One Rule - No Surrender, page 30
part #2 of One Rule Series
His expression turned wary. "What plan?”
"I'd like to jump out of a plane. I'd like to experience what Dennis did all those years – just once. He used to beg me to try it with him. But I was too scared of dying." She laughed.
Her father wasn't laughing. He looked pissed, which for her was a welcome change from his usual hang-dog expression.
"You said 'jump out of a plane.' Not 'skydiving.'"
"Right." She tried to hold onto her bright smile. "Skydiving involves using a parachute."
"No parachute," he said in a flat voice. "You're talking about suicide, then."
"I prefer to think of it as a fabulous one-way trip."
He stared at her, muscles loosening and tightening on his face, as if he was practicing facial toning exercises.
"You think this is funny?"
"It does all seem like some stupid joke, doesn't it?"
"You're not jumping out of some damn plane."
"You'd rather I walk out in a field and shoot myself in the head?" Tears started down Jamie's face. She slapped them aside. "Or jump off a cliff? Because those are the choices. I'm not going back to the hospital. I made a solemn vow to myself that I would never die in a hospital."
Her dad turned away. She saw his lower lip quivering. He was on the edge of losing it.
"We'll find another way," he said with his back turned to her.
BUT THEY didn't find another way. Instead, the next day they were gazing down from the backseats of Sam's Cessna at the checkerboard squares and circular fields of Heartland, U.S.A. from thirteen thousand feet up.
Jamie felt no fear. She was beginning to feel disassociated from her body, as if she could sneeze and her spirit would go free. Besides, from their height the ground was an abstraction. It looked all warm and fuzzy, she thought, like falling into a flowerbed.
Sam turned to her, his bushy beard nestling in around his frown.
"I can't talk you out of this?"
Jamie shook her head. She glanced at her father. His sad eyes pleaded with her, but she wasn't sure what the plea was.
"A child shouldn't die before her parents," he said. "But I don't need to tell you that."
"No, you don't."
"I don't want you to leave."
"I know." Jamie leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. His bristle scratched. She smelled no alcohol on his breath – just a faint whiff of Old Spice. She'd asked him to refrain from drinking this morning and it seemed that he had.
"Thanks for supporting me," she said.
"I don't feel like I am."
"Here we are," Sam announced.
She and her father looked down. Her ten-acre property now reduced to the size of a postage stamp – the house and shop and garage a trio of Lego structures. Sam circled her tiny kingdom. She shuddered.
"You don't have to do this, Jamie," said Sam, watching her.
"It's okay." She swallowed a deep breath. The air up here made her lightheaded – or maybe it's because I'm hyperventilating? "Just tell me when."
"All right." He gave her a grim smile. "Put on your goggles. Then unbolt your door and slide it to your right until it locks."
Jamie placed the goggles snugly in place. She snapped the door latch and shoved the door until it latched. Cold wind roared in, smacking her face. Fear smacked her as well. As Sam had said, she didn't have to do this. They could land and she could return to her warm bed. An overdose of painkillers and fading away seemed suddenly immensely appealing.
"Not too late, sweetie," said her father.
"I'll be okay." It sounded contradictory, but in that moment she believed it was true. "See you later."
"You got it." Her dad was blinking back tears.
"On the count of five," said Sam. "Five, four, three, two..." He throttled down the engine, and the cool hiss of air filled her head. "One."
Jamie half-stumbled, half-launched herself into the air. She glanced back once. The plane was already a memory – receding like a fast car passing by on a freeway. Then all her attention was on the ground. From their height you'd have roughly two minutes of freefall.
The postage stamp below was swelling in size far too fast. The field she and Dennis had seeded with corn, tomatoes, green beans, summer squash, and spinach every spring was rushing up to greet her. Too fast to think or reminisce, despite the clichés about one's whole life passing before one's eyes. But not too fast for regret – and a sudden and unwelcome burning desire to live. What did the poem say? Do not go meekly into the dark? Rage, rage, against the dying of the light?
She spread her windbreaker. It puffed full of air like a sail, theoretically cutting a few miles per hour off her fall. She'd read about people surviving freefall from planes. Sometimes when Dennis jumped, she took thin comfort in those tales. It was possible to survive. Did she want to survive?
Jamie wanted to consider that question more, but the ground was already at her feet.
She continued her descent in warm darkness.
(END FIRST CHAPTER SAMPLE.)
OTHER BOOKS BY LAWRENCE AMBROSE
THE ONE RULE SERIES
One Rule: No Rules
One Rule: No Surrender
HYPER SERIES:
HYPER: The Novella
HYPER (full novel) April 2017
SUPER WORLD SERIES
Super World
Super World 2 (Coming summer 2017)
BLACK WIDOW SYNDROME SERIES
Black Widow Syndrome
Black Widow Syndrome 2 (Coming)
UNITED STATES SPACE COMMAND SERIES
Animus Intercept
Proxima Beta (coming Fall 2017)
STAND-ALONE NOVELS
The United Tribes
Accidental Bliss
Operation Indigo Sky
My Fairy Queen
The Freedom Preserve
My Favorite Life
The Closet Trip
THE DIVIDED WORLDS SERIES
MOIRA: Abduction to Akrasia, Book One
MOIRA: A Girl and Her Dragon, Book Two
LORILEE: In Moira's Footsteps, Book One
LORILEE: Flight to Zorzen, Book Two
The Divided Worlds, Books 1 – 4
Lawrence Ambrose, One Rule - No Surrender
