The Girl From Above [Ground: Zero, Book 1]

10: Maybe if You Didn't Assault People, You'd Have More Friends

The cool autumn breeze tiptoed through the open window of the dorm and tickled her nose. It left as quickly as it arrived, leaving frigid kisses on her cheeks.

Ryan stumbled up from the beanbag. She stood baffled at her own words. She barely knew Zack, yet seeing him there instead of the other magics sent a wave of relief across her body.

He stood motionless, his ears pinned took his chin. He took a strand of his hair and started to fiddle with it, his face red as a tomato.

He stammered. "Thanks, I'm glad you're here too."

Ryan bit her cheek and turned her focus towards the ground. She rocked back and forth on her heels and counted the grooves in the hardwood. The cuts and bruises blended together like a painting. Stray nails stuck up from the floor like mines, threatening to trip any unsuspecting victim who dare tread carelessly.

She exhaled. The air was rigid and itched at her ankles and toes. She stood a few feet away from Zack, desperately trying to avert his gaze. Every so often she caught his eye and would immediately whirl back to fiddling with her thumbs.

She picked at her nails and her tongue sat like a lead weight in her mouth. If Devany were telling the truth—and Ryan saw no reason why she would lie—then this would be her third day in the valley. How much longer was she going to be here?

She glanced out the window, the red grass glimmered in the morning, the dew caught the sunlight and the valley shimmered like a precious stone. She picked at her arms and restlessness picked at her ears in turn.

Ryan turned to Zack again. His sweater hung lazily over his wrists, the smiling cat pattern on his chest riddled with holes. When she had met him on Novis Pass, she assumed that the tears in his sweater were from fighting with the demon, but now she wasn't so sure.

The pass.

Realization sunk from her throat to her stomach like a stone. It was as if someone had polished her thoughts for the first time since she arrived in the valley. She pushed Zack into the wall and grabbed his shirt. The uncomfortable silence that filled the room shattered.

"Why haven't you taken me back home?!" She demanded.

"What?!"

It took everything within her to not shake him senseless. He got her into this mess, he was the one that told her everything would be ok, that he would explain everything if she jumped off that cliff with him. Now he had the audacity to act confused when she wanted answers?

"You can teleport!" She screamed in his face. "Teleport me back up there now! Teleport me home!"

Zack trembled in her grasp. He sniffled and placed one of his hands around Ryan's arm. Stray white hairs—what Ryan assumed to be pet hair—fell off of his sweater onto her arms.

He choked through his sniffles. "I can't."

"What do you mean you can't?!"

"There's a border, Ryan. You're stuck here."

Zack's words echoed through her mind, pinching and prodding at the back of her head down to her spine. She released Zack and stumbled back. The room spun her around like a dancer.

Ryan croaked. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"It's alright, I'm used to it."

Zack shrunk against the wall and cradled his knees. He pulled his sweater over his legs and nervously bit at his sleeve. His hair blocking his glasses like a curtain.

Ryan swallowed. Her eyes stung, but she refused to cry. She had already made a mess of herself too many times to count. She was stuck here, stuck here in this until who knows when.