Well, I’ll be damned.
I leap out on command, and I try to glide toward her, keeping a safe distance as I watch her spin her circles and flip well below me. I don’t want to be in her chute radius.
Perfectly timed, her chute bursts open, and I keep falling, having some ground to make up. She’s way out ahead of me, but when my time comes to deploy my chute, panic sinks in.
It’s hung.
Trying not to freak the hell out, I jerk and jerk on the cord, but it doesn’t budge.
I look down, seeing the clouds break apart as the ground approaches too quickly.
Every muscle is flexed as I try to jerk open the damn chute, but it’s jammed, refusing to budge, even the backup chute seems to locked up.
I know I checked it a thousand times. I know it was working, damn it!
I never fuck this up. Thoughts racing a thousand miles a minute, panic continues to build, alone with the growing stone in the pit of my stomach, and the uncontainable pressure building in my chest.
The wind actually hurts when it pummels me, sounding in my ears like I’m stuck in a vacuum tunnel. My stomach sinks, and I barely glimpse the lake ahead of us. I begin pulling again, hoping for a miracle.
I finally feel something give, and the backup chute flies open, but I’m still descending too fast, not having enough time to slow like I need to. My stomach feels like it’s climbing out of my throat as the panic I’ve been avoiding claws its way to the surface.
I barely manage to guide myself over the water when I crash to it, feeling sharp, excruciating pain shoot up my leg as I land awkwardly on it. The water almost feels like a wall on impact, and my chute drops down around me, clinging like wet clothing, as I gasp for air and sink, fighting with one good leg to keep my head above water.
I grab a knife from my hip, jerk it up, ignoring the searing pain in my leg as I cut through the chute, feeling fresh air waft over me.
It hurts too bad to try and kick with my right leg, and I’m struggling with the wet parachute and the water as I try to get my pack off before it drags me down.
My eyes glance up just in time to see Kylie disconnect, her discarded chute flying into the air as she crosses her arms over her chest, crosses her feet at the ankles, and drops at least thirty feet into the water.
“Don’t,” I shout, gurgling on water as my head dips below the surface.
I fight, struggling, and force my way back up until my head breaks the surface again. It’s short-lived, because I’m dragged under again by the relentless extra weight, gaining no purchase with the use of one leg.
But there are suddenly hands on my middle, touching me, freeing me. The pack comes off, and it feels like I lose thirty pounds.
My head springs up above water with more ease, and I gasp several bursts of air as my body starts moving backwards.
“Stay flat!” someone yells, but I’m loopy, confused. Almost incoherent.
It’s not until I’m being dragged onto the shore, coughing incessantly to free my lungs of all the water that crept in, that I turn to see the girl who is kneeling beside me, saying something I can’t hear as she pulls my helmet off.
Her hair is drenched, her helmet is already gone, and she’s hovering over me, her lips moving to silent words too far away for my ears.
The pain…is too intense. It feels like my leg is on fire and being hammered at the same time. Each breath I take feels like liquid frost and knives.
All I can hear is my rapidly firing heartbeat drumming in my ears as my vision dims.
My last thought is that Shirley Fucking Temple just saved my life.
Chapter 4
Wild Ones Tip #68
We’re the nicest fuckers you’re ever gonna know. (Kidding. If that’s true, you’ve lived a sad life.)
LIAM
Two days ago I had surgery, and today I finally got to come home with my leg—from thigh to heel—in a cast.
Yeah. Shattered that motherfucker real good.
Happens when you hit the water so hard that it reacts like a solid mass. I’m lucky the malfunctioning chute slowed my speed enough to let me survive.
I groan, shifting up on the bed, wondering if that pain medication is just a placebo, because I’m still hurting like a little bitch boy with no pain tolerance.
My door buzzes over and over, and I wince as I grab the remote by the bed. Finally, someone has come to check on me.
“Hello?” I ask into the remote, but then the image pops up on the screen, and a curly-haired girl is looking back at me. Well, she’s looking at the camera.