Missing Lynx (40 page)

I pulled myself to the back of the plane to lie down. I said prayers of thanksgiving that I had made it back to America. This must be America; 911 picked up my call. I knew they heard my first distress call, because the second person knew that the FAA had been contacted.

I felt the plane shivering and shaking as the storm picked up again. It followed me from the east. With a sinking heart, I knew no one would look for me until the winds died down. Might as well get comfortable — no point in setting out signals.

I slept. How many days had gone by? I think maybe two. During the day the plane heated up like a furnace. On the first day, when the temperatures were so unbearable, I tried to lie in the shade under a wing. But there was no good place to go. Inside, I broiled. Outside, the wind wicked what little moisture I had out of my body; the sand abraded my skin. I put the smallest amounts of water into my mouth. I tried to stretch out the few drops I had left. I stopped sweating. That was a bad thing. I was vomiting again, which was even worse. Looked like dehydration had kicked in…heat stroke. Simple things — seeing, breathing, and staying upright – felt like a marathon run. The weather conditions exacerbated my impact injuries. I focused on a steely will to win.

Today, the wind died down considerably. Probably this was the first day when anyone could even think about getting off the ground for a search. I figured it was getting close to being my “last chance for hope” day. If no one comes and finds me? Well, I didn’t really want to go there in my mind. Survival was my focus.

I pulled myself outside the plane to look around with an eye to signaling. All I saw was desert - austere and forlorn on the ground as it had been from the sky. Coming in, I scanned the horizon for rivers, houses, anything that would help me. All I had seen was dirt. Some cacti dotted the landscape. I’d never been to this part of the US; this terrain was foreign to me. I didn’t know what plants were edible and which were poisonous. I knew, in theory, how to test them, but my mind was so untrustworthy right now that I wasn’t willing to try.

I realized my landing gear had broken off when I hit down. Just as well. It saved me a lot of problems. I dragged myself about, positioning the tires in a huge triangle around the plane. A rattlesnake slithered past. That made me laugh. Of course. Why not? Add rattlesnakes to my list of how to botch my own rescue mission. I took the flight books from the cockpit and lit them on fire with the book of matches Franco had put in my pack. I set the flame against the rubber tires. Black smoke plumed into the air. I sat under the wing and watched the sky as best I could, waiting to use the mirror to signal.

Hallucinations. Faces swirled in front of me: Pablo crying; Franco and Elicia in frantic prayer, begging.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I failed you. Forgive me,” I prayed.

Grandmother Sybil threw herbs into the fire and called to the sky.

I saw Striker and Gater, Blaze, Jack and Deep; they were doing a lot of yelling in my head and cussing. 

I thought I would see my mom and dad, and Angel. Surely Angel would come and help me cross over. Where were my loved ones? Why wouldn’t they be offering me solace and support as I left this terrestrial world to join them? I thought about trying to go behind the Veil again. I wanted to see if I couldn’t get help for myself; but I was afraid that I’d never find my way back to my body.

Buzzards circled overhead. Hysterical. They had actually found me and were circling. Who knew that really happened? I thought that was stuff of Saturday morning cartoons. I guessed the black smoke helped to keep them away. When I really thought that I didn’t have another breath, I’d try to get in the plane so the birds wouldn’t gouge out my eye balls and peck my flesh from my bones. I shuddered at the image.

My thoughts were raging, crazy. Sometimes I floated in beautiful peace. Other times, I fought monsters in my brain. I was end-stage. My time had come. I crawled into the plane up to the pilot’s seat and laid back.

In my head, I heard Gater calling to me. “We’re trying. We’re trying, Lynx! Where are you?”

I thought about Striker and Bayard Taylor’s beautiful words sang in my ears:

From the Desert I come to thee

On a stallion shod with fire;

And the winds are left behind

In the speed of my desire.

Under thy window I stand,

And the midnight hears my cry:

I love thee, I love but thee,

With a love that shall not die

Ironic as hell how much I have always loved this poem, “Bedouin’s Song,” and it was turning out to be my dirge.

I had lost my grip on reality. My brain responded to the toxic poisons circulating in my body. Fear wrapped me in a tight embrace, holding me back as I tried to push death away. That felt futile.

Exhaustion. Pain. Turbulence. That was how my end was coming to me. In my mind’s eye, a helicopter landed in the desert. I saw the faces of those I love: Gater, Deep, Blaze, Jack… Striker. I wanted to say goodbye to them, to thank them for all they had been to me — for trying so hard to help. Sand swirled around my plane, making it impossible for me to see anything beyond my closed eyes. And, oh, just to see my friends’ faces. . .

In my hallucinations, Striker ran, shouting. He jerked the door open, and I fell into his arms. My last thought,
I hope you know how much I love you, Striker. You can stop searching now.

I was pretty sure I was dead.

THE END

Preview Book Three

CHAIN LYNX

One

D
eath was louder than I expected. I didn’t think there would be any noise at all, only a bright light to guide me. Where were my loved ones who had passed on? Shouldn’t they be here to lead me — to help me transition from the corporeal life to life everlasting? Mom and Dad should be here. My husband, Angel. My dear friend, Snow Bird…but I was alone with the sound of thundering wind and yelling.

My body jolted. Liquid fire saturated my skin. I lay smoldering at the edge of a wide abyss. If I slid an inch to my left, I’d fall straight to the Devil’s door. What did I do to find myself at Hell’s Gate? My mind scrambled. I had indeed committed the worst possible of sins. I’d killed four people in my lifetime. Once in self-defense — a psychopath, Travis Wilson, had stalked me and tried to skin me alive. Surely, God would forgive me my will to live.

The other three were bank robbers. They’d taken twenty-two people hostage. A bullet tore through an elderly lady’s brain. The robber was pressing his Glock to a pregnant woman’s temple, making a show of his ruthlessness for the SWAT team outside. I’d been in the building, armed, on an operation for Iniquus. Protecting innocents was just an extension of my job, and  killing those men were not sins in my mind. But they must have been, and this must be the road to Perdition.

              Something in my soul clung to the idea of justice. Damnation was not the path I would voluntarily roam for eternity. I sensed the Devil, red-faced and gloating, reaching out his craggy hand, laughing as he tried to drag me over the edge. “No,” my mind screamed as I desperately tried to scuttle away from the chasm, the smell, the heat, and the sound. “God, help me. God,
please
help me.”

              As if on cue, peace quenched the inferno that raged through my veins. With the flames from Hell’s threshold extinguished, I floated away from evil into nothingness.

              Time danced inevitably forward. I felt solid again. A bright light assaulted my pupils. Not the light of Heaven’s beauty, but a pen light, checking for dilation.

              “She’s coming around,” the man in a lab coat said.

              Striker’s face came into view. “Lynx? Lynx, can you hear me?”
              I tried to work my jaw muscles to respond. I couldn’t. Something large and hard filled my mouth. The trickle of tears sliding down my cheek was the only signal I could muster. The salt stung my cuts and abrasions and burned my face.

              “Lynx, if you can understand me, squeeze my hand.” Striker used his commander voice, even and authoritative.

              I was loopy, heavily drugged, but that much I could do.

              “Chica, you’re safe. We’re taking good care of you. I need you to keep fighting. Don’t leave me now.”

              Unable to move, unable to speak, I closed my eyes and let myself drift back into the peace of the drugs flowing through my IV.

              I knew that minutes and hours slid by. But it was an awareness that sat in an armchair, reading a book, muttering over the pages from time to time – not an awareness that actually held my attention or made me think. I lay stupefied on my bed. Slowly, I realized that Striker was rubbing a finger up and down my arm, trying to rouse me.

              “Lynx? I need you to open your eyes. Look at me.”             

              I worked hard to comply, squinting up at his face through a morphine haze. I felt the sturdiness and strength of his body beside me. I wasn’t hallucinating him. He was real. Real? Yes, solid. Here. The relief I felt rushed through my body like a tidal wave, floating my emotions to the surface, and overwhelming me. My body quavered under the light cotton blanket.

              As I focused on his face, Striker gave me a slightly crooked smile with a hint of dimples. His gaze,  steady and warm,  held mine, though worry made tire tracks between his green eyes. I breathed in deeply to form a happy sigh, until pain exploded my chest into bright colors, freezing me in place.

              Striker’s thumb stroked over my jaw line. As I exhaled, the pain receded into the background.

              “They’ve taken out your breathing tube. Can you say something?” He tried to hide the hitch in his voice behind a cough.

              I licked my swollen lips. They were crusty and dry under a thick layer of what tasted like Vaseline. It took me a minute and a few false tries to coordinate my tongue and teeth into intelligible words.

              “Chest hurts,” I croaked, toad-like.

              “I’m sure it does, Chica” His vowels and consonants leaped like a gymnast doing floor exercises, swirling and spinning. It was hard to form them into understandable words. “We had to defibrillate you.” His grip tightened around my hand, pinching my fingers together.

              Defibrillate. I let the word condense into a thought. “I was dead?”

“When we pulled you from the plane wreck, you had no vitals. You must have just gone into cardiac arrest, because we were able to bring you back right away.”

              I tried to shift, but my body only moved centimeters. I couldn’t turn my head. I was fastened by some kind of restraint. I let my gaze take in what I could. Plain, green walls. Fluorescent lighting. An IV stand. I wasn’t in the desert anymore. I wasn’t alone anymore.

              “We flew you here to Lackland Air Force Base. You’re in their hospital,” Striker said.

“Texas, then. Not Honduras.”

              “You’re on US soil.” His eyes hardened into his assessing look. “That was one hell of an escape plan.”

              I tried to screw my expression into a wry smile, but my skin wouldn’t oblige. “My face…can I see a mirror?” I hadn’t seen my reflection in a mirror since mid-February, when Maria Rodriguez kidnapped me and hid me in a Honduran prison. It was what — sometime in late June? July?

              Striker locked down his emotions. His facial muscles froze into combat stoicism. What made him brace? I lifted my hands to my head, where my fingers explored the unfamiliar terrain. Bandages and tape crisscrossed over my forehead and down my nose. Scabs, like chicken pox, dotted my cheeks.  Everything felt scaly and tight.

              Striker eased my hands away from my face, moving them gently down to rest on my stomach. “Lynx, I’d rather you wait a little while before you look in the mirror. You don’t look like yourself right now.” His combat mask slipped a little, and I saw the shadow of sadness and concern written in his eyes. No pity, thank goodness. Pity makes me weak.

              “You’ve lost a lot of weight,” he said. “You were only eighty-ish pounds when we brought you in yesterday. Your skin’s pretty badly sunburned. Those sores you’re feeling are from the toxins trying to get out of your system when you were dehydrated.”

              “What else?” My voice cracked. I’d love a sip of water. Some ice chips. I wondered if they’d allow that. Somehow, it felt like too much effort to ask.

              “Broken nose. Broken ribs and sternum. Trauma to your head and spinal column. The head trauma is worrisome because it’s your second major concussion in the same year. The doctors are stabilizing you for surgery. Hopefully that’ll happen in the morning if you continue to improve.”

              “Surgery because?” When I squeezed his hand for support, the tubing and tape from the I.V. pulled at my elbow.

              “They need to rebuild your sternum and re-attach your ribs. You’re strapped to a board right now.” He reached out and rapped on the surface beneath me so I could hear its solidity. “But when you wake up, they’re going to have you in traction for your spine and neck.” His words became gruff when he drew my hand to his lips for a kiss. “Chica, it was a near thing.” Emotions under his skin and behind his eyes fought for expression, but Striker’s steely will held out, and he maintained his control. As always.

              That didn’t mean I couldn’t feel his distress empathically. His energy entwined with mine until I couldn’t tell us apart or tell his pain from mine. One of the many things I hated about ESP.

              “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I couldn’t handle the guilt. This whole fiasco was my own damned fault. Poor decisions. Impulsive behavior. Secrecy. I offered Striker the closest thing to a contrite smile as I could form on my inflexible face.