Mirror of My Soul by Joey Hill (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

Her father’s weight on her arm flipped Marguerite forward, ruined the twisting dive that would have set her up better.

When she practiced Atmonauti maneuvers, she focused on the number of flips and turns and calculated their speed so she could release the chute at the right moment.

Jumping from a plane at ten thousand feet, she would deploy her chute around three thousand feet to handle any unexpected incidents. From the top of this building, she had eight hundred feet, which meant she needed to deploy her chute immediately.

With one of her arms wrapped hard around Natalie’s back, her other hand captured by the person doing his best to kill both of them, she had no hands free.

There was no wind resistance between the buildings, just dead air for the free fall drop. But then they rolled over and that quick moment threw Natalie full against her.

Marguerite blessed gravity as the child wrapped her arms and legs around Marguerite’s body. Not giving herself a moment to think about the fact she was relying totally on the little girl’s survival instinct to hold on to her, she let go of her to release the chute.

The violent jerk upward yanked her father’s weight against her. A scream tore from her as he broke two fingers of her left hand. Reaching across Natalie’s back under her own arm, she pulled her rigging knife from its holster and flipped out the marlinspike with a touch of the spring. She saw a flash in her father’s eye, his struggle to do something in the space of a heartbeat, but this was her element. She pulled, turning her body, praying for Natalie to hold on as she strained to reach him. She jammed the spike into his hand. Blood sprayed and she did it again. He let go of her with a feral snarl. The sudden loss of connection spun Natalie in the air as their struggle dislodged the child, but Marguerite let go of the knife, caught her forearm and yanked her back against her.

Natalie regained her clutch on her with all four limbs, just as Marguerite had held on to David so many years ago.

She was too late to set them up for a good landing. The chute had twisted at the beginning, then righted itself out. That and her struggle with her father had wasted 177

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seconds they needed for Marguerite’s skill to slow them down and save their lives. And the heading was taking them straight toward the opposite high-rise, a wall of glass and metal.

* * * * *

Tyler brought the car to a hundred and eighty degree stop next to Mac at the same moment Violet’s husband shut down the motorcycle. Leaping out of the car, he looked up to see three figures go over the edge of the bank building, the child’s thin screams reaching them like innocuous bird calls.

No, no, no. This wasn’t happening. He saw the tumbling, watched Marguerite,

saw…

“She’s wearing her chute!” He looked around, his mind rapidly gauging their

descent and bolted across the street. When he reached the storefront he found Mac beside him, already understanding. Tyler blessed the keen mind of a good cop.

This section of downtown Tampa was a ghost town on weekends, having no

shopping or hotels in the immediate area. However, the nearby office building had an ice cream shop on the ground level that, when open for business, had an awning that covered the fifty-foot spread of sidewalk. Both men yanked on it, swearing against the mechanical lock. The clasps burst loose and they were backpedaling, taking it out, putting down the retractable poles, each man taking a corner to hold it steady against the impact that could quite conceivably split the fabric. But it was commercial-strength, heavy. If she could just slow them down… She had the skills, if she’d just look down and see the awning in time…

She got the chute open, yanking them back up. One figure broke away from the

tangle. The sun emerged abruptly from the clouds, blinding Tyler a moment before he saw the twisted strands of the chute resolve themselves, the spread of nylon open up.

They were coming down much too fast, with none of the steady control and direction he’d seen in that video. She was holding on to a frightened child and had wasted precious seconds dislodging her attacker. It was going to take a miracle to save her.

Tyler started praying for one.

* * * * *

If you need me, want me, I’m there for you.

It was a ludicrous time to think of Tyler’s promise, but there it was. Marguerite felt the chute start to slow their descent, but it was too late. They were going to land hard.

She looked down again, trying to scope her best landing point for Natalie.

The blue and white stripes of an awning that she was sure had not been there a moment ago spread below her like a beacon. She angled her body, feeling the pull of the sheets, the air, the manner of their descent. Shutting out all else, she focused on just getting them to the ground, getting Natalie home. As the child’s nervous gasping made 178

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her neck moist, she raised her legs, twisted, trying to position them as well as possible for the inevitable impact with the opposite building. Keeping tight hold of Natalie with one arm, she quickly snapped the buckles on the chute. The glass wall of the fourth-story level filled her vision. Curling her arm around Natalie’s head and shoulders, she ducked her face into the child’s hair.

The impact was like being thrown against the side of the SUV by the mugger, if his strength had been enhanced tenfold by steroids. She heard Natalie’s scream, the thud of the glass, the chink of a crack. Felt bones break in her shoulder area, the area that had