The Gulfstream G4, inbound to the Santa Monica Airport. A plane, Maddy knew, that would soon be at the bottom of the ocean.
Suddenly the private jet banked wildly and climbed, all at once, for a brief moment before stalling into a nosedive. The plane was spinning as it descended, and Maddy had to dive directly down to catch up with it. Her hair tie was long gone. Her hair lashed at her face now, but she didn’t have time to bother with it. It was all happening so fast.
Her shoes touched the metal of the wing, but the plane was spinning, and the wing turned over and over before she realized what was happening. Maddy clutched the wingtip, her wings flailing to regain control of herself. She felt strength she’d never imagined coursing through her veins, every fibre of her being turning to Angel instinct.
Black smoke began pouring from one of the engines. She’d have to move fast.
Inside, oil billionaire Jeffery Rosenberg was already passed out in the cockpit, his body hunched over the wheel, causing the plane to spin wildly out of control. Maddy grabbed the handle on the cabin door and tore at it with all her strength. The exertion sent pain searing through her arms, but the door ripped free of its hinges with a groan and in an instant was gone into the clear blue sky.
Wow. Maddy had of course been taught about the increase in strength and ability during a save, but since an Angel only experiences it during a real save situation, there had been no way to train for it except through simulation. She was surprised that it was both easier and much more difficult than the computer simulations.
Hooking her feet and hands around the door frame, Maddy thrust herself inside the cabin of the jet with a single, powerful burst of strength. Another hot dagger of pain raced down her back as her wings banged against the top of the door frame.
I left my wings out. She retracted the throbbing wings and looked around, holding on to anything she could in the depressurized cabin. Wind violently smacked at her face. Debris of every kind was tearing loose from the cabin’s interior and rocketing past Maddy’s head. She made her way up the aisle and reached the flight deck in one swift move.
Maddy discovered Rosenberg in the cockpit, slumped out of his chair and hanging by his seat belt like a morbid marionette, his face a mask of pain. He appeared to have put on at least fifteen pounds since Maddy had met with him just after her Commissioning, which almost seemed impossible.
His lifestyle was going to kill him sooner than he’d thought.
I didn’t want one that’s half.
She remembered the man’s words, spoken arrogantly and with a wave of his hand, as he answered emails on his smartphone.
Now the words rang in Maddy’s ear as she snapped the seat belt with her bare hands and pulled Rosenberg’s prodigious mass out of the chair. She glanced out of the window and saw the white caps of Santa Monica Bay rushing up at them. She had six seconds at most. Maybe less. Threading her hands under the man’s arms, Maddy dragged him down the aisle and towards the cabin door as the air frame spun and shook uncontrollably around them. She glanced out of another window and saw only churning ocean.
Three seconds.
Then Maddy saw her, crouched against the seat, her eyes a blaze of terror: it was Rosenberg’s assistant. The one Maddy had met as well.
The girl was going to die.
Before she knew what was happening, Maddy had freed one hand and extended it forward inside the cabin.
She cried out in terrible pain, using every fibre of her Angel being. She didn’t know if she’d be able to do it. Time manipulation had never been her strong suit, after all.
Suddenly the water outside the jet, merely fifteen metres away, stopped. The jet didn’t get any closer. The whitecaps froze in place; droplets of seawater splashed up and froze just above the ocean surface. Maddy grunted in concentration, her body shaking and convulsing as she attempted to maintain the local time bend using the technique Susan had taught her. She was doing it!
In a moment Maddy was by the girl’s side, scooping the terrorized assistant up from the floor and over her shoulder. Then, as if in a flash, she was at the door with both Rosenberg and his assistant. The local time bend was starting to shimmer and shudder as Maddy lost concentration.
Come on, just two more seconds, come on, come on.
With an audible growl, Maddy shoved Rosenberg through the gaping cabin door and on to the wing. She jerked the assistant out of the door and gathered the girl under her arm.
Maddy paused only a moment to look at the fast-approaching water as her local time bend began to dissipate. The waves suddenly began rolling across the ocean, the screaming of the diving jet taking over all sound as they careened to doom. A feeling bloomed in Maddy’s stomach that she hadn’t yet felt during the save. It crept up through her chest and sat tingling in the back of her throat.
Fear. Maddy crouched, exploded off the wing, and rocketed directly skyward as the Gulfstream slammed into the Pacific Ocean. The impact ignited the fuel tank, incinerating the plane as it twisted and shattered with a terrible metal shriek. Maddy glided back towards the coast, Rosenberg still over her shoulder, the girl under her arm. A single thought echoed in Maddy Montgomery Godright’s mind as she touched down on the Santa Monica Pier.
That was close.
*
Rosenberg regained consciousness lying comfortably on a stretcher, paramedics tending to him, tourists and onlookers crowding around. He squinted up at Maddy, the pier’s Ferris wheel spinning in the background behind him.
“You gave us a scare,” Maddy said.
The man looked all around, struggling to put the fragmented pieces of his memory together. “What happ— Who are you?” Then he gazed into Maddy’s face again, and recognition flashed across his eyes.
“My God. It’s you.”