I braced my right foot under the metal frame of the passenger seat, leveraging every ounce of strength I possessed. I fought. I thrashed like a wild animal caught in a trap. I managed to break Jessica’s hold on my left shoulder, throwing a desperate, blind elbow backward that connected with her cheekbone. She yelped, but her hands instantly found the strap of my baby carrier, pulling me violently toward the gaping hole of the doorway.
Lily’s cries turned hoarse, muffled against my chest as I crushed her to me, trying to make us as small as possible.
“Please!” I begged, looking up at the man who had taught me how to ride a bicycle. “If you hate me, fine! Take me! But don’t hurt her! She’s innocent!”
Jessica let out a sharp, hysterical laugh, the wind tearing the sound from her mouth. “Goodbye, nuisances.”
My father didn’t speak. He stepped over the center console, his face a mask of terrifying exertion. He planted his hands flat against my chest and shoulders.
And he shoved.
For one agonizing, split second, time dilated. I hung suspended in the threshold of the aircraft. I saw the interior of the cabin—the beige leather, the flashing instrument panel, the faces of my mother, my father, and my sister framed perfectly by the open sky. They were not possessed by madness. They were not suffering a psychotic break. I saw the horrifying clarity of their choice. They were choosing to erase us to protect a bank account.
Then, the world flipped violently, and the screaming wind swallowed me whole.
I was in freefall.
Chapter 4: The Green Abyss
There is no elegant way to describe the sensation of falling from the sky. It is a sensory overload so profound that the brain simply short-circuits. The roar of the wind was absolute, a physical pressure attempting to crush my eardrums. The air was freezing, violently punching the breath from my open mouth.
Instinct, ancient and maternal, overrode the paralyzing terror.
I didn’t flail. I didn’t reach for the sky I had just been thrown from. I curled my body into a desperate, hardened shell around Lily. I crossed my arms tightly over her fragile back, tucking my chin down to press her small, wool-hatted head into the hollow of my throat. I became a human roll cage, offering my spine to the earth.
The ground rushed up to meet us with terrifying velocity. I saw a sprawling ocean of dark green.
The forest.
We hit the canopy.
The impact did not come all at once. It was a brutal, staccato series of collisions. We crashed through the highest branches, the thick pine needles whipping across my face like razor blades. A thick branch caught my left leg, spinning my body violently in the air, disorienting my sense of up and down.
The trees didn’t catch us gently. They didn’t save us. They merely acted as a massive, violent brake, shredding momentum through blunt force trauma.
Crack.
Something unyielding slammed into my left side. The impact tore through my ribs with a blinding flash of white-hot agony. My left arm, wrapped securely around Lily’s lower half, snapped against a trunk with a sickening, audible crunch.
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