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You'll be fine. You've done this before.
"Just remember to breathe." Blaise lines his fingertips against the rock. "I don't want you passing out."
My hold on him tightens as I visualize my body plummeting to the ground and splattering apart. "Yeah, me, either."
"I still wouldn't drop you." He props his boot onto the nearest lip on the cliff. "But it'd make it a hell of a lot harder to climb up quickly."
I try to imagine him carrying me in one arm while scaling the cliff one handed. It doesn't seem plausible. Then again, Blaise isn't a normal person. He's abnormally strong, can push thoughts into people's minds, and can even enter my mind. So, perhaps he could get me up to the top with only one hand.
Springing onto his toes, he lifts his other foot up while gripping a rock. Then he stretches out one arm while moving his foot upward toward the next lip. He repeats the movement several times, scaling up the side of the cliff. The higher we go, the more the dry wind picks up, and the air becomes warmer, causing my skin to become slightly agitated. I suck it up and hold on tightly, crossing my fingers we're getting close.
Voices start to drift down from above, and I wonder if Reece and Ryder have made it to the top, but I don't dare lean back to look.
"We're almost there," Blaise reassures me, his lean muscles flexing as he heaves us up to the next short ledge. "Just another minute or so."
"I'm fine." My wobbly voice reveals my lie.
"You know, if you want, when we get back to the station, I might know a way to help cure you of your fear of heights." He lets out a grunt as he loses his balance for a split second. Then he quickly recovers, grasping a small ledge. "That is, if you want me to help you."
I tighten my arms and legs around him. "Reece thinks you should train me to do what you guys do."
"Really?" he asks in shock. "When did he say that?"
"While you were playing the decoy, before we were captured by the Forsaken. Why do you sound so surprised?"
"Because I'd be a shitty teacher, and everyone knows it, including Reece."
"That's not what he said. He said you'd be perfect for the job."
"And what did Ryder have to say about it?" Amusement laced with mild irritation rings in his tone.
"Um ..." I smash my lips together, not wanting to lie, but not wanting to tell him the truth, either. "He didn't really have much to say about it."
"I doubt that. He always has something to say about everything. I'm sure he said I'd suck at being your teacher." He stretches his arm upward. "But that's okay. He's probably right."
"Oh." I fight back a frown. "You don't want to teach me, then?"
He pauses, which wouldn't be so bad, except we're dangling off the side of a cliff. "You want me to teach you?"
"Only if you want to." I take a shaky breath. "I'd like to learn how to do what you guys do. That is, if they'll let someone like me help."
He still doesn't budge. "Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Let what you are affect who you are. If you want to train to become one of us, then train. Don't worry about what other people might try to not let you do." He releases an uneven exhale and starts climbing again. "If I listened to what other people said, I probably wouldn't be here."
On this cliff? With Ryder and Reece? Or in this world, alive?
My heart aches at the last thought. My mind has been in that dark place before.
I start to ask, but the words die as a stabbing pain pinches the back of my neck.
"Blaise, I think something stung me." My words echo around me. "Like a bug, or a bee, or something."
"What's a bee?" He sounds so far away, a fading memory. Quiet. So very quiet. "Allura?"
"Hmm ...?" is all I manage to get out. My limbs feel heavy, like a bag of bricks, and I'm too tired to hold them up anymore--hold myself up anymore. I can hardly stand it.
I want to let go. Fall. So badly.
So I do.
Chapter 3
The Mysteriously Familiar Stranger
Flashing lights. Blinding. Music booming. I can barely hear anything. Circles spinning everywhere. Or maybe I'm the one who's spinning ...
"You like this?" a deep voice whispers in my ear as a solid chest presses against my back. "This is called dancing."
"Dancing?" I repeat the foreign word, debating whether I like it. "It doesn't seem so bad ... But I do feel really tired."
"That's not from the dancing," he whispers, his voice ringing with familiarity. "That's from the poison."
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. At least, I think they do. My body is too numb to tell for sure.
"Poison is bad," I slur, my eyelashes fluttering against the colorful lights blinking from the ceiling, the floor--everywhere. So bright. I can't see anything. Not even the guy behind me. "Where am I ...?" I murmur, spinning, spinning, spinning. "And who ... are you?"
"Must we go over this again, Allura." His lips brush the tip of my ear, his breath fiery hot. "You've known me for a very long time."
My eyes roll into the back of my head as wooziness overcomes me. "I have?"
He roughly grips my waist. "You have."
My head bobs back and thumps against his chest. "Why can't I remember?"
"Because it's been more than a century since the last time we saw each other." His fingertips dig into my waist as he draws me against him. "And time has never been kind on your memory. The longer you stay away from me--from us--the more you seem to forget until we remind you again."
"Remind me ...? How?"
"We've gone over this, too, but I guess I'll remind you again." He glides his hand up the front of my stomach to my neck, gripping the base of my throat. "By killing you. Don't worry; all horrible, murderous monsters come back from the dead, and then we get to do this whole thing over again."
It clicks, like a lightning bolt slamming into my chest.
"You're the man from the driveway. The one who wouldn't shoot my dog."
His hold on my neck loosens. "You remember that?"
I nod, the light blinding me to the point my eyeballs ache. "I do ... But that's not ... the only place ... I know you from. We've met ... a lot." Not that I can remember when or where; I just know I have.
He grips my neck harder. "Well, then, I guess things are about to change. I just hope you're prepared to run forever, because once they find out, they won't stop until they have you. And they can't have you. Understand? If they do, then everything is ruined. Lives will be destroyed. Worlds."
"Who can't have me?" I gasp, fighting to get free. I can barely move. I can't control my body. I can't think, breathe--do anything.
He nibbles my earlobe. "The Grim." Then he jerks his hand, snapping my neck.
The lights fade into nothing as I fall toward the ground.
And keep falling ...
And falling ...
Chapter 4
The Kiss of Death
"Wake up." Ryder's worried voice slices through my hazy mind. "Come on, sweetheart; please wake up."
I try to do what he asks, but I can't get my eyelids to lift. It's as if someone has glued them shut. My entire body is weighted with numbness. Even my heart is nothing but a soft lull, barely existing.
Am I dead? After all this time ... Centuries, if the man from my memories is correct. If he is, though ... how can that be right? How could I have lived for that long and barely look eighteen? Then again, the Grim are practically ageless and rarely die.
God, I must really be a hybrid.
A murmur of voices flutter through the air, some recognizable, some not. Every single one carries a drop of panic.
"She's not waking up." Alarm rings in Ryder's tone. "Reece, why isn't she waking up?"
"I don't know," Reece mutters from close by. "Blaise, what exactly happened to her?"
"I think a Watcher shot her with something ... and then she fell." The slight tremble in Blaise's voice throws me off guard.
He's worried. Blaise is worried
.
Whatever happened to me must have been bad.
I search through my disoriented mind and manage to put together a few pieces of what happened. Climbing up a cliff. Something stinging me in the back of the neck. Numbness spreading throughout my body. Falling toward the ground.
Oh, my God, I fell off the cliff. And now I'm lying here, broken in bits and pieces, only alive because of my ability to heal.
The mental images that come after the revelation aren't very pretty and make me want to yack my guts out. I start to choke, my chest heaving as I struggle to breathe.
"What's happening?" Ryder asks. "Reece, do something. I think she's choking."
"I can get the defibrillator," a woman offers. "It might help."
"No, her heart's still beating," Reece says. "Hold on a second. I have an idea."
Seconds tick by, maybe even minutes. Then, slowly my breathing returns to normal.
"There. She's breathing again," Reece states, sounding breathless.
