The Little Lightning Girl

51- My Somewhat Rough Greeting to New York

The plane ride would have been easy, almost peaceful, if it hadn't been for the storm winds that hit us as we descended closer to New York. The turbulence hit us first, then clouds, then pounding rain. I clenched my jaw and urged my powers to calm the skies, but the energy in the air was unleashed, tense and uncontrollable. The rain, I managed to lessen enough for the pilots to see better. The clouds thinned a bit, and the wind slowed, but I couldn't stop the plane from jerking around.

For the first time in my life, I wished that instead of storm-related powers, I had engine-related ones. I wished this because twenty minutes away from Manhattan, one engine failed. There was absolutely nothing I could do to fix that. Raegan would've climbed down there and patched the engine with a Bobby pin and a toothbrush. The plane began careening towards the ground, and just a few minutes after the first engine failed, the second one followed suit. The speed at which we were approaching the ground was... alarming, to say the least. Lydia's mother held her daughter tightly and wouldn't let her look out the window. Oxygen masks dropped from the compartments above our seats and I quickly grabbed mine and put in on in a smooth movement. I put Lydia's on for her when her mother was doing her own. I'd expended a great deal of power just calming the weather enough to approach New York. If I knew it wouldn't raise all sorts of suspicion, I would've put the plane in a box of wind, stopped it then and there from moving at all. But I didn't know the extent of whiplash that would cause the passengers, and if the plane hovered for a long period of time with no engines working... the Mist could only do so much. I didn't want to test the limits. Plus, my energy was depleting rapidly just keeping the storm at bay.

I knew I'd have enough energy to float myself to the ground if I got flung from the plane, but I couldn't let all these other people die while I lived. So I closed my eyes and gathered my energy. The pilots likely were confused when a hard pocket of air leveled out their plane. I kept that pocket beneath the plane and used the remaining dredges of my power to force the winds around to slow the plane. It wasn't enough. It wasn't going to be enough.

"Attention all passengers," the co-pilot's voice was frantic as he announced to the cabin, "we are going in for emergency landing on the Hudson River."

I pushed with my powers, with magic, with anything I had left, to slow the plane down. I had the vague sense of the co-pilot still speaking, and of Lydia crying next to me. But I felt it keenly when the plane hit the water. Thank the gods for seatbelts. If it weren't for mine, I'd probably have been flung across and around the plane cabin. As it was, the belt kept me firmly in my seat, but didn't stop my head from violently colliding with the side of the plane. Pain flared hot and bright, and my vision blacked out for a few heartbeats. But once the plane stopped rocking, the lights in the cabin got clearer.

My head was pounding, but I looked to see that Lydia and her mother were safe before reaching up to touch my right temple. Blood covered my fingers, but I forced a breath into my lungs and dropped my hand. The people around that had been screaming were now sobbing. In relief or fear, I couldn't tell.

The next hour was nearly as chaotic as the plane crash itself. With a combination of rafts and lifeboats and policemen driving motor boats, the crew and the passengers got to the island of Manhattan. I stuck close to Lydia the entire time. For a reason I couldn't pinpoint, I was worried about the girl. Unfortunately, I was among the dozen or so passengers that had been labeled 'injured,' and had been carted away to an Ambulance as soon as my feet touched solid ground. I pushed the other injured people in front of me.

It was around four o'clock in the afternoon by the time I sat in the back of the Ambulance to be examined. The head wound was a nasty split on my right temple, and as much as I tried to argue with the EMT that I didn't need stitches, the man didn't agree.