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Alex looked up at him. She hadn’t noticed earlier, but his eyes were really more silver than grey. More importantly, they were full of confidence—in her. Darrius truly believed she could do this. So she decided to trust him and—literally—take a leap of faith.

He must have noticed her sudden conviction because he smiled and released her arm. “Until we meet again, Alexandra.”

She was too focused to question his parting statement, so she just nodded and—after squeezing her eyes shut—did possibly the most insane thing she’d ever done in her entire life.

She jumped.

Seventeen

The wind pummelled Alex’s bodyand roared past her ears at a near-painful volume. She strained to open her eyes against the pressure battering her, and when she did, she wished she’d kept them closed since the ground could finally be seen through the clouds. It was still alongway off.

She wondered for a moment about the impossible height from which she was falling, but her thoughts scattered when her speed increased. She wasn’t just freefalling anymore—it was as if she had weights tied around her, pulling her down to the ground faster and faster.

Alex had to close her eyes again to ward off her nausea. It didn’t help much since she could still feel and hear the wind pushing her closer and closer to the ground. The solid, hard, ground.

But then, gradually, she started to slow down. It didn’t take long before the wind began to ease, and then it died out completely, leaving Alex’s ears ringing and her body tingling from the aftermath. She had no doubt that if her eyes had been open they would have been watering like crazy. But they were still closed—at least until she heard the most unexpected sound.

“ALEX!”

“NO!”

Her eyes snapped open and the first thing she noticed was a roof above her head. How on earth had she managed to fallthroughandintoa building?

Scratch that, thefirstthing she noticed was that she was, in fact, not dead. Then she noticed the room she was lying in; a room with a familiar chequered floor.

Alex sat up too quickly and had to hold her head in her hands until the room stopped spinning. Her ears were still humming and when her vision cleared she finally noticed what was going on around her.

Jordan and Bear were standing in the middle of the room, both looking horror-stricken as they stared down into a black square on the floor.

Three squares simultaneously changed colour and they were able to jump closer to one another and yet still stay near the black square. Jordan looked as if he was about to jump straight down the square, but Bear’s arm latched onto him and held him back.

“Let me go!” Jordan cried. “We have to do something!”

“I know that!” Bear yelled back. “But jumping in after her isn’t going to help anyone!”

Alex watched the scene with fascination. It was as if no time had passed even though she’d been gone for hours—overnight, apparently. She hadn’t understood Darrius’s earlier comment about time being of little consequence, but now she marvelled over the realisation. Then she noticed that her friends looked like they were both about to do something very stupid, so she snapped out of her shock and called out to them.

“Guys! I’m over here!”

She couldn’t help laughing at their incredulous expressions when they spun around to face her.

“Alex?” Jordan gasped, his eyes wide.

“Yeah, it’s me,” she said. “I’m okay. Really.”

He didn’t look like he believed her—or that he believed she was really there. Bear, too, was gaping at her.

“I’m kind of tired,” she said when neither of them moved. It was true—the adrenaline from the fall was fading, taking away all of her energy. But fortunately she had landed right where the torch was that identified the safe exit, so at least she wouldn’t have to cross the room again. “Any chance we can get out of here now?”

That seemed to spring them into action, and without another word they quickly—but carefully—made their way over to her, looking up every so often as if to make sure that their eyes weren’t playing tricks on them.

They reached her in record time and she felt the breath leave her as first Jordan and then Bear enveloped her in a crushing hug.

“H-how—?” Bear stammered.

“It’s a long story,” she said. It was true, for while only seconds had passed for her friends, much more time had passed for her.

“But, you were over there,” Jordan said, pointing to the centre of the room where the ominous black square had yet to change colour. “And you fell.”