THE AIRFIELD LOOKED LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF A FEVER DREAM.
Mailah had expected wreckage. Maybe fire. The smell of fuel and burnt metal.
She did not expect art.
The helicopter—what used to be a sleek corporate aircraft—had been transformed into a grotesque sculpture. The rotors weren't just bent; they were braided together like a child's friendship bracelet, each blade woven through the others in an impossible lattice. The tail boom had been twisted into a perfect spiral, like someone had wrung out a wet towel made of titanium.
And the pilot—
Mailah's stomach lurched.
She turned sharply, burying her face in Grayson's chest before her brain could finish processing what she'd glimpsed inside the cockpit.
His arm came around her immediately, solid and unyielding. His other hand cradled the back of her head, fingers threading through her hair with surprising gentleness.
"Don't look," he murmured, his voice rough. "There's nothing useful for you to see."
