Page 19 of Craving Chaos

The moment the front end catches on a particularly large tree and flips us end over end.

Screams—hers and mine.

Splintering plexiglass.

The wailing of bending metal and the monstrous crack of full-grown trees snapping in two.

We’re slammed in one direction, then another. A kaleidoscope of pain ricochets through my body while the swirling motion bottoms out my stomach, but I’m too terrified to vomit. Besides, there isn’t time. With one final lurching flip, we’re slammed back against our seats with enough force that everything goes black.

CHAPTER 10

SHAE

Callum Kelly broke two of my ribs when I was nineteen. I thought my brother was going to kill him after it happened even though it wasn’t exactly his fault. We’d been sparring, and I specifically told him not to go easy.

Even at that age, I was an excellent fighter.

I didn’t start juijitsu training until the following year, but I could box as well as any of my cousins. I made sure of that. In the process, I endured any number of injuries, but I’d never broken a rib until that day. The pain was excruciating. I couldn’t do anything without searing pain lancing me from the inside out. Simply breathing hurt. The misery was relentless and took forever to heal.

I wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone, yet I’m suddenly glad for those broken ribs. While I feel like my chest has caved in, I know it’s probably only bruised because the pain is nothing like I felt when my ribs were actually broken. It may seem like a silly thing to be grateful for, but it’s one less thing to worry about, and right now, my worry list is growing by the second.

I take in a slow, shaky breath and open my eyes.

I’m on my back, not quite upside down but at an angle. It’s still light out, though dim inside the mangled plane. I look over for Renzo and realize a thick branch has impaled the plane between us.

A flash flood of fear threatens to drown me.

“Renzo? Oh God, Renzo, please be alive.” My trembling fingers jab at the harness release, trying to free myself to see to the other side of the cockpit, though I’m terrified of what I might find. When I get both buckles unclasped, I spin around on my back and hold the steering yoke to peer over the branch. Renzo is unconscious but breathing, and best of all, he isn’t impaled by anything.

A shuddering exhale wracks my body.

I’ve seen men beaten to a bloody pulp. I even saw my father’s blood-soaked body not long after he’d been killed. I’m no stranger to death, but I can feel in my aching bones that seeing Renzo’s eyes wide and lifeless would have wrecked me. It would be a test of strength I would have failed.

“Hey, big guy. Wake up.” I lean over and pat his scruffy cheek. “Come on, Ren. I’m gonna need you to wake up now.”

I pat him again, this time with more oomph. His brows draw together, creasing his forehead.

“That’s it, big guy. Wake up. We need to get out of here.”

When his eyes open, I’m struck at how blue they are. We have loads of blue-eyed people in my family, including myself, but I’d swear that somehow Renzo’s eyes are more pure blue than any I’ve ever seen.

His hand lifts to his head, causing him to wince. “Jesus, we’re alive.”

“For the moment. The sun’s going down, though, and it’s not going to get any warmer. We need to figure out a plan.”

He nods, still a bit dazed, then unbuckles his harness. When he shifts upright, the entire plane creaks and groans. We both go inhumanly still.

“The fuck was that?” he breathes.

“I’m not sure.” I look out the windshield at the thick wall of pine branches. Pinpricks of light are all that can be seen. Leaning to the side, I try to peer out the side window. The crack of a breaking branch pierces the quiet a second before one side of the plane lurches downward several inches. The movement gives me the view I need to see that our situation is worse than I imagined, though how that’s possible is beyond me.

“Fuck.” I hiss. “Okay, so we’re not on the ground quite yet.”

“What do you mean not on the ground?”

“You remember Jurassic Park—the original one with the car in the tree?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

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