Carrion (The Bren Watts Diaries #1)

Chapter 110

ARIA

Day 27: May 5th, Wednesday
The Fall of Albany

The seats were filling up fast.

Aria tried to buckle into her seat, but the belt was broken. Perhaps she wore it wrong, but the seams had been ripped apart, the latch around the buckle creaking weirdly. She tried to call one of the soldiers for help, but he ignored her, making a beeline to join his team in holding the mob back.

"We should leave now! Just leave the lot of them!" An older man in his late fifties cried across from her, fidgeting in his seat. Aria could distinctly recognize his Scottish accent.

The older man grabbed one of the soldiers passing by and screamed at his face, but the soldier merely pushed him back on the seat, spitting a curse she couldn't quite hear. The man wore an expensive-looking suit, Rolex watch around his wrist, and it seemed he had never fought his way to get here, his clothes unmarked by blood and dirt, unlike Aria. Unlike the rest of the people in the helicopter pleading for the pilots to abandon the rest. Beside him, his wife, blonde hair and with surgically enhanced nose and lips, who looked closer to Aria's age, wore a pristine white pantsuit with emerald earrings and silver emerald bracelets. On her lap was a little Yorkie with a tiny pink ribbon on her head, barking at the commotion.

Aria desperately tried to look for Yousef and the others. Some of them must have slipped between the crowd and had gone on board! But there were only twelve people in the helicopter aside from her, and none she recognized. She tried to call out for them, but her voice was lost through the furor.

"I said stay the fuck back, or I'll shoot!"

The captain fired warning shots into the air, but it did not deter them at all. The crowd pushed onward, pulling the captain down into the sea of bodies tangled beneath their feet in crunched bones and blood. More gunfire erupted; the soldiers were firing at the crowd. Bodies fell, and Aria looked away, holding tight onto the seatbelt, trying to block the screams of the dying.

"We should go now!" One of the soldiers cried out.

But there are too many seats left unoccupied, Aria thought. We can't just leave all of them!

A few got past the line of soldiers, two burly men shoving and tackling anyone on their way. The bigger of the two ripped the seat belt off the Scottish man's seat and threw him down the ramp. His wife screamed and went after him, the Yorkie still in her arms. The burly man turned, and he and Aria shared a knowing, grim look. He came for her, but all she could do was hold on to the straps with the seatbelt broken. The man was stronger, dragged her by the arm, and threw her down the ramp like a sack of nothing, and she rolled down to the clamoring mob. The last thing she saw inside was the burly man guiding a woman and three children—probably his family—get into the helicopter and helped them into her now empty seat.

I am going to die here! Aria panicked. Feet stomped from behind, just inches away from her face. She had to get up before these people stepped on her. She crawled, panting, sweating, trying to keep her head down against the gunfire and the screams. She tried to find the stairs off the helicopter pad, but it was too dark and chaotic, the crowd blocking the red-orange pathway lights illuminating the landing area. Then, all of a sudden, the wind picked up. The maniacal whine of the helicopter blades gearing up for take-off reverberated across the landing pad, and the people's cries swelled.

Don't leave me! Aria wanted to scream, but she was exhausted, still desperate to get away from the crowd pressing like boulders against her chest and back, and she could hardly breathe.