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The largest of the set we completed last summer.
One Grey had only jumped with me once and we’d busted the whole chassis of the car we used.
It was at that moment that the song on the radio switched to a new, familiar beat. The opening line of Primal Ethos’ On The Edge the spark she needed to light her fire.
She cranked it as high as it would go and threw the Volvo into gear, speeding over the earth like a bullet.
“AJ, no,” Grey yelled. “It’s too high!”
“Sparrow, stop.”
But she was beyond hearing us and inside my heart beat to a mantra of yes, yes, yes.
“Punch it!” I called as she neared the base of the ramp. This one jumped over a pond, and if she didn’t hit it hard enough, we’d never clear it.
She did as I bid her.
Corvus grabbed the brake.
Fuck.
It broke off in his hand, and he chucked it from the window, cursing.
“Ava Jade!”
The ramp was only milliseconds away now.
I shut my eyes.
Blinding yellow light shocked the backs of my eyelids and Ava Jade screamed, blinded by the dawn.
I acted without thinking as the car’s perfect trajectory wobbled. We weren’t going to hit it right. She couldn’t see.
I was through the seats in a second, curling a fist around the wheel to jerk it to the right as the tires hit the base of the ramp.
The world tipped up, and my head cracked against something hard as the Volvo rolled, my stomach in my throat as the metal contracted all around us and dirt and broken glass pattered against my face and neck, burying themselves in my skin.
The rolling stopped. Or my head stopped spinning. The Volvo balanced precariously on two wheels at the end of its spin before falling back to all four, the cloying smell of engine smoke and dry dirt filling my nose.
Someone coughed, and I reached for Grey, jerking his arm.
He tapped my hand as he continued to cough, letting me know he was all right as On The Edge continued to play intermittently on the busted radio.
The light made it hard to see through the dust cloud as Ava Jade grunted, disentangling her leg from where it was trapped beneath the wheel well with Corvus’ help to lift the gnarled metal.
My stomach clenched, but then she was free and Corvus was inspecting her leg, the only injury he sported a shallow cut in his temple leaking crimson down into his eye.
That’s when she started laughing.
A dull chuckle at first, morphing quickly into a full belly laugh, her eyes leaking as she clutched her stomach. Tears clearing tracks through the dirt coating her face.
I couldn’t help laughing too, a lightness taking shape in my chest so wide and all-consuming that it blotted out the dark.
Grey chuckled too, slapping me on the leg as he shook his head, incredulous that we were somehow still alive.
Corvus’ door opened with a creaking groan as he stepped outside, kicking it shut behind him. The dawn light covering him in its vivid orange hue as he stalked away.
“Corvus!” Ava Jade called after him between fits of laughter. “Where the fuck are you going?”
He didn’t answer her, just kept walking, shoving his hands into his pockets, his back up. And I knew he needed to leave. It wasn’t a matter of choice. He was going to lose himself if he stayed, and Corvus James never lost himself. Never lost his control.
Too bad.
It would set him free.
