Daria made to follow them, but Anthony grabbed her by the arm. “She’s fine. We need to talk.”
Daria stopped fighting, but she didn’t take her eyes off the cluster of action surrounding her sister. “She’s safe now.”
“Yes,” confirmed Anthony.
“Med will take good care of her,” added Elliot. “They are way overprotective of their people—and that includes Zayna now. They won’t let her or anyone around her come to harm.”
“I know.” Daria took a breath. “I trust you. I know you probably don’t believe me—I’m a double agent, after all. I’m pretty untrustworthy, as trustworthy goes.”
“But you did the right thing in the end,” said Elliot encouragingly. “You took us to where we needed to go. Your sister’s safe now.”
“We’ll get her the help she needs,” added Anthony.
Daria smiled ruefully. “I know you will.”
“We will,” Elliot corrected her. “You’re one of us now, remember. You’re DVM, too.”
Daria glanced away from them, back to the shore. “The whole reason I became a double-agent was because I didn’t want my sister to be one of the bad guys. But being a good guy myself? I didn’t really expect that.”
“There are worse outcomes,” said Anthony. He sounded strange—almost as if he was being careful with his words. Elliot glanced at him.
“I probably should believe you,” said Daria. “But... no.”
It happened so fast that Elliot only felt the jab to his stomach long after Daria had done it. He doubled over, the breath leaving his body in a sharp gasp, and heard Anthony grunt at the same time.
People shouted and ran past him. When Elliot looked up again, Daria had jumped back on the helicopter and was already taking off.
Anthony was after her before he’d even fully recovered, given the way he slouched as he ran. He wrapped his arms around the landing skid of the helicopter as it lifted into the air. Elliot raced after him, but he was too late.
“Anthony!” yelled Elliot. “Let go before you fall and kill yourself!”
“Sorry, can’t help you now! I’m working!” yelled Anthony, struggling to get into the helicopter. It wasn’t going well; the helicopter rocked from side to side, though whether that was because Anthony’s weight threw off the balance or because Daria was actively trying to get rid of him, Elliot didn’t know.
Elliot frantically scanned the area before he spied the jet packs stacked to the side of the landing strip. He raced over and picked one up.
“Sir, are you trained on those?” someone shouted.
“Nope!” Elliot yelled back as he pulled it on. It was surprisingly light. “Which button do I press?”
“Red, but if you’re not trained on them, sir, I can’t let you—”
Elliot pressed the red button, and shot straight up into the sky.
He screamed—because what else did one do when they were suddenly fifty feet above the surface where they’d been standing a second before?—and let go of the button, only to drop another twenty before he hit it again.
“USE THE YELLOW BUTTON!” screamed the guy on the ground.
A moment later, Elliot had control of the jet pack, and zoomed straight for the helicopter. Anthony still clung to the landing skid.
“Just hold on,” muttered Elliot, as he got closer. The helicopter moved fast—but Elliot moved fast, too. The helicopter still rocked back and forth. Both side doors were open; Daria had probably been too busy with departing quickly to close them.
I could get in there and stop her, he thought. It felt like a good plan, too. It’d work, if Elliot trusted himself to turn off the jet pack for a landing, and not accidentally either zoom right through the open doors, or worse, accidentally blow all three of them up in the meantime.
Well, I lived this long, thought Elliot. That’s already longer than Anthony expected. If I’m going to die on a mission, might as well do it as a hero and get on Bea’s wall.
Elliot took a breath, readied to cut the jet pack’s power, aimed for the open doors...
Just as the helicopter gave one final lurch to the side.
Anthony fell.
Elliot swooped and grabbed Anthony by the waist. The extra weight’s effect on the jet pack’s propulsion was immediate; they dropped twenty feet, enough that Elliot would have lost his lunch, had there been any lunch to lose.
Anthony, however, wasn’t phased in the slightest. He twisted in Elliot’s arms and slammed his open hand against the red button, which sent an extra burst of speed to the jet pack, sending them back up towards the helicopter.
“What the hell, Anthony!” yelled Elliot.
“Aim for the open door!” Anthony yelled back.
It took every ounce of Elliot’s energy to do it—but he flew them both through the open doors of the helicopter—and thankfully, not through it, as Anthony also hit the quick-release button at exactly the right moment. They both slammed to the floor as the jet pack continued out the other side, falling gracefully to the ocean below.
Where it promptly exploded.
“Holy shit,” swore Elliot, staring at the burst of flames as they fizzed out against the waves.
“Those are extremely unreliable,” Anthony told him.
“Oh for crying out loud,” groaned Daria in the cockpit, right before she rolled the helicopter to its side. Elliot let out a yell and grabbed hold of the nearest seat; Anthony did the same.
“Seat belt!” yelled Anthony. Elliot saw how Anthony worked his way up into the seat, pulling the straps into place around his torso. It wasn’t hard to copy him.
Once he was strapped in, it was easy to grab the helmets with the built-in radios.
“Elliot,” said Anthony calmly as soon as Elliot’s helmet was on, “what did you do that for?”
“I—” Elliot blinked. “I was saving your life.”
Anthony stared at him. “Why?”
Elliot’s mouth dropped open. “Why? Are you serious? Because you were hanging off a helicopter and about to drop into the ocean?”
“The Med is a sea,” called Daria over the intercom.
“That’s not the point,” said Elliot. “You needed help, and I’m your partner. Did you really think I was going to stay on the carrier when you needed me?”
Anthony still stared at him. His mouth opened, and then closed again, as if he was thinking better of his first response.
“Oh, right, sorry,” said Elliot. “I forgot. You don’t need help, you’re Anthony Dare.”
“That’s not—” began Anthony. He took a breath and started again. “You saved my life.”
Now it was Elliot’s turn to stare. “I... maybe?”
“You used a jet pack to fly after me while I clung to a helicopter.”
“Yeah?” said Elliot.
“That was completely ridiculous,” yelled Anthony. “You don’t even know how to use a jet pack!”
Elliot’s mouth dropped open. “Now you’re admitting something’s ridiculous?”
“You could have died!”
“Well, someone had to suggest to stop thinking of this shit as ridiculous!” Elliot yelled back. “So maybe going after you with a jet pack wasn’t such a terrible idea after all!”