Page 31 of Hunter's Mission

Her wrist slipped from my grasp. Her body twisted and jerked.

“Layla, reach up. Grab my hand.”

“Hunter! Don’t let me go!”

“Grab on!”

She tried to reach up. Our gazes locked. Her eyes blazed with fear.

Time seemed to still.

“Layla!”

Her hand slipped through my fingers.

“No!” My heart shattered as she fell away.

Screaming, she hurtled through the branches and enormous leaves and thumped into the muddy ground.

“Layla!” I couldn't breathe.

My failure crushed me.

“Hunter!” Wyatt slapped my shoulder. “We gotta get this thing steady!”

I couldn't tear my eyes away from Layla’s body, crumpled in the mud below. I’d failed her. I’d fucking failed her.

“Layla!” I screamed until my throat burned. “Can you hear me?”

Silence. My heart boomed against my ribcage.

She had to be okay. Had to be!

If I lost her! The thought was unbearable.

Layla . . . please be okay.I clenched my fist.

“Hunter!” Wyatt shook my arm. “Get your shit together.”

I dragged my body back from the edge and fighting the ache threatening to consume me, I forced my brain to concentrate. The chopper groaned with my shift in weight and the metal creaked.

Wyatt pressed his fingers to Cody’s neck. “Cody, you with me, man?”

Cody was slumped against the helicopter wall. Blood spewed from another cut on his head.

“He’s alive,” Wyatt said.

“Booker, you okay?” I shouted over the drone of the dying engine. I shoved aside twisted metal to get to him.

Moaning, he tried to push himself back. His head had slammed into the shattered windshield and blood spilled down his face from a brutal gash near his temple.

We were lodged nose down, high up in a tree. Through the open cockpit, branches and leaves surrounded us like a cage, trapping us in a nightmare that we weren’t going to get out of any time soon.

“I’m stuck.” Booker’s voice was barely audible above the chaos.

As Wyatt wrestled Cody’s limp body into a seatbelt, I fought gravity to crawl toward Booker. “You’re okay, buddy. I’ve got you.”

The helicopter leaned at a dangerous angle, and I clutched onto anything to stop myself from slipping.