Page 221 of Things We Hide from the Light

Her mouth crashed into the side of my face and she gave me a loud kiss.

“You’re not going to regret this. I promise.”

I wasbusy regretting every single thing about the day, starting with the decision to get out of bed, when a guy in cargo shorts casually rolled up the flimsy door in the plane’s fuselage.

“It’s time,” Lina said in my ear. We were straddling a bench that was bolted to the floor. I was hog-tied to her with a series of nylon straps that didn’t look like they would hold Piper, let alone a full-grown man.

Every cell in my body screamed for me to cling to the bench. Instead, I stupidly forced myself to crab walk toward the gaping hole in the side of the plane. This was by far the dumbest thing I’d ever done for a woman.

“Are you sure about this?” I yelled to her over the rush of air.

“I’m positive, hotshot.” I could hear the smile in Lina’s husky voice.

We balanced in the opening, each gripping a handle on the inside of the door, and I made the mistake of looking out and down.

My knuckles went white on the handle.

“You can let go. Trust me, Nash,” she said.

So I did. One finger at a time. I hoped Knox wouldn’t put something stupid on my headstone.

And then Lina was tilting us to the right and we were falling into nothing.

I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the panic, but it was too late for regrets. The wind buffeting my face, the drop in my stomach like an endless downhill of a roller coaster, told me that.

“Open your eyes, hotshot.”

I didn’t know how she knew I had them closed. Just another bit of her magic.

“I don’t want to see myself die,” I yelled back.

I felt her laugh against me, and her amusement had me prying one eye open and then the other.

My heart did a slow roll in my chest.

We were suspended above the earth. Autumn rolled out in a carpet of reds, oranges, and golds that went on forever beneath us. Ribbons of river, grids of roads, the smooth rise and fall of mountains all formed a patchwork quilt of nature and civilization thousands of feet below.

It didn’t feel like we were careening to our deaths. It felt like we were suspended in time. Like gods surveying the world they’d created. Above it. Apart from it.

A bird’s-eye view. The big picture. There was nothing between me and the entire world, and it was fucking breathtaking.

The world wasn’t dark and terrifying. It was beauty unfolding all around us.

“Well?” Lina demanded in my ear, her hands squeezing my arms.

I gave the only answer I could.

“Holy shit.” My roar of laughter was instantly swallowed up by the wind.

“Iknewyou’d love it!”

I wrapped my hands around hers on the straps and squeezed. “This is fucking amazing.You’refucking amazing!”

Lina whooped triumphantly into the wind.

I followed suit, reveling when the sound was snatched from my throat.

“Ready for the best part?” she asked.