Page 58 of Of Flame and Fate

The helicopter lunges forward, sending the stretcher Johnny is strapped to crashing toward the front. He moans in total misery, his head shaking back and forth.

It’s not from the strike. Something is happening to him.

“Gem—” My voice cuts off when I see it, the tattoo, the one of the serpent circling the heart moving along Johnny’s chest and constricting.

Johnny screams, the pain he feels morphing into a physical force that pushes us back and pins us against our seats.

The copter dives, swerving into a tailspin. “It’s Destiny,” I shriek, ramming my eyes shut. “We’re too close to her. We have to head someplace else.”

“Koda, get us out of here!” Gemini yells to him.

Koda grunts from the cockpit, struggling to level the copter. He evens us out, but it’s only for a second. From one breath to the next, the copter thrusts back down. “We can’t leave,” he hollers. “We land now or off one of the peaks.

Thunder explodes from every direction and we begin to lose ground. Johnny is howling in agony, his body jerking back and forth.

The copter barrels down, then up, as Koda fights to stay in control.

Gemini rips free from his seatbelt. Bren does, too. Gem wraps his body around me and Emme, trying to protect us from the inevitable impact.

Bren shoves him off Emme, his hands gripping the seat on either side of her head. “Listen to me, Emme,” he tells her. “I need you to land this helicopter, you hear me? I need you to set it to the ground.”

Emme’s face is the color of chalk, and I don’t think I’m any better. “I can’t move what I can’t see.”

Despite the jerky movements of our ride, Bren smoothly eases closer, speaking low into her ear. “Then let me be your eyes.”

I glance at Gemini, who’s watching them as intently as I am. Like Gemini is shielding me, Bren is doing the same for Emme, using his body to spare hers.

Jesus.

I look to Gemini, trying to gather my courage and remain strong. He adjusts his position around me and presses a kiss on my forehead. “I love you,” he says. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

This is where I tell him that I love him, too, and assure him that no matter what, we’re going to make it. But the awful jolts and Johnny’s pained screams keep me from speaking and the best I can do is wrap my arms around his waist.

I turn my head and watch Bren, hoping he’ll do as he claims and help Emme safely land us.

He keeps his hands beside her head and straightens to look out of the window. “I see the ground,” he says.

Emme’s lids fall closed. “I need more than that, Bren. Give me feet, or yards, something I can picture.”

The sky once more illuminates with light. As it fades, Bren speaks. “High enough to sky dive,” he answers.

I don’t know what that means and practically slump in my seat when Emme nods.

Another stream of lightning follows a long explosion of thunder. It does something to the air, charging it with enough magic to irritate my skin.

The engine’s roars abruptly quiet and the bat of the propellers quickly slow.

“Taran—”

I hold out a hand, silencing Shayna, over Johnny’s wretched cries. “Emme has us,” I manage.

For a moment everything is still, like we’re floating, until another flare of lighting detonates and we tip downward, falling side to side like a feather in the wind.

“Tree tops,” Bren tells her.

“Okay,” Emme says.

“Tree tops,” Bren urges. “Steady, Emme, steady—”

---