Page 29 of The Woman Left Behind

She didn’t have to let this throw her. She’d carry on as usual, do her job, finish her training—dear God, jumping out of a plane!—and take her place on the team. She hadn’t busted her butt all these months to blow it by boohooing over hurt feelings. So screw him. No matter how hateful he got, she wouldn’t quit.

She slept well that night, despite him. Still, when her phone dinged with a text at five o’clock the next morning, she wished she could have gotten another couple of hours in bed.

Groaning, her heart pounding because what if something had happened to some of her family, she switched on the lamp and fumbled for the phone. “Ah, hell!” The text was from Levi,ACEshowing big and bold in the screen. She rubbed her eyes, focused on the text, and suddenly who it was from didn’t matter at all, because the text itself made time stop.

Weather cleared. Meet at training site 0800.

No! Oh God, no! Not today.Not on a Sunday. Sundays were off days, except for running. She’d expected to have more warning, so she could hunt down a sedative, or, failing that, somehow land herself in the hospital. God, if you’re listening, joking not joking.

She got up and hit the shower, because if she died, she wanted to be clean, not that it would matter, because if she went splat, there wouldn’t be enough of her left to tell if she’d been dirty or not. Still, the impulse was strong. Running water was supposed to be soothing. It failed on that count. After her shower she braided her hair, because long hair flying all over the place couldn’t be good while arrowing toward Earth at a gazillion miles per hour.

She choked down half a slice of toast, smeared with peanut butter, though maybe an empty stomach would be a better idea. What if she threw up in midair? Would the vomit descend at the same rate, so she’d go the whole way down surrounded by her own puke? Bummer. On the other hand, if she didn’t eat, her blood sugar might bottom out and that wouldn’t be good, either. She drank just half a cup of coffee because she didn’t want to pee on herself in midair, either.

Another dilemma presented itself. How was she supposed to dress for plunging to her death? A quick check of the weather confirmed that the sky was clear and the temperature was chilly, though it would warm up all the way to mildly pleasant by the middle of the afternoon. This wasn’t a question she was going to text to any of the guys, because they’d never let her live it down. That was based on the assumption that she’d survive the day, so that thought was vaguely reassuring. In the end she put on some long silk underwear she’d bought her first winter in D.C., then dressed mostly as usual for a training day, in cargo pants, a sweatshirt, but sneakers instead of boots because her boots were speed-laced and jump boots weren’t. She tried not to think of things the hooks on her boots could get hung on, during a jump. Finally she grabbed her North Face pull-on snow cap and thought she’d done the best she could.

Trying to focus on the pros and cons of being clean and well dressed while she was terrified out of her mind and might be dying soon didn’t work very well as a means of distraction.

She arrived half an hour early and sat in the car with her head resting on the steering wheel, praying under her breath and wondering if she should call her mom, in case she never had another chance. No, because if she talked to her mom now, she might lose it and blurt out everything, about the GO-Team and the drone, which was way classified, and being forced to parachute, and that would be bad.

A tap on her driver’s-side window made her shriek and jump and bump her knee hard on the steering column, which made her cuss.

Levi stood there, laughing. She hated him, hated the way his laugh lit up his face, white teeth flashing, dark eyes crinkled at the corners. How dare he laugh, after everything? She opened her car door and shoved it hard, banging it against his knee.

“Ow!” He moved out of range, leaning down to rub his knee and glare at her. “Watch what you’re doing.”

She returned the glare as she got out and slammed the door. “I did, and I enjoyed it very much, thank you. It was funny. You know, like when I banged my knee and you laughed.”

For some reason he seemed to be in a good mood. The right side of his mouth quirked up in a half smile, and he said, “Fair enough.” Maybe he was in a good mood because he thought today would be her swan song, and even if she survived, she might say she was done.

As if she would give him the satisfaction. She might die, but she wouldn’t quit.

Boom arrived in his big king-cab pickup and interrupted whatever might have followed, whether it would have been an argument or stony silence. Could have gone either way.

Levi said, “We’re riding with Boom,” and strode toward the truck. Jina trudged along behind him, not willing to trot to keep up with those long strides. She walked differently these days, using longer, more efficient strides herself, but no way could she keep up with someone who was six-four. He should have stopped growing at a reasonable height. Damn him.

She didn’t even like the way he breathed.

He got in front with Boom, and she boosted herself into the backseat. Boom’s truck wasn’t as high as Levi’s, maybe because he had a wife and two kids who also rode in the truck, but these days she wouldn’t have had any problem, anyway.Legs of steel,she thought triumphantly, and although that was an exaggeration, she was in the best shape of her life. Maybe the legs of steel had enough coil and strength to them to keep her from breaking her neck when she landed. Or maybe she could use them to kick Levi out of the plane.

“I like your truck,” she chirped to Boom, knowing her tone would irritate the shit out of Levi, and maybe Boom, too, but Levi was her target and Boom would have to be collateral damage. “It doesn’t look like a pouty Darth Vader owns it.”

Pouty.Boom coughed to disguise what was likely a laugh, and Levi slowly swiveled his head to give her a basilisk stare. She gave him a sweet, very insincere smile. This was fun. For a few seconds she could forget that her knees were knocking together.

The landing strip Boom drove to was in rural Virginia, surrounded by farmland. The strip wasn’t busy, not this early, though a few planes were tied down beside a large, rusty Quonset hut with a rough but serviceable wooden addition jutting out to the left. Two other vehicles were there, but no one was in sight. A Twin Otter sat on the strip, and a fit-looking guy in jeans and a leather jacket was slowly going around the plane, examining every exterior detail.

Just a few months ago she’d have thought a Twin Otter was a pair of cute critters, but now she not only recognized it, she knew it was considered one of the best planes for jumping. Yay for her. If only her test was on paper instead of practical experience, she’d ace the damn thing.

“I rigged the chutes myself,” Boom said to Levi. “Most I’ve ever done at one time.”

“We’ll probably need them all,” Levi replied.

Meaning they were going to keep at it until she either made a jump or died? Probably. Surely they wouldn’t have time for more than two or three jumps... would they? She was the only trainee, though, and they were the only jumpers on the plane. They’d be limited by the time it would take the plane to take off, climb to altitude, then land again, plus however much time it took to pick them up from the landing zone. Her heartbeat kicked into another gear, hard and fast. They were really going to do this.

“Where’s the landing zone?” she asked, hoping it was miles away because that would slow everything down.

“Next field over,” Levi said, jerking a thumb to the right. “I would’ve made it here, but there’ll be other planes landing and taking off. I’ve arranged for us to be picked up.”

Of course he had. Why couldn’t they just wait in the field until the plane landed and he could pick them up? That would have killed some time. But no, Levi had to be efficient, so they could get in more torture sessions.

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