Page 106 of Rescued Faith

“Penny! Governor?” He climbed out of his seat and turned. A tree branch dissected the cabin. The branch and pine needles blocked the way. He couldn’t see them.

“Penny!” He dropped to the floor and crawled under the thick limb.

Oh God. Help.

The governor stirred. Groaned. But Penny lay crumpled in the aisle and wasn’t moving. Bryce crawled over to her. Her chest rose and fell. Breathing. That was good.

But that branch. Oh, that was bad. So bad. A thin branch of the tree had impaled her abdomen. Blood seeped through. Thebranch had already broken away from the limb dissecting the plane. But they needed to get her help. Fast.

Bryce moved over to the governor. “Hey! You okay?”

He opened his eyes, blinked. He slowly roused.

“We need to get off the plane. Can you move?” Bryce asked him as he came to.

“I think so.” The governor unbuckled himself, looked down. “Oh no.”

“Yeah.” The governor’s seat swiveled completely around. He turned it to get behind Penny. “What do we do?”

“We need to keep her as steady as possible. Is there anything strong, flat we can use for a backboard?”

While Noble checked the luggage compartment, Bryce took her pulse. It was weak but steady.

The governor came back with a garment bag. “This was all I could find.”

“Lay it down best you can next to her. When I roll her toward me, you slip it under.”

He nodded. On the count of three, Bryce rolled Penny onto her side as smoothly and gently as he could. Noble slid the bag under, and Bryce rolled her back down. She stirred a bit.

“Penny, baby, you need to stay still, okay?” He whispered near her ear, kissed her scraped and dirty cheek. They’d been through so much already. “I’m going to get you home.”

Please, God. Save her.

They used the garment bag to slide her toward the large opening where the door had been and laid her on the ground outside. The governor sank to the dirt, resting against a tree.

“We can’t stay here. The plane could ignite at any time.” And Bryce needed to keep moving. He had to get Penny home.

He’d promised her, and he was going to keep that promise.

“It’s sparking!” The governor stood and backed away.

And the smell of fuel meant—“Back away!”

Bryce scooped up Penny and ran.

They ducked around trees, climbed the incline sloping away from the plane, but the explosion still knocked Bryce down to his knees. He cradled Penny against himself, letting his own body take the brunt of the fall. The governor helped him up. They turned and watched the wreckage burning.

“That should at least make it easier to find us.” The governor looked over at him. “Do we keep moving?”

The sound of a helicopter stilled Bryce. “I think they found us.”

The next hours were a blur of rescue workers, questions, medical assessments, and chaos.

Penny was immediately whisked away and taken into surgery. As soon as Bryce and Governor Noble stepped out of the rescue helicopter, a kid with dark hair and braces sprinted and launched himself at his dad.

Cindy Noble embraced her husband with a wobbly smile and tears streaming down her face. She looked over at Bryce. “Thank you for saving him.” Her voice cracked with thick emotion.

“I don’t know that I can take much credit, ma’am.”

---