1 I was about to cross the Atlantic with the life-saving matched targeted drug when my husband’s ex-wife suddenly rushed into the aisle. With red eyes, she flashed the international distress signal, thumb tucked inside a clenched fist, to the air marshal. My mother-in-law was clinging to life in the ICU. To seize the golden three-hour window for her surgery, I fought tooth and nail to protect the medical cooler, shoving the ex-wife into the lavatory and locking her in. I didn’t waste a single second delivering the drug to the operating room. We pulled my mother-in-law back from the brink of death. But because she was arrested for filing a false report and endangering aviation safety, my husband’s ex-wife sank into depression and took her own life in prison. On the day my mother-in-law was discharged, my husband lured me to the rooftop of the hospital and pushed me off without a shred of hesitation. “Seraphina was just too kind! She was only worried about everyone’s safety on that flight! How could you treat her like a terrorist?” I shattered onto the pavement below. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back in the cabin, with the air marshal’s baton drawn, closing in on me. This time, I didn’t struggle. I knelt, hands over my head, cooperating fully. “Officer, I suspect this box might be dangerous too. For everyone’s safety, please run a full bomb threat check immediately!” Whatever. Once we land, the person rotting in the ICU waiting for a surgery that will never happen isn’t my mother anyway. The air marshal pinned me against the cabin wall, my arms twisted painfully behind my back. That was the moment I knew I had actually traveled back in time. My husband, Oliver, was shielding Seraphina, his face painted with protective tenderness. “Don’t be scared, Seraphina. I’m right here. You’re safe.” Dressed in a pristine white maxi dress, Seraphina shrank behind Oliver like a startled fawn. Under the air marshal’s wary gaze, she pointed a trembling finger at the thermal cooler clutched in my arms, tears streaming down her face. “Officer, she has hazardous material! She’s trying to kill everyone on this plane! I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. I had to speak up!” The marshal’s expression hardened. He radioed for backup and snapped a plastic zip-tie around my wrists, shoving me rough against the paneling. I took a deep breath, keeping my voice deadpan. “Officer, this is a misunderstanding. I flew to Boston to collect matched targeted stem-cell drugs. This cooler contains life-saving medication for my mother-in-law in London. It’s not a bomb.” The officer stared at me, eyes filled with deep suspicion. In my past life, my mother-in-law had been genuinely kind to me, so a part of me still wanted her to survive. “Officer, she’s been placed on life support, and the hospital has issued three critical condition notices. Please inspect it quickly. If the temperature seal is compromised for too long, she won’t survive the night.” Hearing this, Oliver instantly barked at me: “Cut the crap, Gemma! The doctor literally called ten minutes ago and said Mom’s stable in the ICU! You’ve been acting like a manic wreck this entire trip, and now you’re cursing my own mother to die?” Seraphina’s eyes flickered. Seizing the moment, she adopted an expression of deep, sorrowful realization. “Did you hear that, Officer? His mother is perfectly fine, yet she’s putting on this frantic, life-or-death act! Look at how wild her eyes are. She’s definitely hiding something malicious! I can’t let any potential threat to innocent lives slip by!” Staring at the security guard’s taser, I didn’t scream, cry, or lose my mind like I did in my previous life. Instead, I calmly walked with the airport security team to the screening room to undergo a thorough inspection. Half an hour later. I presented every single prescription, purchase receipt, and international medical permit. After verifying the documents, the lead officer gave Seraphina a harsh, stern lecture on the legal consequences of making false reports and disrupting public order. Seraphina’s eyes welled with tears, but her jaw remained stubborn. “Officer, I only did it for everyone’s safety! What if there really was a threat and no one had the courage to speak up? Even if I’m misunderstood, I will always choose to protect people!” The officer rolled his eyes, a gesture completely lost on Seraphina. Before leaving, she didn’t forget to bow deeply to the exhausted security team, her voice dripping with sweet, angelic sincerity. “Thank you for keeping us safe, officers. You work so hard to fight crime. Please take good care of yourselves!” Once we stepped out of the security office, Oliver didn’t blame her at all. He pulled her into a comforting embrace and glared at me. “Gemma, what’s with the attitude? Seraphina is fragile. She only reported you because she was genuinely terrified! It’s your own fault for acting so sketchy and scaring her in the first place!” I looked at his self-righteous face and spoke in a flat tone. “Oliver, because of your ‘precautionary measures,’ our flight has already taken off without us.” 2 To catch the next available flight, we had to sprint through the massive airport terminal. I ran at the front, clutching the medical cooler. Seraphina, in her long white dress, stumbled behind, panting heavily. “Gemma… why are you running so fast… wait for me…” I stopped dead in my tracks, turning to glare at the lagging couple. “Why am I running? Because of you! We had plenty of time on the way to the airport. But you just had to spot a dead stray cat on the curb, force the driver to pull over, dig a grave, and hold a mini-funeral for it! You wasted thirty minutes!” “And then you pulled that stunt with security! If we don’t run now, we’ll miss this flight too. Do you actually want to save Oliver’s mother or not?” Hit where it hurt, Seraphina’s tears cascaded instantly. She clutched Oliver’s sleeve, looking utterly devastated. “Oliver, I’m so sorry… I just can’t stand to see animals suffer. Every life is equal, even a stray cat’s… How can Gemma be so heartless…” Oliver’s heart melted. He shielded Seraphina behind him and snapped at me with absolute irritation. “Gemma, that’s enough! The doctors said Mom is stable! What are you rushing for?” “Seraphina has the heart of a saint. She can’t stand seeing animals hurt. What did she do wrong? She’s willing to put herself on the line for others, while you’ve been acting like a bulldozer this entire trip!” I let out a cold laugh. “Oliver, the person we are flying to save is your mother.” “You think I don’t know that?!” Oliver snarled. “If she’s my mother, why are you rushing like the grim reaper is chasing us? Are you hoping she dies?!” I shut my mouth, refusing to waste another breath on this hopeless idiot, and boarded the plane. Of course, once we got on, Seraphina found another way to cause a scene. Her assigned seat was across the aisle from us, but she insisted on swapping seats with a passenger, demanding to sit right between Oliver and me. “I can’t. I’ll panic if I sit alone. I need to be next to Oliver…” The flight attendant tried to explain the seating policy, but Seraphina refused to budge, standing in the aisle with tear-filled eyes. Eventually, amid the annoyed groans of the surrounding passengers, Oliver stepped in to guilt-trip the poor passenger next to me until they finally gave up their seat. Sitting triumphantly between us, she wrapped her arm around Oliver’s, casting a smug, provocative glance my way. I didn’t even give her a second look. I slipped on my sleep mask and leaned back. Because of all these delays, the window for my mother-in-law’s surgery had shrunk to almost nothing. 3 Once the plane reached cruising altitude, we hit a pocket of turbulence. The cabin jolted violently. Beep The medical cooler in my lap let out a faint, high-pitched mechanical hum as its internal cooling system adjusted to the vibration. Hearing the beep, Seraphina, who had been secretly watching me the whole time, flinched. It was as if some loose wire in her brain had suddenly sparked. “Oh my god! No!” She threw off her blanket and leaped up like a lunatic, pointing a trembling finger at the cooler in my arms, screaming hysterically. “That’s a bomb timer, isn’t it?! That’s why you lied about his mom dying! That’s why you were acting so desperate to smuggle this box onto the plane!” “No! I won’t let you do this! Everyone, run!” She lunged at me. Her sudden shriek instantly jolted the dozing passengers awake. Seraphina pinned me down, sobbing uncontrollably as she made her dramatic accusation to the crowd. “I get it! You’re jealous because Oliver has been looking after me during this trip! You think he still loves me! You let your jealousy turn into hatred, and now you want to blow up the plane and take everyone down with you!” She wept beautifully, looking like a tragic saint willing to sacrifice herself for humanity. “But Gemma, these passengers are innocent! If you hate me, I’ll beg the captain to open the cabin door right now! I’ll jump! I’ll give my life to save everyone else, just please spare Oliver and these innocent people!” Terrified out of their wits by her theatrical performance, the passengers panicked. They scrambled away from us, screaming for the flight crew. “Jesus! A bomb?! Where is security?!” “Search her box! Don’t let her touch anything!” And Oliver, the absolute moron, was moved to tears by Seraphina’s selflessness. He threw his arms around her to protect her, staring at me in sheer disbelief. “You actually put a bomb in that box just to get back at us?! Are you insane?! Even if you hate Seraphina, how could you risk the lives of an entire flight? You are a monster!” I held onto the cooler tightly. “Are you out of your mind? You know exactly what’s in here! It’s your mother’s targeted medication! It must be kept under sterile, temperature-controlled conditions. If we break the seal and expose it to cabin air, the formula will be ruined!” “Stop lying!” Oliver bellowed. “It’s just a quick look! How could looking at it ruin the medicine? The more you hide it, the guiltier you look! Did you swap the medicine for a bomb when we weren’t looking?!” Faced with a cabin full of hostile, screaming passengers, I calmly pulled a thick folder of documents from my bag and handed it to the lead flight attendant. “These are the purchase certificates from the lab in Boston, along with the customs clearance and medical transport permits for both countries. You can verify them. Security would never have cleared a bomb.” The flight attendant carefully inspected the paperwork, letting out a massive sigh of relief. She turned to reassure the passengers. “Please calm down, everyone. This passenger’s documentation is entirely legitimate. The noise was just the standard cooling cycle of her medical equipment.” As the tension dissolved, the passengers’ fear quickly curdled into disgust. They glared at Seraphina. “What is wrong with her? Making up a whole conspiracy theory out of nowhere!” “Nearly gave me a heart attack. What a psycho.” Seraphina panicked as the crowd turned on her. She shrank into Oliver’s arms, whimpering, “Oliver, I was only trying to protect everyone. I would never let anyone harm a single soul. Not even Gemma…” Oliver turned his wrath on me. “Gemma, look what you’ve done! Are you happy now that everyone is ganging up on Seraphina?! If you had just shown the paperwork earlier, none of this would have happened!” Just as the flight attendant was about to ask Seraphina to return to her seat, Seraphina suddenly covered her ears and let out an even louder, more blood-curdling shriek. “No! I heard it again! The beep! The bomb is about to go off!!!” 4 “Help! Someone help!” Right on the heels of Seraphina’s piercing scream, a frantic cry for help erupted from a few rows back. An elderly man, who had already looked pale, had been frightened into cardiac arrest by Seraphina’s screaming. He was convulsing, clutching his chest, and collapsing into the aisle. “My dad has a heart condition! Is there a doctor?!” the man’s son sobbed in sheer terror. The cabin descended into utter chaos. The crew frantically made an emergency announcement asking for any medical professionals on board, but not a single doctor or nurse was on the flight. Seraphina looked at the dying man, then felt the murderous glares of the surrounding passengers. Her eyes darted around, and she suddenly pointed a finger at the thermal cooler in my lap, shrieking at the top of her lungs. “Gemma! Since you claim it’s not a bomb but a miracle drug, save him! Use it on the old man!” “If this medicine can save Oliver’s mother, it can save him too! A life is at stake, open the box and give it to him!” I was nearly laughing at her brainless logic. “Seraphina, this is a targeted therapy drug specifically designed for organ failure, not a magical potion! He is having an acute myocardial infarction. The pharmacology is completely different. If you inject him with targeted stem-cell therapy, you’ll kill him even faster!” But Seraphina wouldn’t back down. She dropped to her knees in the aisle, unleashing her favorite weapon: moral extortion. “You’re just selfish! You don’t want to save him, or maybe you’re just terrified of opening that box! If there isn’t a bomb inside, why are you so desperate to keep it closed?!” “You would rather watch an old man die right in front of us than lend a hand! How can you be so cruel? If it were my medicine, I would have given it up in a heartbeat!” I ignored the lunatic and turned to Oliver, my eyes colder than ice. “Oliver, do you really want me to open this box? I am warning you one last time. The moment we break this seal, the drug is completely ruined. This is your mother’s life we are talking about.” Before Oliver could speak, Seraphina leaned weakly against his shoulder, whimpering softly. “Oliver… Gemma is so cruel… Just to protect her petty pride, she’d rather watch this poor man die and use your mother’s name to threaten you…” Slap! A sharp, stinging blow struck my cheek. My head jerked to the side, my skin burning with sudden pain. Oliver retracted his hand, pointing a trembling finger at my face as he yelled. “Gemma, I’ve had enough of you! The entire trip, it’s always ‘your mother this’ and ‘your mother that’! You’ve done nothing but curse my mom! I know you don’t give a damn about her. You’re just using her condition to make things difficult for Seraphina!” He pulled Seraphina protectively against his chest, puffing his own out with self-righteous anger. “Seraphina literally quit her job and fasted to pray for my mother’s health. She even flew out to Boston with me! What did you do? You just stood there acting smug and holding this stupid box!” Seraphina shed a tear, pressing her hands together like a devout saint. “Oliver, saving a life brings good karma. It’s a blessing for your mother. If she knew we saved this man, God would surely look down on her with mercy.” “Did you hear that?!” Brainwashed to the core, Oliver roared at me. “Open the damn box and save him! If anything happens, I’ll take the blame!” I touched my swollen cheek, and a cold, dark smile spread across my face. Years ago, when my mother-in-law had forced them to divorce, she had held my hand and told me that Seraphina’s toxic martyrdom would eventually destroy their entire family. How prophetic those words were. “Fine. Remember, you asked for this.” I’m sorry, Mom, I thought. No matter how much I wanted to save you, your own son wouldn’t let me. I handed the sealed thermal cooler to the hovering flight attendant. “Miss, since the family of the patient is demanding it, please open the box in front of everyone.” Desperate to defuse the cabin panic and check for any threat, the flight attendant quickly grabbed a pair of shears. A sharp click echoed through the quiet cabin. The sterile seal of the cooler was broken. The passengers held their breath. The old man’s son leaned forward, eyes wide with desperate hope. Oliver eagerly reached out his hand, eyes fixed on the opening lid. “Quick, give me the medicine…” But his voice died in his throat. His hand froze mid-air. The entire cabin stared into the box, and a collective gasp of horror rippled through the passengers. Oliver slowly turned to me, his eyes bloodshot, and let out a wild, frenzied scream. “Gemma!!! What the hell is this?! Where is my mother’s medicine?!”
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