Think!
His peripheral vision caught sight of one of his men ejecting and being thrust into the atmosphere at a mind-numbing speed.
“Holy Mother of God,” Ethan uttered.
He whipped his head around, frantically searching for the other jets. One was on a dangerous trajectory straight towards NRG Stadium. The others were nowhere in sight.
Suddenly, the calming vibrations of his Hornet he had been accustomed to abruptly stopped, with only the forward momentum of his jet keeping it aloft.
In the next second, he calculated how long he could keep the Hornet in the air. He searched for possible places to crash land.
By now he was in the middle of the metropolitan Houston area, and the only place to crash land was the 610 Loop. Even on a Sunday afternoon, it was clogged with traffic, and if he tried a crash landing, the loss of life would be significant.
His jet was dead in the air, and he’d be too if he didn’t act soon.
He had to eject.
The last thing Ethan saw was NRG Stadium and the surreal image of thousands of cars parked on the stadium lot.
The last thought he had was regret he wouldn’t know who won the Super Bowl.
“Damn,” he whispered. He had a bet with his brother about who would win.
A millisecond later, a bone-breaking explosion captured his entire being.
He didn’t even have enough consciousness left to think this was how he would die.
Ethan’s body went limp, and he succumbed to the blackness surrounding him.
Chapter 4
“Excuse me. Sorry,” Rebecca Smith said. She smiled pleasantly at the people already seated at NRG, who had their knees together and to the side, providing room for her to pass. She awkwardly squeezed past them, holding a drink in one hand, a bag of popcorn in the other while trying to avoid giving the person in the row below a jolt with her derriere.
“Sorry,” she said again, using her best southern charm. She inched down the aisle, planting a fake smile on her face. Someone in the row in front of her stood suddenly, bumped her, sending a cascade of Becca’s salty popcorn on a woman who acted like she had come in contact with a lethal dose of arsenic.
Kinsey, Rebecca’s sixteen-year-old daughter who was following behind her, gasped and turned a bright red rose petal shade of embarrassment at her mother’s clumsiness. “Mom!” she whispered through. “Be careful.” Kinsey lowered her chin, looked left and right, afraid she might see someone she recognized.
Rebecca’s fifteen-year-old son Tyler purposely stepped on Kinsey’s heel. Her shoe came off her foot, she tripped, and nearly spilled her drink. She twisted around and glared at her brother.
“I’m sooo sorry, Kinsey. It was an accident,” Tyler said, raising his voice and putting the emphasis on his sister’s name, in case one of her friends was seated nearby. He got a kick from knowing exactly which buttons to push on his sister.
“Right,” Kinsey said with a big helping of sarcasm. She stuck her finger between her heel and back of the shoe, wiggling it back on.
Rebecca, known as Becca to her friends, was nearing her breaking point and close to exploding into a mother’s wrath. Her children had been bickering all day, and what should have been a day to honor her deceased husband had developed into a migraine. She really needed a strong hot cup of coffee, not the sugary drink she ordered. Her kids had whined about watching the game with their mother instead of their friends, and Becca was considering sending them home in a cab.
Finally reaching their seats, Becca took the middle one to put a buffer between her children who were acting like two-year-olds. Kinsey reached across Becca to grab a chocolate bar from her brother, and in the tug of war the chocolate bar broke in two, sending broken pieces of chocolate on her lap. As Becca was about to scold them for the umpteenth time, she took a big breath and came to the conclusion bickering was a sign of normalcy. After her husband had died, Tyler and Kinsey rarely spoke at all, walking around like zombies and tiptoeing around the house, afraid to upset their mother.
Unless the bickering became personal, she’d let them work it out themselves.
Becca calmly brushed the chocolate off her lap, ate a big bite of popcorn, and washed it down with a gulp of soda. “Let’s try to enjoy the game,” she said. “Your dad would have wanted us to.”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” said Kinsey.
“Me too.” Holding the chocolate bar in his hand, Tyler reached over his mom. “Kins, you can have the other half.”
“Thanks,” Kinsey said. It had been a long time since Tyler had called her Kins, a nickname that had stuck ever since they were kids. Tyler wasn’t able to say her full name when he was a toddler, so instead called her Kins.
Brother and sister exchanged glances of regret at their churlish behavior.
Becca swallowed hard, lowered her chin, blinking away tears forming in her eyes.
Tyler noticed the change in his mom. “It’ll be okay,” he said. He put an arm over his mom’s shoulder. “I know you miss Dad. We all do. You still have me and Kins.”
“I know,” Becca said, sniffling. “And I’m very thankful I have you both. It’s hard without your dad being here.” She dabbed her eyes with a tissue then took a big breath to compose herself. “I’ll be back in a moment. I need to use the restroom.”
“Do you need me to come with you?” Kinsey asked.
“No. I’m okay. Stay here with your brother. I’ll be back before the National Anthem starts. I certainly don’t want to miss it or the kickoff.”
Rising from her seat, Becca apologized again when she shuffled down
