Page 55 of Den of Thieves

“Just keep us in the sky!” She yelled, feeding the bandolier chain into the M2 Browning. Karina turned around in her seat and braced her leg against the door for leverage. Her only experience shooting a gun like this was when Sasha Sochi allowed her to practice on targets with weapons from his personal collection.

She took a deep breath and fired at the helicopter, chasing them down. Their attackers veered left and out of sight. “Fuck yeah!” Aksan cheered.

Karina was too focused on the firefight going on twenty stories below them.

“AK circle back!” Kariana gasped, seeing Vladimir’s men trapped in an alley and attempting to shoot their way out.

She closed one eye and shot at the men until they were nothing but twitching bodies on the ground. She focused her aim on the vehicle’s engines until the vans erupted into balls of fire. The remaining men retreated, but not before Vladimir’s men put them down.

Suddenly, Aksana swerved, causing Karina to clutch the back of the seat so she didn’t topple through the seatbelt and out of the helicopter.

“Put on your parachute!”

Beeping so loud it hurt her ears, made Karina look up at the cockpit. “What the hell is that?” she yelled, but AK was already scrambling out of her seat. She didn’t wait for her sister’s response before shakily doing as she was told.

Karina just strapped the five-point harness around her when the chopper flew higher into the sky. She was vaguely aware of Aksana doing the same thing. Her body was pushed against the headrest as the beeping sounded louder and louder in her ears. When she looked up front, the entire dashboard was flashing an angry red. She couldn’t focus on the Russian words, her heart was beating so fast. Still, she knew it wasn’t good news.

“What the fuck is that sound?” Karina yelled.

“Incoming missile. Jump!”

Karina froze, but Aksana pushed her out. Wind stronger than anything she’d felt before pulled unwilling tears from her eyes before forcing her eyelids closed. She screamed, pulling the parachute cord almost immediately.

Her body jerked through the sky, yanking her eyes open, as air collected in the fabric released from her pack.

Aksana’s parachute didn’t deploy in time. She landed on top of a building before Karina ragdolling before coming to a stop.

Karina barely had time to let out a cry of despair before a defeating roar had her looking up. She shielded her eyes from the large orange glare as the missile made contact and their helicopter and went up in a ball of flames.

Karina arrived roughly on the same rooftop as Aksana less than thirty seconds later. She landed on the building, rolling head over foot until she came to a stop.

A gust of wind pulled her chute over the edge of the roof. Karina screamed as the heavy material dragged her across the rough surface. Her fingers fumbled with the clasps. The weight of the material made the task nearly impossible. Once the final clip was released, the dense material and cord disappeared over the edge and out of sight.

She only had a second to catch her breath before she screamed again, looking over at AK’s too still form.

Her sister was unconscious and clearly had a broken leg. Nearly all of her the skin was missing off of her right arm and she had most likely broken a couple of ribs if her labored breathing was any indication.

“AK?” Karina crawled closer, cradling Aksana’s head in her hands. She was vaguely aware of various cuts and bruises appearing on her own body, but nothing seemed broken as far as she could tell. Tears blurred her vision as she gently shook Aksana’s body.

“You idiot!” She yelled at Aksana, gently slapping her face. “You better fucking wake up or I’ll kill you myself!”

Aksana coughed weakly. “You’re crazy if you think a little fall was going to get rid of me.”

Karina breathed a sigh of relief and winced when Aksana made a move to sit up, but crumpled in her arms at the unexpected pain.

“I know you’re hurt, but we need to move. We’re easy pickings out here.”

“Go on without me, Tinkerbell. I’ll only slow you down,” Aksana said with a cough.

“Shut the fuck up, AK. I’m not leaving your ass.”

“Then You better hope like hell you have enough bullets. We’ve got company,” she said, pointing to the helicopter that took down their bird.

“Shit!” Karina growled. She reached for her gun—that only had splotched of pain missing from her landing—and aimed it at the sky. She shot at it, but the bullets didn’t reach.

She only forced the helicopter to veer out of sight momentarily. That was enough for her. She stood quickly, dragging Aksan inside the stairwell.

“Wait! I know this building! Run down two stories. There is an arsenal of weapons inside the fire extinguisher cabinet.”

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