“The fuck were you doing?”
Spencer pushed himself up, grunting again as a burning pain under his ribs hit him like a katana blade. “I was trying to get a hysterical kid into a helicopter,” he muttered. He squinted up through his goggles and the rain at the kid—well, a grown-up, but he had an open, appealing face and big guileless brown eyes, so he looked sort of like a kid—who had helped him up onto the porch. “I might ask you the same question.”
“What?”
“Well, the dam breaks at the base of a canyon, and you’re there with three teenagers and Grandma Moses? How did that happen?”
“She lost power during the storm last night,” his new irritant said, staring at him like he was deranged. “We were heading to her place to make sure she was okay and we got told the dam had broken. We didn’t have time to get to higher ground!”
Shit. “Well, that’s sensible,” Spencer said to himself. The deck was actually pretty stable, he had to admit. He thought for a moment about pulling himself upright and trying to stand to see if they could maybe steer this thing, but the searing pain under his ribs gave a yelp, and there was something going on with his shin and ankle that wasn’t shutting up either. “Fuck.”
“Can I ask you again?” the guy with the sweet brown eyes insisted. “What in the heck were you doing?”
Spencer grinned at him. “You said ‘fuck’ the first time.” It wasn’t his imagination. In the middle of the pouring rain, with brown hair plastered to his forehead and wearing a bright yellow jacket with a little green patch that said, “Sticky Parks and Rec” on it, the guy flushed.
Spencer could almost see steam.
“Yes,” he said with admirable dignity. “Yes, I said a bad word. But that’s not the point. What were you doing there?”
Spencer scowled and gave a push this time—a real one—and managed to make it to his feet. Their raft pitched slightly as he stood, and he had to grab for the guardrail. He was shivering harder than he should have been. God, how bad was he hurt?
“Well, we were up there,” he said, pointing behind them to the narrow canyon where two mountains came together. From their angle he could see the crumbling concrete and the fissure that was pouring water into this little valley, as well as the impervious green majesty of the mountains. “Up in those hills behind the dam. There’s a little town there—”
“Splinter,” his new friend supplied.
“That’s the spot. It’s got an airstrip. And we were running supplies to Splinter, and they were going to truck them down here to Sucky—”
“Sticky.”
“Yeah, sure.” With a sigh, Spencer unfastened his flight helmet, pulled it off, and dropped it to the deck gently. The electronics were probably fried, but a helmet was always a good idea. He wasn’t going to kick it into the grayish waters that surrounded their little craft. “Anyway, while we were in Splinter, a semi crashed into a big tree, which fell on the dam, and the dam started to give. My flight partner and I got a call from our friend who was down in Sickly—”
“Sticky.”
“—that there were some folks who needed help. We were literally the only chopper for a hundred miles, so we flew out.” Oh, hey. The raft gave a lurch again, and he scowled and grabbed the railing with both hands. Fuck. Fuck. Something warm and wet was trickling on the inside of his flight suit, and his leg wasn’t bearing any goddamned weight. Goddammit. This guy he was currently pissing off needed someone who could help him get out of this jam, and Spencer was not at 100 percent. That was unfortunate.
“That was really dangerous,” the guy said. “You need more than two people to operate a helicopter with that kind of gear.”
Spencer started to laugh, and his side gave a vicious snarl. He held his hand to it and was unsurprised when his glove came back covered in blood. “You think, Sparky? Yeah. But you guys needed us. This was just supposed to be a cargo run—we were supposed to run supplies. So no need for extra guys to operate the crane.” Spencer’s knees were wobbling. Fuck. He was going to have to sit down.
He was terrified to sit down.
If he sat down, he might not be able to get back up on his own, and then he’d have to throw himself off the damned raft because he’d be nothing more than dead weight.
“Are you okay?” The man’s voice gentled a little, and Spencer looked at his hand again. That warm gushing feeling wasn’t getting any less intense.
“Do you have any first aid supplies?” he asked frankly. “Some gauze, maybe. Some tape. I’d love some antiseptic—that would be fantastic. I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. I just need some—”
The raft was floating downstream at a rather slow pace, belying the muscular current he’d fought when he’d been getting impaled by the damned tree. Suddenly it stopped, a jarring, painful stop that sent his friend grabbing for the fence rail and Spencer sprawling on his back.
“Goddammit!” Spencer snapped, wondering if he was going to have to ask for a hand up to stand again.
“Shit! I mean shoot!” His companion on the raft took a few steps across the deck to look down. “We’re hung up on a tree, I think. A snag of some sort. Shit. Shoot. Whatever.”
Spencer looked around and frowned. “We’re not taking on water. We might just be okay for a minute. Maybe it’s blocking our forward momentum, but it’s not blocking vertical. That’s fine. That works.”
“How does that work?”
“God, Boy Scout, calm down! It works because if we rise any more, and it’s not holding us down, we can float clear! Fuck!” Something smacked into them, and they were knocked loose and right into another tree, this one a tall pine that loomed over their heads, one that had endured a recent wildfire. The lower branches and needles had been scorched off—only a few charred spars sticking out—but the fire hadn’t killed it. The trunk was starting to grow over the scorch marks, and the foliage and branches started about fifteen feet over their heads.
Spencer didn’t realize what a break they’d caught until their makeshift little vessel gave a deep shudder, and then, miracle of miracles, stayed put.
“That’s not a branch or anything,” he rasped, his body aches getting worse with every shudder of the craft. “Right? That’s just the raft up against the tree—we won’t drown, we won’t break, we’ll just stay here for a little bit. Am I reading this right?”
“Yeah,” said his new friend. “You’re reading this right.” He let out a breath. “And now I can tend to you.”
Spencer scowled at him, although his vision was starting to blur. “I can take care of my own wounds, Boy Scout,” he mumbled. Was he passing out? He’d passed out a few times before, and this felt like passing out.
“My name,” his young friend said, “is Theo. Theo Wainscott. Now stay there!”
“Spencer,” he mumbled. “Spencer Helmsley. Charmed, I’m sure.”
Theo’s snort was reassuring, really. Told him that this was the sort of kid who could hold his own in Snarkville, USA, which was probably way south of Sucky, Oregon.