Blind Faith - Sharon Sala Page 0,80

a growing cloud of smoke, with the electrical wiring sparking and popping as it began to catch fire. Her shoulder was burning, and one leg was gushing blood. When she tried to unbuckle herself, she almost passed out.

The fact that she had not died in this crash was a miracle, and she didn’t intend to let it go to waste. She had to stop the bleeding or she would die before she got out. She didn’t know how it worked, but she knew thinking about herself whole and healthy worked, and so she did.

She waited, afraid to move, and then the smoke got worse and she was beginning to choke and cough. Left with no choice, and even though she was still strapped into her seat, she began trying to release all the straps holding her into the seat, with only one good hand and arm.

Gritting her teeth against the waves of pain-filled nausea, she finally found the release. As soon as she was free, she fell the rest of the way down onto the ground floor of the forest. Blocking out everything but making her body move, she finally got to her feet, with one arm dangling at her side. She could feel a bullet hole on the front of her chest, but didn’t know if there was an exit wound. What she did know was that the bleeding had stopped, but she didn’t know for how long. At this point, her choices weren’t good. Burn up, bleed out, or get out.

She was coughing nonstop now, and her eyes were watering so badly she was left to feel her way out. The windshield was shattered, but the heat was greatest there, so she began climbing, using the seat backs as steps, pulling herself up with her one good arm, until she felt the door handle above her.

She turned it and pushed up, but it didn’t budge. Bracing one foot on the instrument panel and her other foot on her seat, she bent over, bracing her back against the door, then pushed upward again, and all of a sudden it was open.

She was gasping for breath as she pulled herself up, and then crawled out onto the overturned cockpit. But once out of the cockpit, the smoke around her was dispersing enough that she could see. She started to slide off the side and fell. Landing on her wounded shoulder, she passed out from the pain.

It was heat from the flames that woke her again, but when she tried to get up and run, her leg wouldn’t hold her, so she started dragging herself with one arm, grabbing anything she could hold to pull herself along, and crawled away from the crash site until she could go no farther, then rolled over onto her back.

From what she could tell, she’d come down in thick forest, somewhere near a creek, because she could hear running water. She’d lost all track of time. The bits of sky she could see through the canopy told her there was still daylight, but she didn’t know for how much longer, or if it was even the same day.

If they tell him, Charlie will find me...alive or dead... Charlie will find me.

The blind faith she had in him was constant, and it was the last thought she had before she lost consciousness again.

* * *

An airport employee found Benny Garcia and called an ambulance and the police. By the time they got him to a Dallas hospital, the police had confiscated the video from the security cameras with some good shots of the license tag on the van, and of the assailants who’d been in it. They were running facial recognition on the man and woman, and had a BOLO out on the van when Benny came out of surgery. He had not regained consciousness, but he was alive.

* * *

Charlie was kicked back in his recliner watching football when noontime came and went. But by the time it was nearly 2:00 p.m. and he still hadn’t heard a thing from Wyrick, he was beginning to worry. He sent a text she didn’t answer, and his call went to voice mail. And then twenty minutes later, his phone rang.

“Thank God,” he muttered, assuming it was her.

Then he realized he’d left the phone in the kitchen and got up running to answer it. His relief was short-lived when he saw it was the FAA instead.

“Hello?”

“This is Loren Franklin. I work for the FAA. May I speak to