Page 31 of Running Scared
They both grunted as the platform dropped out of the plane, and Dean had to pinwheel his arms to stay grounded.
“Don’t worry ’bout the transpo, Bird!”Marcus shouted.
“I’m not!”Birdie shouted back.“I’m worried about the fuel I’m dropping!I think they hit the tank!”
“Fuck!”Marcus cried, his attention arrested by something right outside the plane.Dean stared where he was staring and realized that flames were roaring down the fuselage, only getting blown out by the change in pressure by the bay door.
“Bird!”Dean shouted, hauling ass for the cockpit, “She’s on fire!Get your ass out here and bail with us!”
Birdie had a wrinkled, weathered face, and could have been anywhere between thirty and sixty years old, but Dean had seen enough people give up something dear to them to know the torture in the old pilot’s eyes.
“But Dean,” the pilot said, the anguish in their voice resonant of countless missions Birdie had helped Dean and Marcus with.Dean had discovered Birdie on a road trip to the Austin field office the first time he’d been posted there, and he’d liked the tough old bird.The pilot’s absolute dedication to the craft of flying, the hunger for more and more time in the air—Dean related to it at the time, because that had been howhe’dfelt about his job.He’d just been partnered with Marcus, and he’d discovered that brotherhood didn’t have to come with the Royal name, and that Marcus was more excited about participating in his adventures than worried about Dean’s person.
And Birdie had been their companion on so many journeys they’d lost count, and now his friend was in pain.
“Bird,” Dean said softly, “she’s been a good ship.But we’ll get you a new one.You’re too good a pilot—too good anasset—for me and Marcus not to be able to get you a new one.”
The engines were whining, and he could feel the heat from here.From the cockpit he could see the burning fuselage, and as he watched, another engine sputtered and died.
“Dean….”
But Dean had no more time for Bird’s feelings—Birdie could forgive Dean, he hoped, but only if they all lived.
“Bird, get out now or I will throw you over my shoulder and pitch you out of the plane myself,” he said, and something about the flatness of his voice had Birdie giving him a glare of fury.
And of absolute belief.
“Fine, you fucking heartless sadist,” Birdie snarled, but Dean could hear the tears in the pilot’s voice.With a sad little pat of the plane’s console, Birdie set the automatic pilot and followed Dean down the aisle to the cargo bay.
“Go!”Birdie shouted at Dean and Marcus, but Dean and Marcus had dealt with Birdie for too long to fall for that.Birdie had strapped on a parachute when they had, and they’d all made too many jumps to take the time to check gear.
Together they each grabbed an arm and hauled ass out of the plane, ignoring Birdie’s scream as they plummeted toward the earth.
They held on until Birdie’s cry of “You bastards!”died in the wind, and then all three of them checked their watches as they separated and gauged the time to jump that would give them the most control over their chutes.
“YOU THINKBird’ll stop bitching before we find the compound?”Marcus asked after they’d landed.They knew the drill, the same one Bailey had followed: releasing and packing the chute, making sure cooling packs were set with the fuel and water, releasing the latches that held their transpo crates together.All of it, smooth as silk, with the bleak, angry accompaniment of Birdie’s bitter harangue about arrogant jackasses who knew fucking everything but how to fly a goddamned plane.
Dean rolled his eyes and then raised his head for the horizon.“I predict the bitching will stop in… wait for it….”
Marcus joined him in staring, and together, they watched as the plane got lower and lower and—
Boom!
The concussion of the plane as it hit more coyote shit and exploded knocked Birdie to the ground and forced Dean and Marcus to brace, reaching out to grab each other’s bicep as a stabilizer.
The orange flame that hurled from the wreck was enough to make Dean shudder.
“Hey, Birdie,” Marcus snapped as Bir gaped at the destruction.“You see that bigass fireball?”
Bird nodded dumbly.
“That means your fuel tanks were well and truly breached, because that only happens in the movies when your plane’s about toexplode.”
They both saw Birdie swallow.“Yes,” came the stunned croak.
“So now that we know the damned thing was going to kill you, do you think you cangive Dean a fucking rest for saving your life!”
Dean regarded Marcus with surprise.One of the things he’d always liked about his partnership with the man was that they were equals, in this together.But that had sounded almost protective.
