Luca's Bad Girl - By Amy Andrews Page 0,47

they sliced through the canopy. Mia, eyes still shut, hit her head several times against the shell of the cabin and she was grateful for her helmet as the chopper lurched and listed, dropping a little then stopping then dropping again as the branches beneath buckled beneath its weight before it finally came to a shuddering halt.

After a good twenty seconds of no movement, Mia cracked open an eye. She could hear Brian talking to Air Control, she could smell rain and fuel and eucalyptus, she could feel the wind buffeting the chopper and hear it whistling inside the cabin. Her eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness and she could see Luca sitting opposite, wonderfully intact.

She was alive. They were all alive!

‘You okay?’ Luca asked.

Mia thought about it for a moment. Everything felt fine. She nodded. ‘Yes … I think. You?’

Luca nodded back. ‘Yes.’ And then he grinned. ‘Swan Lake, here we come.’

Mia grinned back. Her first instinct, to throw herself at him, was pulled up short by a moan coming from the front.

‘Brian? Are you okay?’ Luca asked.

‘Leg’s busted,’ the pilot panted as he killed the engine.

Luca glanced at Mia. The pain in Brian’s voice was obvious. ‘Is that a guess or can you see it?’

Brian swore again. ‘Tree branch breached the cab, drove into my leg. I can see the bones.’

They exchanged glances again. Luca felt a moment of guilt at his earlier wish that Brian would break something. ‘Any other injuries?’

‘Nope. Don’t think so.’

Luca wasn’t totally reassured. Often people could have wounds they weren’t even aware of if there was one overriding painful injury.

‘Okay, so we need to get you out of there onto the stretcher so we can splint your leg and give you something for the pain. Lucky for you, you crashlanded a mini emergency ward, they have all the best drugs.’

Brian gave a half laugh, half snort at Luca’s attempt to keep things light. ‘Ah. You cottoned onto my dastardly plan.’

Luca unbuckled. Mia followed.

‘Wait,’ Brian called out. ‘We need to assess how this bird’s being supported. I don’t know how precarious it is and moving around could dislodge it. I’d hate to survive the first crash only to be killed on impact with the ground.’

Luca paused. He could tell that Brian was trying to make light of the situation but he also knew that Brian was still thinking like a pilot. Which, given his horrific injury, was amazing.

‘Okay,’ Luca said. ‘How do we do that?’

‘If you can open your door safely, grab the torch and have a look out, see if you can see what’s supporting us. But move carefully until we know. The crash would have activated our emergency locator transmitter so Air Control will know where we are but they’ll want a sit rep—once we know what we’re up against, I’ll let them know.’

Luca glanced at Mia. The chopper had come to a stop in a reasonably level position with a slight tilt to the left so he was pretty certain that movement wouldn’t be an issue but that all depended on what was beneath them.

‘Buckle up,’ he said as he reached for the torch strapped to the cabin above his head and gently removed it.

Mia felt a trickle of dread drip down her spine. ‘Be careful.’

Luca nodded, aware that they might well be precariously balanced and not keen to be the one that upset the apple cart. It was good to know that their ELT had been activated and that help would no doubt soon be on its way. But Brian, while he was being very stoic, needed urgent medical attention, so they couldn’t just sit around and wait.

He swivelled in his seat and shone the torch out the window. Through the now driving rain he could see that the door appeared to be free of any vegetation so he gingerly reached for the handle and gently eased it open. The freezing rain assaulted him almost immediately as he carefully lowered himself to the floor of the cabin, hung his head out and shone the torch under the chopper.

They appeared to be wedged between three massive looking tree trunks huddled together. The bottom of the cabin was supported by sturdy interwoven branches which appeared knotted. The tail also seemed wedged between two trunks further back.

Luca shone the torch down towards the forest floor. Whether it was the rain or the dark or the sheer distance, he couldn’t make it out. It was nothing but a swirling abyss of cloud and night.

He