Mayhem || B. Bradshaw

Chapter 19

     LIZBETH WOKE UP WITH a start.

     Her duvet hung loosely over her body as her chest heaved up and down, her lungs panting. For each breath escaped a trembling whimper, her heartbeat increasing painfully.

     The thumping soared inside her, each another stab to her heart, refraining her from thinking clearly as the horror of her dreams resurfaced.

     A sob escaped her lips, and she fumbled with her hands to find her pillow, clutching it close to her chest only to find it damp.

     She had cried in her sleep.

     Calm it, Mayhem, Lizbeth let out long and controlled breaths, but they weren't as controlled as she liked to believe.

     She bit her lip, hoping to prevent another sob from breaking through, but it was no good.

     Lizbeth broke down, her pillow strangled between her hands and her chest and abdomen as whimpers and cries wrecked her body, guilt eating up her heart.

     She didn't know when she had awoken, neither did she know how long she was crying before her alarm clock started blaring. Her quivering hand reached out and fumbled about, before she was able to turn it off.

     The light switch was flipped up as well, and Lizbeth managed to force herself out of bed, sniffing as she brushed her tears away.

     The pain soared her body with each thump from her heart, wrecking her feelings like a bouncy ball continuously hitting the floor with a crash.

     When she walked into the bathroom, she refrained from looking at herself in the mirror until she was doing her make-up, hoping that she would be able to get rid of the red-rimmed eyes before today's briefing.

     Luckily, she sat in the back.

     Lizbeth drove the short ride from her apartment and over to the facility, parking her car with sunglasses perched on her nose, even if the sun had barely started to peek over the horizon.

     She didn't even take them off as she walked inside, and up to the briefing room, before finding her seat in the back, watching as people poured in. She waited until everyone was seated before she dared to remove them, hoping that the morning's effort of Googling ways to not look like she had cried paid off.

     Cyclone walked in front of the screens, and Lizbeth found herself missing Maverick more and more. His intense, yet often joking gaze. His fun, but overconfident voice. And most of all, the way he had been terrified of her crashing when she was in G-LOC two days ago.

     There was something about Maverick that gave her a sense of safety.

     "Captain Mitchell is no longer your instructor," Cyclone began, and Lizbeth felt the atmosphere drop, even if they had all already heard about it. "And as of today, there are new mission parameters." The screen changed from two and a half minutes to four. Lizbeth frowned.

     "Time to target is now four minutes," Cyclone informed them, but Lizbeth couldn't help but feel like it was wrong. They would die if they didn't finish at two and a half. "You'll be entering the valley level at reduced speed. Not to exceed 420 knots."

     That was way too slow. Lizbeth had managed to fly through the majority at 540, they couldn't fly at 420. They wouldn't even reach the target before being shot down.

     "Sir, won't we be giving their planes time to intercept?" Bob voiced Lizbeth's thoughts.

     "Well, Lieutenant, you have a fighting chance against enemy aircraft," Cyclone told them, but Lizbeth disagreed. The bandits were fifth-generation aircrafts. They would be dead before they could even blink.

     "What are the odds of surviving a head-on collision with a mountain?" Cyclone continued. "You'll be attacking the target from a higher altitude, level with the north wall. Gonna be a little harder to keep your laser on target, but you will avoid the high-G climb out."

     Lizbeth didn't like this. Not at all. The SAMs would shoot them down at a higher altitude, and even if they didn't, how could their laser get a lock from higher up if they failed from lower? It would be ten times harder to drop blind if they followed through with the new instructions, and the mission would be blown if the laser was dead-eyeing.

      "We'll be sitting ducks for enemy missiles." Lizbeth heard Fanboy whispering to Payback, and she nodded. He was completely right.

     Her attention was drawn back to the screen when the monitor suddenly began beeping and she frowned in confusion as a plane on their simulation appeared on the screen.

      "Who is that?" Cyclone asked as he turned around.

     "Maverick to range control. Entering point Alpha." Lizbeth's heart skipped a beat as the radio crackled. Maverick. A grin spread across her lips, and she had to blink twice just to make sure that she was actually awake. "Confirm green range."

     "Uh, Maverick, range control, uh, green range is confirmed. I don't see an event scheduled for you, sir."

     "Well, I'm going anyway."

     Lizbeth's grin widened, and she sat forward in her seat in anticipation, and muttered, "This is gonna be good."

     "Setting time to target: Two minutes 15 seconds."

     "Two-fifteen?" Payback said. "That's impossible."

     "Final attack point." Maverick's voice echoed through the radio. "Maverick's inbound."

      Lizbeth grabbed her armrests as the image of Maverick's plane on the screen flew through point Alpha, and the simulation began. And he did it flawlessly.

     He set his speed to over 660 knots, and flew through the canyon like no one else had done, embracing every turn, keeping awake and a clear head through the increasing G's.

     "He's sick," Lizbeth whispered in awe as he neared the pop-up, the sound of his grunting and heavy breathing escaping the radio.

     "Pumping in three, two, one," the plane flew up the mountain side, inverted and straightened up again, before the sound of the target lock beeping came through.

      Lizbeth grabbed the seat in front of her, eyes glued to the screen as Maverick's plane dropped the bombs. She slowly stood up without realizing, the apprehension blanketing all her senses, except her ability to look at the screen.

     "Bombs away," he said, before starting the climb. The simulation drew the bombs, and it hit target. Lizbeth gasped.

     "Bull's-eye!" Fanboy exclaimed.

      A grin flashed her face, though it washed away when she noticed that the radio was silent. Her eyes flickered up to the screen, and her face fell at the sight of the G's.

     Maverick had climbed at 10 G's.

      The lack of sounds from Maverick made her heart pump harshly against her chest. Her fingers clutched the top of the seat in front of her, horror growing as Maverick's plane continued to fly up.

      Then finally, it leveled out.

      Lizbeth let out a painful breath, finally allowing herself to relax and feel the victory with the rest of the aviators.

      Though, when Phoenix came down the rows of seats to hug her, she stopped and gave Lizbeth a concerned look. Lizbeth frowned. What's wrong?

     "Liz," she whispered, before embracing her. "What's going on? Have you been crying?"

     Lizbeth's heart dropped, and she understood that her eyes were still as messy as they had been that morning. She let her eyelids flutter shut as she welcomed the warm embrace and relaxed her muscles, before she muttered, "I'll tell you later."