“Chase, I’m not going to make any sense in a…really soon. Hurts.”
“You’re not a doctor, and your head is fine.” But it wasn’t. His head felt heavier in her lap. It was swelling in her hands and—if Pippin was right—inside his skull.
An eerie calm fell over them as the water bloomed red. Chase forced herself to focus on him, but her fear was the wind and it was pulling her apart. “You just need some stitches and you’ll be all right.” She squeezed his uniform, pulled him tighter.
Pippin’s eyes were glassy, bulging almost, but they were fastened to hers. “I hate these movies. They always kill the gay kid.”
“Shut up. You’re not dying.”
“Why’re you so sure?” he asked.
“Do you see me begging for forgiveness or spouting I love yous?”
“Indeed.” He tried to smile, but his lips didn’t quite make it. Blood lined his teeth. The panic spread from the corner of her mind and fractured inward at an alarming rate. Chase couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t lose Pippin.
Her breath rasped, and she glanced at the sky to hide her tears. “Where are they?”
“Lost my left eye. Confused,” he said. “The bridge…cross it. The right one.” He started to gasp. His breath stalled out. “Respiratory center affected. Confused.”
“Stop diagnosing yourself!” She shook him and then pressed her face to his hair. It was wet and gritty with sand. “Tell me about ‘Ode to Joy.’ What’s it really about?”
“About joy. I was being…a…difficult.” He cried out suddenly, his breath breaking apart. “Terrified,” he said. “No legs.”
“Your legs are fine,” she said, choking on the words. The world was leaning in, shaking her, pushing her. She held Pippin even tighter. “Tell me something. Come on, Pip.”
“Up, down, the notes. Up…and down.” He closed his eyes. “Fools fly. No. Listen, Chase.”
He gave her name his last tearing breath.
DELTA
35
SMOKING HOLE
What’s Left
Chase tripped down the shore, desperate to escape the waft of smoke.
She left Pippin’s body. Her voice was broken from saying his name, and her flight suit was stained red from her stomach to her knees. When she could barely see Dragon, she sat hard and folded her legs into her chest.
Pippin was dead. The truth was too much, so she lost it. She let it go. It fled upward with the smoke, leaving her alone. And then she waited. She hoped Pippin wasn’t right, that the rescue helos wouldn’t be hours away.
But Pippin was always right. Even about his own failing body.
Chase checked the sky for the red drone. For Phoenix. All she found were a few large birds belatedly heading south for winter in a sluggish formation. It was too normal. Too picturesque for what had just happened. Her breath became erratic, cutting in her lungs with each seizing inhale.
The crystal canopy Chase kept over her for so long had fractured. Fallen away. Now she was laid bare to a cruel wind. To feeling everything. The gust chapped the dried blood on her hands as she drew Ritz’s heart circle in the rough sand.
She wrote Henry in its center.
And cried.
The helicopters came with a blast of furious sound. Two of them landed beside Dragon while a third hung in the air, making the surface of the lake turn white with chop. She saw the rescuers looking for her. Saw them sprinting down the beach. They were adults, not cadets. Real airmen, like everyone at the academy pretended to be.
Chase stood up, and one of the medics wrapped a reflective blanket around her. He led her to one of the helicopters, strapped her to a stretcher, her legs elevated. He swung a flashlight over her eyes and asked her questions. Many, many questions. She didn’t bother to listen, let alone answer.
Through the open door, Chase watched Dragon being doused with white foam from the helicopter hovering over the crash site.
“You’re going to be all right,” the medic said. She started to laugh, a sick sound even in her own ears. “She’s in shock,” he yelled to the pilot. “Let’s go!”
They took off just as an alarm pierced the helo. Chase thrashed, certain that the red drone had returned to finish her. “It’s back! It’s back!”
The medic held her down. “That’s the military beacon,” he said. “There are no bogies inbound.” He pinned her arms and was leaning too close as he shouted to the pilot. His voice hit her like a smack. “What’s happening?”
“Terror alert has been raised to ‘severe.’ President Grainor is addressing the nation. He’s declared a state of emergency.”
Chase’s mind grasped at questions without understanding them. How could the president know? How long had she been on that beach? What was happening?
“What’s coming from General Tourn?” the medic yelled to the pilot. “War?”
“Grainor says Congress is in session now,” the pilot yelled back. “They’ll declare soon.”
Chase squeezed her eyes, confused and suddenly shivering. She felt war—such a small word—try to eclipse the crash, but it couldn’t. It couldn’t touch Pippin. She wouldn’t let it.
“Where’s my RIO?” she asked.
“In the other helo,” the medic replied. He stuck a syringe in her arm without warning. Unconsciousness glided over her, and the rest of his words reached her unevenly.
“That’s what…we get for…letting kids fly.”
ECHO
36
HARD DECK
The Lowest You Can Go
The tree line was too close. Riot yelled over and over, but his warnings were obvious. And wrong. Everything he said felt wrong.
“Shut up!” she screamed over him. Her outburst fed into her muscles, her nerves; she was jerky. Flailing.
Crashing.