Behind the Walls. NOVEL By Claire Darcy.

77. For the Fallen.

ROWAN.

I jumped onto the raised barrier around the rooftop and reached as high as I could, grabbing the metal death-plank to steady it. With a hand on either side of the bar, my grip was so tight that my knuckles went instantly white and aching. For a moment, Ace stood deathly still, crouched, ever-so-slightly. Hesitantly, fearfully, she regained her stance.

"Are you alright?" Despite the rain, my throat had become a desert.

"I'm fine," she said quietly, her voice almost blown away by the wind. She cleared her throat and tried again, "I'm fine. So that night... Was that the same night you said you'd catch me if I fell?"

My chest tightened, and I was sure the air around me had become a vacuum. I swallowed hard. "No," I replied, "Different night. But there were lots, easy to get mixed up."

"Of course," said Ace, "I remember it now."

I could tell that she actually had remembered it the whole time. I held my breath as she took the final step to the end of the slick metal beam. So far over the edge, and still with such a jump. She moved her feet forward, standing on the sharp edge the titled beam had created, then she bent her legs just a little, bracing herself.

"Do you remember what you said to me before that? When I said I couldn't come to the edge?"

Of course, I remembered- I'd been thinking about it the whole time. The irony of how frightened she had been to stand at the edge of a building then, only to be willing to leap off one now.

I still held the metal beam, rain gushing down my up-stretched arms, which were beginning to ache from the strain of keeping the beam steady.

"I remember," I replied honestly, "I don't forget anything~" ...about you, I added silently. I didn't dare say it aloud. Not now that everything could go to hell.

The rain was cold and stinging, but somehow cleansing, too. I saw every detail in that near-darkness as Ace's muscles tensed, as she coiled back, ready to make the leap.

"Remind me again, what it was you said?"

My mind was yelling, screaming for her to back down, to leap away from the danger and not toward it. I tried to clear those rattling thoughts.

Ace remembered what I'd said- she knew exactly what it was, no questions. And she knew that I remembered it, too. But she needed to hear it from me.

She wanted to me to say it again.

So I did.
"There's nothing you can't do."

And with that, she flew.

...

ACE.

I leapt off the metal beam and out over the terrible drop. For a moment, I was out over a different building.

Building 12, suspended by soldiers with hateful intent. And that moment when they let go, when I fell back and my feet skimmed the edge of the building only to tip too far...

I felt it again, my stomach dropped, my heart skipped a beat. I am not afraid.
I hit the ledge of the Transporter with a clang and pulled myself tight against the thundering machine. Curves of slick metal, like a dangerous ladder, were protruding from the wall and I held them ridiculously tight, pressing my forehead to the metal for a moment as I tried to steady my breathing.

I heard Rowan give a relieved gasp from the building behind me, and I turned slowly to look over my shoulder at him.

"You made it," he rasped, collapsing against the concrete ledge that ran around the top of the building. I gave him a small nod. No time to celebrate.