Page 30 of Venom Island
“You take pod A,” he tells one of them. “You go to pod B. There’s no time for me to provide directions, just follow the instructions inside. It’s all automated, and from what I can tell, the pods weren’t impacted by the lightning strike.”
Lightning strike?I repeat, another shiver traversing my spine.
“I’m so sorry,” I hear Hel say. “I… I don’t know what happened…”
I frown.Why is she apologizing?
She mutters something else I don’t hear because anotherboomechoes in my ears. I wince, my sensitive hearing not doing me any favors right now.
“Can you control it?” Enrique asks her, his voice a distant rumble that I can barely make out over the reverberations in my head. I’ve clearly missed some key part of their conversation, though, because I have no idea why he’s asking her that.
“N-no…”
“Then you’re going in pod A,” he replies. “We can’t risk another bolt to the jet, and we need you far away from the others so they have a chance of surviving.”
My eyes widen.Does that mean Hel… did this? Is that why she looked so off earlier?I noticed her paling complexion after takeoff but thought maybe it was just the plane or the fear of the unknown bothering her. Was it something more?
“Okay,” she agrees as another series of deafening explosions rattle the cockpit.
I try to look behind my chair, to see what’s happening, but the straps cut into my chest, preventing my movement. And I have no idea how to unfasten them.
Trembles rack my body at the realization that I’mtrapped.
Enrique left me here.
No. He’s coming back. He… he won’t leave without me. Right?
But as a series ofwhooshinghits my ears, I realize the pods are all being deployed, and I’m still here. Strapped in. Facing a wall of darkness sprinkled with flashes of light.
A storm.
And there’s blaring happening all around me, too. Alarms. Screens flickering with exclamation points. An automated voice issuing a countdown.
Oh, Gods, I’m going to die here. I’m going to?—
“Caja.” Enrique’s growl rumbles through my mind, jolting my focus up to where he stands beside me. I have no idea how much time has passed, but he has on some sort of backpack, as well as a pair of goggles on his head. “We’re going to have to jump.”
I blink at him, sure that I heard him wrong.
But as I look out the window, I realize we’re no longer in the storm cloud. It’s clear again, the moon high up in the sky. Except it’s too high. And we’re angling downward.
“The jet is going to crash,” he goes on. “That freak storm Hel created took out a?—”
He stumbles as the cockpit rattles, the vibrations near violent.
“We have to go right fucking now,” he snarls, diving forward to rip the restraints right off me.
He yanks me out of the seat before I have a chance to move and starts wrapping more straps around me. Only these ones are connected to him, not the chair.
I cling to his broad shoulders as the ground shakes beneath me, my limbs quaking with nervous energy.
“I’ve got you,” he says, lifting me off the floor. “I promise I won’t let go.”
He tucks me into his chest, his arms resembling steel bands around me, his strength more secure than the fabric he just wove around my body.
“Close your eyes, Caja,” he whispers against my ear before air rushes into the cabin. I bury my head against his chest and cling to him, my heart thundering against my rib cage.
Then the sensation of falling has me screaming in terror, the icy wind whipping around my exposed skin.
