She opened her mouth and he held up his hand.

“I’m going to do this.”

“And you’re not going to tell me if you can’t?”

“Brylie. I’ve boarded down mountains in worse shape.” He curled his hand around hers and matched his stride to hers as they made their way toward the remains of the plane.

The closer they got, the more hopeful she felt. The fuselage was in two parts and had lost a wing and an engine, but the front part of the plane didn’t seem to have a lot of damage. The open part of the fuselage was angled toward the mountain, so maybe the inside wasn’t as cold as it might have been. Marcus broke away from her and lunged forward, shouting Harris’s name. As he got closer, he slapped his hand on the outside of the plane. Only because she was watching, Brylie saw him hesitate when he reached the ragged opening. She tried to catch up, but couldn’t reach him before he disappeared into the plane. His shout sent chills through her body. She slipped, dropping to her knees hard enough to drive her breath from her body before she scrambled upright and into the plane after him.

She passed Carl and skidded around the shredded skin of the aircraft, and stepped inside. The plane listed about thirty degrees against the side of the mountain, so all the chairs were at an angle and detritus littered the ground beneath her, where the wall met the floor. She peered into the plane, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light. No sign of Marcus. As she moved deeper into the plane, she heard him, muttering and swearing. She followed the sound, her stomach tight with fear of what she’d see.

She passed one of the seats to see a man slumped against the wall between the fuselage and the cockpit, Marcus crouched over him, muttering. The man wasn’t dressed for the weather—wearing only a thin white shirt, now coated with blood, and slacks. His lips were blue.

“Marcus?”

“He’s alive. Hurt bad, but alive. Give me a—”

He held out his hand and she put a space blanket into it. He flashed her a grateful smile and tucked it around the man who must be his brother.

“The others?” she asked.

He cast a guilty glance toward the cockpit. “I haven’t checked. I’ll—”

“I’ll do it.” She didn’t want to see, but he clearly wanted—needed—to be with his brother. With a shaking hand, she reached for the latch to the cockpit door. It was jammed, so she had to pull, and she jumped back with a scream when a body tumbled out at her feet.

Marcus half-rose, half-turned toward her. “Christ. Is he dead?”

He couldn’t be otherwise, not with all that blood. She took in a deep breath—bad idea, because now her mouth was filled with a coppery taste—and bent to touch the man’s chest. No movement, and his body was cold and stiff. Through slitted eyes, she saw a gouge in the side of his throat, no doubt the source of the blood that covered his white shirt.

“Anyone else?” Marcus asked, his voice strangled.

Finding out meant stepping over the pilot’s body. She swallowed the bile rising in her throat and stretched her leg out, finding footing between the dead man’s legs and using the door frame to pull herself into the cockpit. A groan from the seat to her right made her jump. She stumbled when her foot came down on the dead man’s thigh. A strong hand behind her steadied her.

“He’s alive,” she told Carl and righted herself. “Let me see.”

“Why are these guys unbuckled?” Marcus demanded from the other side of the wall. “Didn’t they know the plane was going down?”

“Maybe they unbuckled after they landed,” Carl said. “There’s smeared blood on the straps there.”

She edged into the tiny cockpit and touched the co-pilot’s shoulder. “Hey, are you conscious? Where are you hurt?” Blood was everywhere but she couldn’t see the source. His right sleeve was soaked. He, too, was cold, not dressed for the weather. “Carl, I need a blanket.”

“Shoulder,” the man murmured. “Side. Thigh.”

“Can you get out of the seat? I’ll help you.”

He rolled brown eyes up at her. “If I could, I would have, don’t you think?”

She rocked on her heels and pushed her hood back, considering. The cockpit was very small, not much room to maneuver, even without the body. She was going to have to move the body—Marcus and Carl were too injured.

“Are there only the three of you?”

“Is Drew dead?”

“The pilot? Yes. I’m sorry.”

The man blew out a breath. “I figured. Yes, only the three of us, then.”

“What’s your name?” She reached around to unbuckle his seatbelt. “I’m Brylie.”

“I’m George. Where did you come from?”

“We’re from the ship. We heard about the crash—Marcus had to see about his brother.” She thought it probably wasn’t a good idea to tell him they’d crashed as well, not yet. “I’m going to move Drew, and then I’ll help you.” She wanted to ask what had happened, but that could wait until she’d stopped his bleeding. She moved gingerly around Drew’s prone body, back into the main body of the plane and straightened, her hands on her hips. Drew was a big guy. She considered, then bent and looped her hands under his arms.

“What are you doing?” Marcus’s voice was sharp behind her.

She tugged and grunted. “I need to move him out of the way. I can’t get to the co-pilot.”

He edged her aside and grasped the pilot’s arm to pull him into the body of the plane. “Here.”

Together, they maneuvered Drew through the door and down the hall. “How is Harris?”

Marcus’s mouth thinned. “It’s bad. We better hope that the rescue comes soon.”

“Rescue?” George leaned into the doorway to look at them. “I thought you were the rescue.”

“Yeah, well, that was the plan.” Marcus nudged Brylie behind a seat and took her place, pulling the big man down the aisle into the snow outside the fuselage.

“Marcus,” she protested, looking past him into the snow.

He straightened. “I’m sorry for it, but there’s no room.”

She moved toward the cockpit and ducked so George could loop his arm around her shoulders. When she straightened, she felt the strain through her already battered body. She guided him from his seat, through the narrow door, and carefully helped him stretch out on the floor, his feet to Harris’s. She retrieved the blanket that had dragged free and covered his legs while she unbuttoned his shirt to examine his wound.