Page 116 of Kai
“Stop,” she ordered. “Did you see what just happened?”
“I did, Sorceress, but once I realized we were not the intended target—”
“I don’t mean that.” She pointed at the screens. “Didn’t you see what happened with Levine?”
“Levine?”I studied the down curve that twisted her mouth. “You mean he got blown to pieces?”
“He jumped.”
I frowned. “What did you say?”
“Levine jumped out of the plane.”
A preternatural stillness tensed my body. My heart thumped in my chest, and my blood swished loudly in my ears. I’d been so intent on tracking the missile and the helicopter that I hadn’t been able to monitor all the screens.
“I saw the plane onthisscreen.” She set a hand on it. “At the last minute, it flew low and straightened parallel to the water only a few feet from the surface. It lost speed. And then, the shadow of a person fell out of the Cessna.”
“Cece, honey, no one could’ve survived that hit—”
“Levine wasnoton the plane when the missile hit,” she interrupted me. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. He jumped, Kai.Beforethe plane exploded. Do you know what this means?”
“Cece…” I rumbled, not liking where this was going at all.
“Hey, Bellator,” she barked. “Replay the footage for camera seven.”
“Identify, please.”
“Dammit, Bellator!” She stomped a foot on the floor. “Just do it!”
“Identify, please.”
She aimed her glare at me. “Kai?”
“Hold your horses.” I addressed the bot. “Bellator, rewind the footage for camera seven and replay in slow mo.”
“Rewinding.”
I started. “The probability is very low that—”
“Don’t talk to me about probabilities,” she snapped. “We’re alive when we should be dead.”
She was not wrong.
“Replaying footage,” the AI announced.
“Just watch,” she urged me. “Watch carefully.”
Several minutes into the footage, the plane leveled. The door opened in mid-flight and, just like Cece said, a blurry figure wearing a bright orange life jacket dropped into the ocean.
“Good eyes.” I whistled aloud. “It looks like he jumped out of the plane. Still, he was close to the explosion. It would be hard for anyone to survive that.”
“But it’s possible, right?”
“Possible, although not probable.”
“This is Levine we’re talking about,” Cece reminded me. “He survived us, falling into a blowhole, and who knows what else? If anyone could’ve survived this, it’s him.”
Point Sorceress.
