Call Sign Karma. Jamie Rae

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ unemotional, mechanical female voice of the jet’s warning system rang out.

      Her words rattled in my head like a pinball looking for its escape. I studied the altimeter screaming toward two thousand feet.

      “Pull up,” her empty voice commanded. Each time she repeated those words, my stomach lurched. That voice, that command, still haunted me.

      I squeezed my eyes closed unable to stop from reliving that day in the tower and how her robotic tone had sent everyone into a panic. I stood frozen, unable to do a damn thing as the jet continued its nosedive.

      My own weight crushed me as if I were being pushed down by the forces of a hard turn in the cockpit. I gasped for oxygen, my lungs rebelling as the image of the jet pitched down. I began counting between breaths to keep from passing out the way they had taught us in pilot training.

      Three.

      The sound of calm breaths from video filled the air. The ground rushed closer as the jet blitzed toward fifteen hundred feet.

      “Pull up,” the voice repeated. “Pull up.”

      Two.

      I leaned forward and my lips parted as if I were going to retch, but nothing spilled out. I forced each breath to prevent me from blacking out like Colin. His calm, sleeplike breaths seeped from the tablet’s speakers, haunting me in its wavelike rhythm. I held the tablet tight in my hands. The breaths were the last sound that I’d ever hear from him.

      “Pull up! Pull up!”

      A giant green arrow flashed across the video. It acted as a forewarning of the jet’s impending impact. My entire body shuddered as adrenaline thrust through my veins.

      I wanted to choke the aloofness from her tone. To the jet’s warning system it was just another jet. To me, it was my world coming to an end. She may as well have tacked the word ‘idiot’ onto her feeble attempt of a warning.

      The military Humvees scrambled on the screen like cockroaches escaping the light. I was paralyzed. I couldn’t do anything to prevent it from happening then. Why did I still hope I could stop it now?

      “Pull up!”

      I closed my eyes.

      It was too late.

      “Pull up!”

      One.

      I opened my eyes. The ground rush on the display was exactly how they described it in pilot training; the world blossomed as earth ripped through to meet you in the cockpit.

      Her vacant voice instructing him to pull up was the last thing to ring out right before my life shattered. Everything exploded into a bright blinding haze on the screen with a blaring detonation. The blood cooled in my veins.

      I flipped the tablet cover and traced my still trembling finger along the lines of the worn material. I had stolen the video from my father’s files the night after the funeral. I had watched it a thousand times, each time reliving the horrors of that day.

      But tonight, once was enough.

      Tonight, I had to figure out how the hell I was going to climb into the cockpit and fly the jet that killed my brother.

      * * * *

      The annual Fourth of July fireworks filled the sky right on cue. Red sparks showered down as the blue lights twirled across the backdrop of an onyx sky. It used to be our favorite family tradition.

      A wave of guilt washed over me then pooled deep in the pit of my belly. How was it fair that I was standing here watching the fireworks, while Colin was buried six feet deep?

      The reflection of the flashing lights off the ocean blinded me. High pitched screams and loud blasts shook the windows behind me as I leaned on the banister of my deck, watching the show, alone.

      The silver ones that whistled were Colin’s favorite.

      My heart pounded at the thought of my tenderhearted brother. I squeezed my eyes tightly together to try to force out tears, but nothing fell. Not a single drop. I had cried so much that I had become numb to the pain.

      My phone vibrated in my back pocket, interrupting the fireworks display. The ringtone of magical chimes followed. I sighed loudly. This was not a call I wanted to take.

      Ignoring my mom wouldn’t make her go away. It would only make her more determined. It was like she had a beacon implanted in my brain to know when I was thinking about my Colin’s accident. I pulled my phone from the back pocket of my cutoff jeans and growled.

      Pink 1 flashed across the screen.

      My thumb hovered over the ‘Off’ button, but I couldn’t bring myself to press it. She would know that I had dismissed her call. My mother knew everything, except when I didn’t want to talk, or maybe she knew, but that still wouldn’t stop her until she ‘heard my voice’. It had gotten even worse since Colin’s death.

      A chime alerted the arrival of a new text message.

      I forced myself to look at the screen and read the words;

      He loved you.

      I let out a long drawn out breath. Her words were always the same.

      I picked up the bottle of sweet brown lager and gulped it. All of it. I reached for another. I twisted off the lid, and spun the tiny metal cap across the deck.

      I wanted to feel Colin’s pain and grief for a life he’d never have. But I couldn’t shed any more tears. I was empty. Broken. There was nothing left of me. The only thing that kept me putting one foot in front of the other was the determination to prove that his death was not due to pilot error. I would prove it, or die trying.

      The phone buzzed again.

      Pink 1.

      I swallowed another drink before I surrendered and answered the call. “Hey, Mom,” I said, my voice higher than usual in a failed attempt to mask my misery.

      “You okay?” she asked with her usual cautious tone.

      “Yeah, I’m great. I’m heading to Krusty’s for dinner,” I lied. “Can I call you tomorrow?”

      “I wanted to hear your voice, sweetie, and wish you luck.”

      Luck? I needed a helluva lot more than luck. Tomorrow, I started training to fly the jet that cremated my brother.

      “Thanks, I’m excited,” I said as another lie slipped off my tongue.

      It was becoming easier to fib to my mother. They just popped out one after another. I was never dishonest as a child, but now it felt like I never told anyone the truth.

      “I’m looking forward to getting started.” The words sounded sweet, but I’d need another lager to wash out the bitter taste. So much for being a pillar of honesty.

      “Oh, Tinklee, you are such a liar,” my mother said. “I know you’re nervous. Who wouldn’t be? I’ll be there, in spirit, and so will he.”

СКАЧАТЬ