Page 14 of Tormented By Regret

"Pull on the cord when I tell you to! The chute is going to open and then we’ll glide! When we’re about to reach the ground, you start running and pull on the straps.

'No," she whispered. “I don’t know how to do this!”

"I won't let you die." I told her, before I pulled the cord for her.

The chute jerked us first left, then right, and I continued to hold on as we shot into the wind. We reached the ground moments later. She’d been running but my weight was too heavy for her, and we began to roll down the mountain, hitting sharp rocks as we fell. It was a hard landing, and I could feel the intense hit of each hard rock jabbing at my sides. I’d lost Whisper along the way.

When my body finally jerked to a stop, it took me a minute to finally get my breath back. Slowly, I stumbled up, my body screaming for me to stop moving but I couldn’t do that. I had to find Whisper. I started walking back toward the open chute which billowed over the edge of a cliff. I could make out her limp form lying on the rocks and toughening it out, I held onto my sore side as I ran up the mountain we’d rolled down on.

I couldn't see Bandit anywhere and hoped for the best. He'd been through worse shit than this. This, on the other hand, had been the first time she'd ever been out of a plane. Macabre was seriously going to kill me if anything happened to her.

Don't die.

Her words echoed in my head as I ran faster, falling to my knees beside her. Brushing her Raven black hair out of her eyes I looked her over. She had a few scrapes and cuts from the fall but nothing major and hopefully nothing internal.

"Whisper?"

It was the first time I'd said her name since I met her. It felt odd, alien. As it rolled off my tongue.

"Whisper," I said her name louder, slapping her cheek lightly. She didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.

"Come on my pretty lunatic, wake up."

In the distance I heard what sounded like an explosion that came against the side of a mountain.

“Well fuck me!” Bandit's voice behind me startled me.

“Jesus!”

“Nah man, Jesus had nothing to do with it. That there was pure lady luck. Is she dead?” He gestured at Whisper.

“No. But you fucking will be. What the fuck were you thinking back there?”

He crouched down beside me pointing at the dark smoke billowing up out of the mountain.

“I was thinking I didn't want to lose my damn Plane. The only plane we fucking have.”

I stared at him for a long second and then grimaced when I saw the blood seeping down his arm. I pulled back on the vest he was wearing, and his injury looked fucking lethal.

“You're fucking bleeding out!”

He fell back on his haunches and took a big whoosh of breath. “No wonder I'm fucking woozy.:

“Ah shit!” I helped him lie back and reached back into my boot, taking out my blade. I ripped through his chute needing to make bandages to hold in this stupid motherfucker's guts.

Crouching down before him, I searched his pockets for a lighter. Finding it. I lit a small fire and placed the blade on it. I put pressure on his wound, waiting a few minutes for the blade to heat up.

“Don't you fucking die on me, motherfucker.”

Awww, didn't think you'd care for me, Treasurer.” I swatted at his hand as he patted me on the cheek. It fell limply to the side as I pressed the hot blade to his wound. He groaned in pain, but I did it again. I had to stop the bleeding somehow and cauterizing the wound was all I could think of at that moment.

After wrapping him in the makeshift bandages, I pulled my cell phone out from within my vest, and hoped to God that Hoax would answer his phone.

The call was answered on the second ring. “Why is my plane no longer seen on our radar?”

I froze. It wasn't Hoax on the line; it was Jameson. I could hear Hoax in the background.

“Sorry, brother. I had to tell him. I thought you were all dead!”

---