When Cade saw the woman on the passenger side open her door, he ran toward the car yelling for her to stay inside it. She stared at him dazedly for a moment, noticed that the man beside her was bleeding, unconscious, and slumped between the steering wheel and the driver's door, and freaked out. The power line was slapping itself frantically around the car as the woman screamed, opened the door wider, and got out of the car, but she couldn't run. Her gashed and bloody left leg gave out and she tried to crawl, but chances were just too good that the power line would hit her. Cade saw a stave from a broken pallet and grabbed it on the way to the car. It was one of the spine boards; hard wood with half a dozen slats still stuck to it. He almost dove over the front of the car and managed to bat the power line aside from the woman twice as she continued crawling, unaware that he was there. Then the power line slapped the side of the car and rebounded so quickly that Cade had no chance to swing at it. He could only brace the stave crossways in front of the oncoming power line and hope things would go well. The heavy line smashed through the wooden stave and hit Cade's chest like a baseball bat, knocking him flat and slapping him twice more across the chest and legs. With each smashing slap, the line sent massive amounts of electricity through Cade to the ground. He was barely conscious enough to see Mandi grab the cable and wrestle with it to prevent it from slamming him again, then he passed out. Someone was patting his face and calling his name. He opened his eyes to see Mandi kneeling beside him. Behind her he saw the power line knotted around around the broken pole. "Hi," he said. "Thanks. It was gonna get me again." "Everything's okay now. How do you feel?" Cade gave that some thought, then flatly said, "Ow." Chuckling, Mandi asked, "Can you move?" "Damned if I know. Gimme a minute and I'll find out." Although his arms and legs were still jangling from the electricity, they shakily lifted and moved a bit on command. "Guess so," he said, trying to sit up. That didn't work the first time, but he was able to roll over and lever himself swayingly upright in front of her. "I've been better, but I think I'll survive." "Great," said Mandi, "We need to get moving," and without ceremony she picked him up and launched into the sky some distance before he heard Andrea ask, "How is he?" "Just barely alive, ma'am," said Cade. "Nice of you to ask, though." Mandi snorted a short laugh as Andrea came into view and peered down at Cade. "Did anybody get a good look at us?" she asked Mandi. "I don't think so," said Mandi. "The pickup driver was dead, the car driver was unconscious, and the girl was halfway across the parking lot by the time I secured the power lines. Nobody came near the car before I lifted with Cade." "Sneaky angels," said Cade.