Page 88 of Burnin' For You

“And now he’s trying to crash us. So much for him not trying to kill me,” Gilly said.

Reuben’s mouth tightened. “No. I think he’s trying to killme.”

She came around to start her run—undaunted as usual.

He spotted the drone again, this time aiming right for their cockpit. “Gilly!”

She turned, saw it, banked hard left, and dove.

The drone missed them by inches, but with the plane banking, the right wing made an excellent secondary target.

The drone’s impact shuddered the entire plane in an explosion of metal and chaos. The plane spun, inverted.

Gilly fought to right it, to roll them back.

Reuben slammed his hands into the cockpit ceiling, then grabbed the yoke.

“Foot pedals—Reuben, give me more right rudder!”

He also added heft to the yoke, and they managed to bring the plane back to trim.

But the wing shivered, and Reuben glanced out the window, searching for a tear in the rivets.

Yes. There, along the strut, weakened by the previous tear.

“We’re going to lose the right lower wing, Gilly.”

“Not before I drop this load.”

They hit the leading edge of the fire, plummeting toward the flames, and the entire aircraft shimmied in the air.

With a screech, the wing fractured, the lower panel breaking free of the strut, flopping .

“The entire wing is going to sheer off!”

“I’m almost there.” She was gritting her teeth, rattling in the seat as she gripped the yoke, pushing them toward the fire.

“Gilly—we have to jump—”

“No! Not before we drop this load. Then we’ll be lighter and—”

“Gilly!”

His voice turned her then, and she stared at him, her eyes wide, ferocious. “What?”

He cut his voice low, solid, piercing the rattle of the plane. “We go now, or we die.”

“And if we don’t drop this load, the team dies,” Gilly shouted. Although the first run had worked, the team would stand a better chance with another dump of slurry.

She glanced at him, and he stared at her, his mouth a tight line of disbelief. “Get out if you want,” she said then. “Just go—”

His eyes narrowed slightly, and he shook his head. “I can’t.”

Okay, she got it—they were over the fire. And too low. So she turned back. “We’ll drop the load, and I’ll get you up to three thousand, and then you can go.”

“I can’t without you.”

She frowned, his words reverberating through her, but she didn’t have time to argue.

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