“Dad!”

Kevin jerked his head in the direction of his daughter’s cry. His eyes had trouble focusing on her due to the thick smoke and dust. There was so much dust in the air that had he not felt the force of gravity upon him he wasn’t sure he could tell which way was up. “Where are you Becca?”

“I found Her!”

“Her?” Her tone wasn’t one of panic. This put him a bit more at ease but given the gravity of the situation it didn’t help much. “Who’d you find?”

“Sup-Her. Dad, she isn’t moving.”

That fraction of ease he had felt a heartbeat before evaporated. What took its place was a feeling of dread. “Becca be care-”

Becca screamed “Dad!”

With a fresh pump jolt of adrenaline Kevin got his legs pumping again as the stumbled over the rough and strewn terrain in the direction of her voice. He had to fight to keep himself upright as his ankles seemed to find their way into and every little pit and hole. He almost tripped himself over what he could have sworn was the remains of somebodies skull.

Becca called out thus allowing him to refocus himself in her direction, “She is still breathing.”

The winds also changed just then and cleared the smoke between him and his daughter. Seeing that she was but another dozen feet away he came to a stumbling halt onto his knees next to her. His farmer’s overalls took the brunt of the abrasion and so as much as it burned he didn’t think he had split any skin. He blurted out, “Wait! She can kill you with just her eyes!”

Becca snapped her hand back which had been hovering near the woman’s face. She looked as if she willed down her fears as she reached out again, “I remember seeing the videos about that but it was a rare thing. She only did that in extreme situations.”

Kevin reached for his daughter’s hand and clasped it in his own. “She is unconscious Becca. She might not be clear of mind right now.” Thankfully Becca didn’t resist her father’s protective hold on her.

Another fragment from the large passenger plane struck the ground a few feet behind them. A small mound of dirt exploded outward and struck their backsides.

Kevin started pulling on his daughter’s hand away from the scene, “We have to get out of here.” His eyes then saw the look in his teenage daughters eyes that reminded him of his late wife and knew he had lost even before the words came out of her mouth.

“No Dad, we have to help her.”

Still he tried, “She just survived the explosion of an airplane at 30,000 feet as well as the impact into the ground. She doesn’t need our help.”

Yanking her hand out from her fathers, “I’m not leaving her like this.”

Fear was starting to take over Kevin’s thought process. “Somebody is going to come looking for her.”

“I know and that is exactly why we need to keep her hidden.”

“Somebody is going to come asking questions… This isn’t our problem Becca!” The adrenaline in his body got another surge at the thought of the Federal suits showing up and figuring out what had happened. “You don’t know the shit storm that is going to come with us getting involved.” He looked at the woman once known to the world as ‘Sup-Her’. “I don’t she wanted the world finding her otherwise why would she have disappeared the way she did?”

Becca whipped her face toward her fathers and stared him down. “Which is exactly why we are going to help her remain hidden.”

“How?”

Becca blinked and then looked back over towards the house. “I think I have a plan.” She started to get up and ran back towards the house, “Stay with her.”

“This is stupid Becca, how do we know we are doing the right thing?”

Becca yelled back, “Because I know we are doing the right thing.”

“Yeah but how do you know?”

She paused her running and faced him. “Woman’s intuition?” She then turned and started running again on the uneven ground.

Kevin watched as his daughter, his pride and joy, his whole reason for living, raced off towards the house. Even if he wasn’t ready to accept it he knew she was growing up on him. She was strong, like her mother, and it was only a matter of time before he couldn’t protect her anymore. The wind changed direction again and obscured her from his sight. Cursing the fates he turned to face the woman lying still beside him.

“What’s your story? I don’t know what’s going on here but if you’re showing up ruins my daughter’s life so help me I will…” He paused not knowing what he would do. He knew Sup-Her was a good woman by all of her acts of heroism. Her arrival had changed the world, some still doubted if it was for the better. Her sudden disappearance all those years ago only further extended the shadow of doubt over the whole thing.

Kevin stirred out of his mind space as he heard the rumbling of Becca’s small pickup truck. She turned it around and backed in towards him now that the winds had changed once more and afforded her the visibility. He yelled out as she came to stop, “What are you thinking?”

She got out and went to unlatch the cargo bed which showed she had thrown in a dolly into the back along with a length of rope. “Help me get her in the back.”

Kevin stood beside his daughter, “Then what?”

“I will get her away from here.”

“You ain’t answering my question.”

She avoided looking at him directly as she started rolling the dolly over towards Sup-Her, “I will come up with something.”

Kevin grabbed the rope and followed her over.

They both kneeled beside Sup-Her but Kevin was the first to reach out and touch her flesh. He pulled in back quickly as if fearing his fingers would suddenly burst into flame or something. Becca caught his look and he found himself answering, “I’m fine, I just didn’t know what to expect.”

She then reached out and started sliding her body onto the dolly and as Kevin started tying her to it. He knew the ropes were a joke and that should the woman wish she could snap out of them as if they were made of party balloons. Still somehow it helped even pretending it provided some means of protection from a stray arm whipping.

Kevin then thought about the impending swarm of Federal agents who were probably already aware of the crash. “I don’t know about all this. Agents are going to be swarming all over this place-”

Becca cut him off. “Dad. Trust me, I have a plan.” She started pulling the dolly back over towards the truck, “Can you help me get her up?”

He nodded, “What about truck tracks and-”

“Drive your tractor over my prints saying you were trying to look for survivors.”

“What am I going to say about you?”

They gave one good heave and got the dolly into the back of the truck. Inhaling sharply Becca gave him a big grin, “Just tell them I’m off doing my homework.”

Kevin nodded as Becca moved to get into the front cab, “Get it and I will drive over my existing tracks and drop you off at the house.”

Getting in, “I don’t like any of this Becca. You can’t trust them, they are going to know. I’m sure they are already going to know she was on that flight-”

Becca started pulling the truck forward, “Dad! Trust me Okay? All you have to say is you were inside when the plane exploded and didn’t see anything. Don’t commit to anything else. That way you are covered by your ignorance. I will handle the rest.”

That didn’t sit well with Kevin, his daughter was risking her life for something she didn’t need to be sticking her nose in. “What makes you so certain that when she wakes she isn’t going to rat you out and I don’t mean intentionally either?”

Becca stopped the truck up closer to their house and looked over to her father. “I don’t know…” Kevin was slow in opening his door to the uncertainty of it all. “Call it faith, call it intuition, call it an educated guess…I just know she isn’t going to do it. I just know deep down, regardless of what was printed since her disappearance, that she never was the villain.”

“How do you know all that?”

Becca gave him a reminiscent smile, “You remember… my sixth grade report…”

Kevin cursed himself in forgetting. It was the report she had been working on when her mother died. He had forgotten how much digging and research the two of them had done together in preparing for it. The fact that Becca’s mother had passed away while helping their daughter with a report on Sup-Her coupled with today incident left him in a state of emotional paralysis.

Becca took her hands off of the wheel and made a shooing motion with her hands. “If the government is going to know then the satellites are going to start focusing in on this and I need to make sure I’m as far away from here as possible.”

That got Kevin moving again. He got out and closed the door but not before half sticking his head back in through the open window. “If I lose you-”

“You won’t dad. I got some ideas and right now time is off the essence. Now step back.” He did and she stepped on the accelerator again and turned down the dirt road leading from their lot down to the main road. It was only after she got her truck up onto the asphalt that Kevin snapped himself out of his delusions and half ran over to his tractor.

EoC – 01