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The city buzzed beneath our feet, loud and oblivious.
Jessa adjusted her boots, then handed me a pair of gloves. “Try not to break yourself this time.”
I slipped them on. My heart was already pounding, but it wasn’t fear. It was anticipation.
“On three?” I asked.
She smirked. “On stupid.”
We took off.
The first run was easy. The garage to the icehouse was child’s play. I’d done it before. My muscles remembered even when my mind screamedwhat the fuck are you doing?
We landed hard but clean. Boots scraping rooftop tar.
The next jump was trickier—a lean two-story building that once held a jazz club and now housed God knew what. The alley below was narrow, the kind that looked like it had stories. I didn’t look down.
I sprinted and flew.
And for a second—one glorious, breathless second—I wasn’t Vivienne Laveau with a crumbling family and a bankrupt heart. I was weightless. Infinite.
Jessa landed beside me with a grunt. “You’re insane.”
“I’m alive.”
We kept going. Building to building. Rooftop to rooftop.
Onlookers below began to notice. Fingers pointed. Someone shouted. A man with a beard and a Bluetooth headset pulled out his phone and started recording.
Jessa glanced down and cursed. “We’re gonna end up on the internet.”
“Let them post,” I said. “Let them stitch me into some dumb TikTok reel with music and slow-mo edits. Let them try to explain me in comments.”
“What are you hoping for?”
I didn’t answer.
Because Iwashoping he’d see it.
That Elias would look up from his fortress of screens and data and know—know that I couldn’t be caged. Know that I wasn’t a princess waiting to be rescued.
But also, maybe I wanted him to come get me again. Not to stop me. But to stand at the edge with me. To prove he could keep up.
Another leap. This one miscalculated. My boot hit wrong and I skidded hard, shoulder slamming the rooftop edge.
“Vivi!” Jessa grabbed my arm, yanking me upright. “You okay?”
I winced. “Fine. Just bruised.”
“We should stop.”
“No.”
She stared at me. “You’re chasing something you can’t catch.”
I stared back. “So are you.”
We were both quiet after that.