Speed limit for angels

"Fasten your seat-belts. We are taking off." Eric cried with enthusiasm and the other three in the car cheered readily.

'Not again...' Gabriel thought to himself. Standing in the shadow of a building, he observed the teenagers from some distance. Not that it would matter, they couldn't see him anyway.

It was a promotion. The work in the field was way more exciting and challenging than filling out the reports all day long. He thought he'd like field work when he was young. Well, he was wrong. It was supposed to be a promotion but he really hated babysitting the humans, especially Eric.

As the car got out of the parking lot, having no choice, Gabriel reluctantly spread his wings and flew after it.

***

Gabriel was standing at the edge of the road. He just knew this was about to happen. Eric was too fond of racing at neck-breaking speeds. Now his neck had been broken and he was dead.

It was a mess. Really. His head smacked into the side window and left a bloody trail as it slid across the transparent surface.

The others were still alive. The girl at the passenger seat and the two boys at the back were breathing but not for long. If their wounds won't be attended to, they'll follow Eric shortly.

"Gabriel." A voice beside him said, but he didn't reply. He was too busy inspecting the damage. "Gabriel, why is your human dead?" The voice became impatient.

He didn't like the idea of a lower angel interrogating him but there was no way around it.

"He had been driving too fast, lost control over the car and smashed into a tree. As you can see, he was creative and painted the window with his brains."

The silence that followed made him look at the angel at his side. She looked distressed by his comment about the bloody trails. He hadn't seen her around, so she must be new in this job and wasn't used to his attitude.

"Your name?" He asked to distract her from his last words.

"Abigail." She answered automatically. And then, as if snapping from the stupor, she looked at him, displeased. "Why didn't you stop it from happening?" She indicated the smashed car.

"You know I cannot fly more than eighty miles per hour."

"That's a lame excuse." Abigail scowled at him.

"I'm not risking a collision with another stray angel."

"But you could have stopped him from gaining speed like that. You could have sabotaged the speedometer or blocked his way or tried to-"

"We are not allowed to do such things." Gabriel cut her mid-sentence impatiently. He had done everything right, he was sure about it, so why this nagging inferior was trying to lecture him?

"What's the point in being a guarding angel, if you are not allowed to do anything to save the human you are assigned to?"

Gabriel flapped his wings irritably. He heard the sounds of the ambulance getting closer. The police were nowhere in sight. 'Late as always.' the guardian thought.

"We are not supposed to guard from self-stupidity." He stated evenly.

The paramedics ran to the damaged car and tried to open the doors. Gabriel knew their attempts were futile. The force of the impact with the tree damaged the locking mechanism and left the doors stuck. The paramedics were getting desperate. They were thinking of shattering the windows. It wasn't the best option but they had to do something.

Gabriel raised his hand and one of the back doors opened under the pressure of the humans. The clerk-angel stared at him, astonished.

"What are you doing?!"