Free Crashed into Love: Boxed Set by Seline White Page A

plane would grow heavier and heavier. I wished I
could be up there—helping.
    Captain Anderson came over the intercom. “Ladies and
Gentlemen, we are about to touch down in Samoa. We request you ensure your seat
belts are securely fastened and you assume the brace position as marked on your
inflight manual in your seat pocket. Please place your arms above your head and
lean against the seat in front of you. There is no cause for alarm, but we will
be performing this arrival with no landing gear. It will be a little rough, but
nothing we can’t handle. Thank you for your compliance. We shall see you when
we’re on solid ground.”
    Passengers’ voices rose with terror, but most did as
instructed, tucking their neck down, protecting their head with their arms. I
wished I could do that. Facing backward, with nothing to grab, was eerily
lonely.
    Palm trees suddenly replaced the sweeping ocean as
we glided from aqua to soil. The green fronds grew closer, speeding faster and
faster as we ate up the last few meters of air.
    The split moment before we touched down, I took a
deep breath and held it. Gripping my harness over my breasts, I closed my eyes. Please let us survive.
    The plane kissed tarmac with a teeth-clenching
metallic screech. We jack-knifed into the sky again, jarring my neck; ripping
screams from adults and children alike.
    The engines screeched into reverse as the pilots
fought to brake. A hot, agonising slice rippled down my spine from whiplash as
we kangarooed into the air again. A fraction of a moment later we collided with
runway and stayed.
    My vision danced with stars and flecks of light from
the pain in my back, and my hands fell from my harness like limp, uncooked
dough. For a glimmer of time, everything was eerily suspended in empty
blackness as if I was paralysed, but then sound and awareness fast-forwarded me
back to the realm of sensation, and I gasped.
    We were a rocket. A cannonball on a deadly
trajectory.
    Our speed didn’t diminish as we shot forward,
fishtailing, and shrieking. The plane moaned and groaned, rivets popped from
panels, metal buckled and warped. Without the aid of brakes, all the pilots had
to use were flaps, engine, and ailerons. Wind roared and howled as the aircraft
tried to stop. How long was the runway? Would we careen off the end?
    We hurtled toward a bank of ambulances and fire
trucks. Blurred uniformed staff huddled as they watched us blast past.
    Glowing fireworks and sparks rained around us from
metal on asphalt and inch by agonising inch speed relinquished its hold. With a
sound of a dying bull, the plane lurched to a stop, and we balanced
precariously on its belly, before slamming to the left and resting on a wing
tip.
    My breath whooshed from my lungs. They did it! We
were safe. Liam. I wanted to throw my arms around his neck and kiss him. To thank
him for saving my life and a hundred others. If anyone deserved my promise to
be open with someone, it was him. Not only did he fly like me, he saved my life
with his talent. Sure, Captain Anderson had a lot to do with it… but, my body
didn’t tingle around him.
    Samantha and Joslyn looked at me with grey faces,
before breaking into glowing grins.
    “Well, we didn’t die.” Joslyn chortled.
    My body was an over-cooked noodle—rubbery and weak
from adrenaline, but I was the happiest I’d ever been. Nothing like almost
dying to put things in perspective.
    The entire plane erupted into claps and cheers.
    My skin broke into goose bumps at the sheer wondrous
knowledge we’d all been through a catastrophe and survived.
    I unfastened my harness, groaning. My neck was a twisted
cord of contusion and pain. It took a few moments to unkink my spine enough to
stand. Wobbling, I sat again and gingerly wrenched off my heels so I wouldn’t
be unbalanced by the slope of resting on the wing.
    The more I moved, the more lubrication my spine
received, and the agonising hot flashes receded to a dull ache.
    I checked outside the window