Page 16

I take her hand, squeezing it, and lead her up the steep stairwell. The first set is fine, just like walking up the steps to our old dorm room at Hamilton, I try to tell myself. But by the third story, I don’t believe the lie. Wind rocks through the stairwell, shaking the entire structure.

Sturdy, my ass.

Kyan, Josh, and Declan have all run ahead, eager to show off their courageous manliness, but the rest of us dawdle, no one particularly eager to reach the top.

At one point, when a cramp lodges under my rib, I pull off to the side to let the others pass.

Claire stops too, waiting without me even having to ask.

As Adrien begins to pass me, I hear her comment to Ellery under her breath, just loud enough for me to hear.

“Looks like someone could use a little more time in the gym if they can’t even make it up a few flights of stairs.”

Before I can think it through or consider the consequences, I stick my foot directly in her line of passage.

Adrien trips just as I intended. For a moment, it looks like she might be able to right herself, but then she goes down, her body colliding with the wooden steps, the force of impact shaking the already precarious structure, a thud ringing out in the night.

“Adrien!” Ellery yells. “Oh my goodness, are you okay?” She’s instantly on her, pulling her back up to her feet.

“I‐I tripped on something,” Adrien says once she’s back to standing. She’s visibly shaken and blood gushes from a slice in her knee. Bet she regrets wearing those short shorts now.

I steal a glance around, but everyone’s attention is focused on Adrien. No one saw me trip her.

“We go back down,” Tomas proposes. “You do not need to finish. You need a bandage.”

“No,” Adrien says stonily. “I want to do this.” She shoots a look back at me. “And unlike some people, I can actually make it up the stairs, even with an injury.”

“You should probably be more careful, though,” I sneer. “Watch where you’re going. Wouldn’t want you to get really hurt.”

She doesn’t respond, just flips her hair and continues walking, Ellery and Tomas in her wake.

“My cramp is gone now,” I say. “Should we keep going?”

When I turn to Claire, she’s staring at me more intensely than she has since I met her. I know instantly I was wrong. She did see me trip Adrien. I wait for her to reprimand me, but she stays quiet.

“Sure,” she says finally. She’s going to keep my secret, I realize with a flicker of relief.

Together, we climb the remaining steps, my nerves returning more acutely with each one, until finally, we reach the crowded platform.

Kyan, Josh, and Declan must have already jumped, and Ellery, Tomas, and Adrien are being prepped by two burly workers.

A wooden plank that wouldn’t look out of place on an eighteenth-century pirate ship juts out of the platform, hovering over nothing but air and the black waters of a pond below.

Claire and I watch as the others suit up, my heart thudding as each one takes the plunge: Adrien in a dainty ballerina jump, Tomas—with some coaxing—in something resembling a cannonball, and Ellery summoning all her courage into a swan dive.

Until it’s just the two of us left.

“We’d like to jump together,” I say to one of the workers in a voice so high and tight I barely recognize it as my own.

Claire had proposed it as we started up the staircase.

At first, I wasn’t on board—it sounded a bit weak—but now that we’re up here, the height making my knees feel as though they may give out at any minute, it seems like a much better idea.

“We can do that,” the worker responds amiably.

His head is covered in a mass of blond dreadlocks, the same matted hair sprouting in clumps from his chin.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he says when he notices Claire trembling.

“You’re safe; you can trust me. Look, I have a beard!

” He points excitedly to his chin. “Who else had a beard? Jesus, Santa…”

“Bin Laden,” I mutter drily.

The worker snorts. “Yeah, fair enough, but listen, you lot are going to be fine. Get on up here.”

After what feels like a decade, he and his partner have strapped us into harnesses so that Claire and I are facing one another, connected to the structure with a giant pipelike contraption.

“Okay now, I’m going to need you to hold on to each other and inch out onto the board,” the worker directs us.

Slowly, we do as he says. Claire is trembling so forcefully, I’m nervous she may topple us over the edge.

Finally, we’re there at the end of the board, the warm air slapping at our faces.

I steal a glance outward, the night masking what would otherwise be a beautiful view of the surrounding jungle.

But all I see is darkness, and when I look down, the blackness of the pond stories below reflects my fear.

“Three,” the worker guides.

I look at Claire, expecting to see my own terror reflected in her eyes, but now that we’re out here on the edge, she seems to have been replaced by someone different.

“Two.”

Her eyes are even darker than usual, steady, like she’s resigned herself to what’s about to happen.

“One.”

As if in direct proportion, my own anxiety skyrockets, heart racing, sweat collecting in crevices. I don’t want to do this anymore. I’ve changed my mind. I want to yell at the workers to stop, but when I open my mouth, no sound comes out.

“Now.”

Nothing happens. Time seems to stand still, locking us both in place. His words come back to me, slithering through my veins.

You are nothing. You deserve nothing.

They root me in place, freezing my limbs.

And then a momentum propels us, coming, I realize, from Claire, who’s jumped, throwing us both from the plank.

And we’re falling.

Air rushes towards me faster than I’ve ever felt, so harsh it seems to be attacking my entire body, so fast it expels from my mind any thought of the words that had been racing through it moments before. I open my mouth once more, but the scream lies dormant.

And just when we’ve fallen for so long that I expect the bone-crunching contact of the water’s surface, the bungee cord immediately retracts, throwing Claire and I back up in the air with it. And that’s when I feel her. Solid, stronger than I expected.

After several more gut-wrenching jerks upwards, we come to rest, hanging upside down, Spider-Man style, mere feet away from the water’s surface.

A man pulls us, still shaking, into a small canoe-like boat and rows us the ten or so feet to land. Euphoria floods through me, accompanied by an all-consuming affection for Claire. When the boat strikes the hard earth, I’m on a high I’ve never felt before.

I scan the shore for Kyan, anticipating him to be waiting there for me, hopefully with a shot in hand. And then I see him. But it isn’t a shot he’s holding, and he isn’t looking at me. He isn’t looking at anyone. His eyes are closed and his lips…

His lips are squarely on Adrien’s.

Rage consumes me, a feeling I haven’t felt in years. Red obscures my vision, just as it did that night years ago in the car, and the anger eradicates the adrenaline high I felt only moments before.

Only one thing remains in my mind, an all-consuming, burning need. A desire for something I’ve only felt to this extent once before.

Revenge.