Page 3 of An Avalanche Hero Christmas

The flight attendant’s jaw clenched. “If that’s what you want, I’ll be back shortly with—”

“No, I’m coming with you.” The man’s nose ring glinted as he unbuckled his seatbelt and got to his feet. “Let’s go.”

Emily looked like she was seriously considering a career change. She opened her mouth to speak but seemed to think better of it. With a glance in Mallory’s direction, she turned and began to walk down the aisle with the man trailing her.

“Good riddance,” Mallory muttered with a sigh.

The plane trembled again, and she clutched her MediPack, feeling its contents rattling inside. She leaned back against the headrest and let her eyes slide shut, forcing her breathing to steady. Just how much longer would it be until they touched down? Mallory couldn’t wait to get off this flight, not that she was particularly excited at the prospect of spending Thanksgiving or Christmas with her brothers. Looking back on it now, visiting Chicago might have been the dumbest decision she’d made in a while. Why couldn’t she have taken a real vacation as Dr. Grace had suggested? It wouldn’t have helped much, either, but if she was taking this silly sabbatical, she should have opted to spend the time on her own, not around people who didn’t care for her.

Too late now,she told herself. She was already on the flight. Her brothers would be expecting her at the airport. At this point, Mallory’s only option was to pray that Thanksgiving dinner wasn’t too awkward. Whatever the case, the next couple of months would be hell for her.

Better brace yourself,she thought.

No sooner had the thought entered her mind than a sudden, powerful shudder rocked the plane, forcing her to open her eyes. Gasps of surprise from the passengers swept through the cabin.

“What the hell just happened?” she heard a passenger yell.

Mallory sensed the impending chaos before it erupted. Around her, passengers had begun to grip their armrests, uttering prayers as the plane shuddered some more. An elderlycouple held hands. With her heart in her throat, Mallory swept her gaze forward. In the aisle near the front of the cabin lay an unmoving form.

It occurred to Mallory that it was the guy from behind her. Emily, the flight attendant, was kneeling over him, a panicked expression on her face. Over the din that filled the cabin, it was almost impossible to make out what she was saying, but Mallory knew an emergency when she saw one.

Ignoring her own instinct for self-preservation that screamed at her to remain in her seat, she unbuckled her seatbelt and hurried into the aisle, her hand on the zipper of her MediPack as she neared the duo.

“I’m a nurse!” she yelled, hoping Emily could hear her over the chaos that surrounded them. “What happened?”

The flight attendant didn’t even have to respond. The man on the floor was unconscious, bleeding slightly from a cut in the back of his skull. No doubt he’d banged his head against something when the plane hit that patch of turbulence.

It wasn’t turbulence, Mallory,whispered a cautionary voice in her head just as the lights above her flickered.

Around them, barely anyone else seemed interested in the injured man. Most of the passengers were bracing themselves as if anticipating doom. Trying almost frantically to quiet the panic that liquefied inside her chest, she started to open the MediPack. This guy might be a jerk, but this was an emergency. He needed her help, and she needed to keep her mind busy amidst this chaos.

Before she could unzip the pouch, another violent tremor knocked her to one side, and someone screamed, “We’ve lost our wings!”

“Oh, God, we’re all going to die!” another passenger cried.

And then it happened: A sudden jerk filled her insides with a pang as the plane dipped. It took Mallory all of two seconds torealize they were going down and a third to realize she should probably grab onto something. But by then, it was too late. She felt her body lift off the floor as she was catapulted toward the back of the cabin. She slammed into the wall with a grunt, pinned by the sheer force of the plane’s descent like a shoddy reenactment of the crucifixion.

She wasn’t the only one affected. Passengers held on to their seats for dear life. The attendant and the unconscious man were nowhere in sight. Mallory figured they must have hit a seat or something. Blood stained the cabin floor. Mallory couldn’t determine if it belonged to the unconscious man or someone else. Right now, her most prominent thought was their impending death.

This wasn’t turbulence. Whatever had happened, Mallory wasn’t certain, but one thing was clear: Flight 18 was going down and fast. She heard a beeping sound, just barely distinguishable from the cacophony of cries from the passengers. Overhead, the lights continued to flicker. Still flattened against the back of the cabin, Mallory detected streaks of flame outside the windows.

They were going to crash right in the middle of Nebraska.

Oh, God, I should’ve stayed in Vegas.

Right at that moment, there was a huge explosion followed by a great shudder and a grating sound as the plane’s hull came apart, bright light filtering into the cabin. Suddenly, where there had been a wall behind her, the cool surface slowly heating up against her skin, there was nothing.

Mallory didn’t even have time to scream. One second, she was inside the cabin, crushed against the wall, and the next, she was airborne.

Chapter One

“I’m Just a Fae Nurse With a Fanny Pack”

Usually, when people went skydiving, they did so with parachutes strapped to their backs. In Mallory’s case, all she had was a pink fanny pack stuffed with first-aid supplies.

Put simply, she was screwed.

Her body seemed to hover in the freezing atmosphere for a few seconds before plummeting to earth in a rapid spiral, the wind rushing through her hair and ripping at her clothes, howling in her ears, and telling her what she already knew.

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