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“What the fuck happened up there?” I say when I find him at his desk. “She’s a fucking beginner.”
Sam stands up. “Listen, Mr. Maddox, we’ve never had a main chute fail in a beginner jump before—”
“I don’t give a shit,” I say. “You just had one. Who packed her chute?”
“Mr. Maddox, her reserve chute clearly deployed exactly as it was meant to—”
“Fuck the reserve chute,” I yell, cutting him off again. “It shouldn’t have been necessary. You could have killed her.”
I hear Selene running up behind me. “Ronan,” she says. “Stop.”
“No,” I say, a hard edge to my voice. “You sent her up there with a faulty chute. A fucking beginner.”
“She was completely safe,” Sam says. “Our ground crew was in constant contact, relaying instructions, and Selene handled herself perfectly.”
“She was not safe!”
Selene puts her hand on my arm but I shrug her off. I’m so angry, I want to kill these assholes. I whip around and rip my jumpsuit off, tossing the last of the gear on the floor as I make my way to the exit. I have to get the fuck out of here before I hit someone.
I sit in my car, gripping the steering wheel, until Selene comes out a few minutes later. She gets in the car and fastens her seat belt.
“Ronan—”
“No.” I don’t want to hear her tell me she was fine. She was not fucking fine.
She closes her mouth and sits back in her seat. I start the car and drive out of the parking lot, heading toward the freeway.
Selene is quiet on the drive back to Seattle, looking out the window with her fingers resting against her lips. I almost can’t look at her. The quick glances I take out of the corner of my eye make me feel like I’m going to lose control and panic again.
Logically, I know Selene was okay the entire time. A reserve deployment isn’t uncommon, although it’s unusual in a beginner jump. I’m still livid that they gave her that chute. An experienced jumper can handle a reserve deployment. It happens to anyone if you jump often enough. I’ve had five, but I’ve jumped hundreds of times. But she never should have had to face that.
But logic doesn’t fucking matter. I saw her. She was free-falling well past the right altitude. If she hadn’t been able to get her reserve chute to deploy, if anything else had gone wrong, she would have crashed to the ground, breaking every bone in her body. The image of her lying on the ground, bloody and broken, won’t leave my mind.
I can see it all: The blood marring her face. The limbs at odd angles. Her blond hair matted.
No. Selene doesn’t have blond hair. That was Chelsea.
Fuck, I’m losing my mind. I haven’t let myself think about that in years. Now the vision of Chelsea mingles with the nightmare of Selene hitting the ground. I can’t separate them. I turn, forcing myself to look at Selene. She’s not dead. She’s not hurt. She landed perfectly. But I blink, and the image is there. Pain. Blood. Death.
I can’t get it out of my head.
