“What’s Plan-B?” Cadence was asking as the plane circled back toward the school. Christian wasn’t answering her, however. He had crossed to the back of the plane and was digging in a storage compartment there, beginning to pull out what appeared to be backpacks and handing them out to the rest of the team. They all took them as if they knew exactly what Plan-B was and they were okay with it.
Cadence repeated her question. “What’s Plan-B?” Again, she was ignored, but this time a few of her other teammates at least glanced at her nervously, as if acknowledging they heard her, but none of them wanted to answer.
“You know we only have six, right?” Christian asked, clearly talking to Aaron
“That’s all we need,” he replied. “Someone’s got to fly the plane.”
“But what if you…”
“It’s fine,” Aaron interrupted.
“Okay….” Christian replied, though it sounded more like a question than a statement.
“What the hell is Plan-B?” Cadence yelled both aloud and through the IAC. She realized, as Christian was ignoring her, that those were not backpacks, as much as she wanted them to be, and as he stepped toward her, she realized number six was for her. “What’s Plan-B?” she whimpered as he stopped in front of her, shoving the parachute into her chest.
Christian began to answer, but before he could get much out, Aaron was out of the pilot’s seat and standing next to her. “It’ll be fine, Cadence,” he assured her, taking the parachute out of her hands and handing it to Christian, who immediately started putting it on her.
Cadence complied with Christian’s forceful movements of her own body, extending her arms when prompted to do so, etc., but her attention was still on Aaron. “You want me to jump out of this airplane?” He nodded. “Jump. Out. Of This. Perfectly. Good. Airplane?”
“It’ll be fine,” he said again.
“Oh, no!” she replied, finally beginning to fight Christian who was just buckling the last few fasteners. “There is no way in hell--in hell--that I am jumping out of this plane. And who is flying this plane, anyway?” she asked, glancing over his shoulder.
“Autopilot. It’s all right,” he assured her. “Look, Cadence, we don’t have a lot of time here, so you’re gonna have to just trust me on this one, okay? I need you on the ground, and there’s only one way I can get you there on time. We’ve got visuals on the ground now, and Sam’s on the run. So… you’re jumping.”
Even as she opened her mouth to protest, the others were getting in position for Christian to open the door. “How the hell does everyone else know how to do this and I don’t?” she mumbled.
“I practiced it in training,” Meagan replied, shrugging. She looked nervous, but prepared, as she stood next to Jamie and Aurora.
“How come I…” Cadence began to ask why she hadn’t gone through that sort of training.
“No time,” Aaron cut her off, and she wasn’t sure if he meant during training or now.
“But I don’t even…”
“We’re back up to about three thousand feet, so count to three, pull on this,” he said showing her some sort of loopy thing on the front of the parachute. “When it opens, reach up and grab the guides; use them to steer your way down. Bend your knees when you land.”
“Aaron, there is no way I’m jumping out of this airplane!”
“We ready?” Christian was asking, his hand on the lever on the door.
“One second,” Aaron replied, stepping back over to the controls. He put the plane in a tight turn, which caused everyone standing to lean drastically to their right sides, but since they were all super-human no one lost their balance or fell over. “Open the door,” Aaron said calmly.
Christian complied, and one-by-one, Cadence watched her teammates leap out of the airplane, no one hesitating for more than a second, except for Meagan, who was screaming the second her feet left the edge of the plane.
Cadence was frozen in place. “Go,” Aaron shouted at her over his shoulder.
“No way!” Cadence replied, her feet solidly planted on the floor, her hands in a death grip on the seat behind her. “No f-ing way!”
“If you don’t go now, we’ll be off target,” Aaron warned, the sternness in his voice increasing.
“I don’t care. There is no way in hell I’m jumping out of this airplane!”
Aaron turned the plane again, and Cadence steadied herself, trying not to slip backward this time.
“Fine,” he said, approaching her again. “You don’t want to jump?” he asked, wrapping his arms around her waist.
She loosened her grip a bit, making the mistake of looking into his piercing blue eyes. She shook her head, the terror she was feeling evident on her face.
“You don’t have to then,” Aaron replied shrugging his shoulders.
Cadence looked at him skeptically; this seemed too easy. But, as he leaned in to kiss her, she couldn’t help but respond. His lips locked with hers, and she felt his grip around her tighten. Before she even realized what was happening, he was moving her toward the doorway. “Aaron!” she screeched as she found herself dangling over the ground.
“Bye Cadence! I love you!” he said as he tossed her out of the plane.
If it hadn’t been for the Transformation Serum she’d given him in Ireland, she was certain he wouldn’t have been strong enough to pry her hands off of him under those circumstances, but there was simply no way she could compete with his intense super strength, and before she could even attempt to claw his eyes out, she found herself freefalling, a scream of sheer terror blasting forth even as she cursed him across the IAC. “You threw me out of a plane!”
“Pull your shoot, Cadence,” he replied calmly.
“What?” she asked. She looked down at the ground and noticed the trees were getting much bigger.
“Pull your shoot, Cadence!” he yelled.
“Shit!” Cadence mumbled as she felt around on the front of the parachute for the loopy thing. She found it, and though she had no idea how many seconds had passed, she assumed it had to have been more than three. She gave it a sharp tug and suddenly felt like her shoulders were being ripped off of her body. The scream stopped, stuck in her throat as all the air seemed to rush out of her, and she had the sensation of being pulled back up into the sky, though she could tell by the nearness of the ground to her feet that she was still coming down hard.
“Steer!” he yelled at her, and she suddenly remembered the pulley things he had talked about. She looked up, and for a moment she could only see one. She grabbed it and pulled, which sent her lurching strongly to the right. “Both of them!” he reminded her. She looked up again and saw the other one. She grabbed it on her second try, and using them both, she began to figure out how to make the parachute go one direction or the other. She could see groups of trees below her, but for the most part it was pasture land and roads. There were a few other parachutes on the ground nearby, but she didn’t see anyone still in the air. In the distance, she spotted the school, and it looked like her friends who had jumped out when they were told were pretty close to the preferred landing site. She might have a little bit of running to do to catch up.
Right now, however, she needed to deal with this quickly approaching ground.
The closer she got, the better she could see obstacles on the ground, which included some cows, brush, and a barbed wire fence she hadn’t been able to see from higher up. Aiming for a wider space between the trees, she pulled down hard with both of her hands, thinking that might slow her down. As she began to pass the tops of trees, she realized she was in for a pretty hard impact within a few seconds. She braced herself, inhaling sharply, mumbling, “I don’t want to die!” over and over, despite the fact that she knew this couldn’t actually kill her.
But it could hurt like hell.
And it did.
It wasn’t until she hit the ground that she remembered what Aaron had said about bending her knees, just a split second too late, she also didn’t register that he was yelling at her to do so until the moment had passed. As soon as her left leg hit the ground, she knew she’d messed up. She heard a loud pop, and she fell forward, rolling onto her side. Her right leg was fine, as she had, apparently, bent it just enough to keep from hurting herself. And while her left leg didn’t seem to be broken, there was definitely something wrong. The pain wasn’t severe enough for it to be a broken bone, but her knee began to throb, and she knew almost instantly what she had done. She struggled to unbuckle the parachute, keeping her knee bent and as still as possible. As soon as she was free, she decided to try to stand up. It buckled, and she fell back to the ground. She had seen a girl on her basketball team do this in high school. She had definitely torn her ACL. “Shit,” she whispered. She’d be of no use to anyone at this point. Her teammates could be miles away, and either they would get Sam without her, or he would get away. There was nothing she could do about it. Tears began to sting her eyes, not because of the pain but because she knew she was missing her chance to get vengeance for Elliott. She couldn’t bear to think about that. Pushing the thoughts out of her mind, she returned her attention to the IAC. Maybe she could help that way--somehow. She definitely couldn’t think about the possibility of Sam getting away again, not when they were so close.
