For one impossible second, I think I can catch myself.
My fingers scrape through loose dirt. Roots snap against my palms. There is nothing solid enough to hold, nothing beneath my feet, and then the edge disappears above me.
"Maggie!"
Sam.
I try to answer him, but my shoulder strikes something hard.
The world turns sideways.
Branches claw through my hair. Something catches the sleeve of my borrowed sleep shirt and tears it open. I hit the slope, slide, and tumble again before finally landing on a narrow shelf of earth with enough force to knock every bit of air out of me.
Then everything goes quiet.
Not completely quiet.
Somewhere nearby, water trickles over stone.
Above me, someone is shouting.
And inside my chest, my heart is beating so fast that I can hardly separate one thud from the next.
I try to breathe.
Nothing happens.
For a terrible moment, I am certain that this is how I die—not from the fall itself, but because I have somehow forgotten how to make my lungs work.
Then air rushes in with a sharp, ugly gasp.
It hurts.
Everything hurts.
"Oh," I whisper.
It is a stupid thing to say. There is no one here to hear it, anyway.
I am lying partly on my side, with one arm trapped beneath me and my cheek pressed into damp soil. When I try to move, a sharp pain travels from my ankle all the way up my leg.
I stop immediately.
"No. No, no…"
The ledge above me is farther away than I want it to be.
Much farther.
A few small stones come bouncing down the slope. One taps against my wrist before disappearing over the edge beside me.
I turn my head just enough to look.
There is another drop.
My stomach tightens.
"Oh, that's not fair."
"Maggie!"
Sam's voice reaches me again, thin with distance.
"I'm here!" I try to shout.
It comes out as a broken little sound.
I swallow, taste dirt, and try again.
"Sam!"
A shadow moves at the top of the slope.
"Don't move!" he calls down. "Can you hear me? Stay where you are!"
For once, I have absolutely no desire to argue with someone telling me what to do.
"I wasn't planning on going anywhere," I whisper.
My right hand is trembling. There is blood running from a cut across my palm, slipping between my fingers and soaking into the dirt.
I stare at it.
At first, all I can think is that I must have caught it on something during the fall.
Then the skin begins to move.
I blink.
The cut is still there.
Only…smaller.
I bring my hand closer to my face, forgetting the pain in my shoulder for a moment. Beneath the blood, the edges of the wound draw together in a thin, pale line.
My breath catches.
"No."
I wipe my palm against my shirt.
There is no cut.
There should be a cut.
I just saw it.
Above me, Sam is saying something to Jojo, but I can no longer make out the words. I am too busy turning my hand over, searching for an explanation that refuses to appear.
Then my ankle shifts.
The pain comes so suddenly that I cry out.
Something deep beneath my skin pulls tight. There is a grinding sensation, followed by a small, sickening click.
I clamp a hand over my mouth.
For several seconds, I cannot do anything but shake.
When the pain finally fades, I move my foot.
It moves normally.
That frightens me more than the pain did.
"Willow?"
The voice comes from my left.
I jerk toward it, scrambling backward before remembering that there is nowhere safe to scramble.
"Don't!" Zach says sharply.
He is standing several feet away, one hand braced against the rocky slope. His coat is torn, and there is a dark stain spreading beneath his ribs.
I look up toward the place I fell from, then back at him.
"How did you get down here?"
"Carefully."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the one I have right now."
His attempt at a smile does not last. He glances past me, toward the edge, and his face tightens.
"Can you move away from there?"
I look down.
My heel is inches from empty air.
Very slowly, I pull my legs toward myself.
Zach takes one step closer.
"Stay back."
He stops.
For a moment, neither of us says anything.
Up close, he looks less like the grinning man who called me beautiful and more like someone trying very hard not to fall over. One hand is pressed firmly against his side. Blood slips over his knuckles.
The smell reaches me.
Sweet.
Warm.
My mouth fills with saliva.
I turn my head so quickly that my neck hurts.
No.
Not now.
Not him.
Not anyone.
"Are you hurt?" Zach asks.
I let out a small, disbelieving laugh.
"You're bleeding."
"That wasn't what I asked."
"I don't know."
He looks at my torn sleeve, then at the blood on my hand.
"You don't know?"
"I was hurt."
The words come out before I can stop them.
Zach goes still.
I wish I had said nothing.
"I think," I add quickly. "I fell. Obviously I was hurt. I just…"
I look at my palm again.
He follows my gaze.
Something changes in his expression. Not surprise, exactly.
Recognition.
I hate it.
"Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you know something about me that I don't."
His mouth opens.
Closes.
Above us, Sam shouts my name again.
"I'm here!" I call, louder this time. "I'm okay!"
Zach looks up.
I can see the exact moment Sam spots him.
"Get away from her!"
Zach's jaw tightens, but he does not move toward me.
"She landed on a shelf!" he calls back. "The ground beneath her is breaking away. Stop kicking dirt down here!"
There is a brief silence.
Then Jojo's voice, farther back.
"Sam. Move away from the edge."
I look at Zach.
He looks back at me.
"I'm not going to grab you," he says quietly.
"Your friend did."
"I know."
"He pulled my hair."
"I know."
"You keep saying you don't want to hurt me."
His eyes drop.
For the first time since I met him, he seems to have no answer ready.
A rope slides down the slope several minutes later.
During those minutes, I discover that being afraid does not make time pass any faster.
It also does nothing to make the smell of blood easier to ignore.
I keep my sleeve pressed over my nose, pretending that I am cold.
Zach notices.
Of course he notices.
He says nothing, but shifts his injured side away from me.
That small movement makes me feel worse.
"Why Willow?" I ask.
He looks over.
"What?"
"You keep calling me Willow."
"Because that's your name."
"Sam says my name is Maggie."
"Did you remember that name?"
I glare at him.
He exhales.
"I'm sorry."
I pick at a loose thread on my sleeve.
Below us, the water keeps moving through the dark. I cannot see it, but the sound makes the drop seem deeper.
"You said I was your queen."
Zach's expression becomes careful.
"You heard that?"
"No. You said I was important. Earlier. I…" I frown, trying to catch hold of the thought. "I don't know why I said queen."
He does not answer.
My stomach turns.
"Why did I say that?"
"Maggie!" Sam calls. "I'm coming down!"
I look up too quickly.
Dirt crumbles beneath my hip.
The shelf gives a soft, terrible crack.
Zach moves.
"Don't—"
I try to pull away from his reaching hand.
The earth drops.
My stomach rises into my throat.
For the second time tonight, there is nothing underneath me.
Then his fingers close around my wrist.
The sudden stop sends pain shooting through my arm. My feet strike the rock face, slide, and find nothing.
A sound tears out of me that I do not recognize as my own.
"I have you," Zach says.
He is lying flat against what remains of the shelf, one arm extended over the edge. His other hand claws at a root protruding from the slope.
His face twists.
Fresh blood spreads across his shirt.
"I have you," he repeats, but this time the words come through clenched teeth.
My free hand scrapes against stone.
I cannot find anything to hold.
Above us, Sam is shouting. I hear the rope sliding, hear Jojo yell something about an anchor.
All of it sounds very far away.
Zach's grip slips.
Just a little.
Enough.
"Please," I whisper.
His eyes meet mine.
"I'm not letting go."
The root beneath his other hand begins to tear out of the ground.
And something inside me answers.
Not a voice.
Not exactly.
A certainty.
I know where the crack in the rock is before I look at it.
I know how far away it is.
I know I can reach it.
My free hand shoots forward.
My fingers strike the stone.
It should hurt.
Instead, the rock breaks.
I stare.
My fingers are buried in it.
Not hooked around an edge.
Buried.
A thin fracture runs outward from my knuckles.
Zach goes perfectly still.
"Oh," he breathes.
I look up at him, terrified.
"What did I do?"
He is looking at my eyes.
I do not need a mirror to know what he sees.
Sam reaches us moments later.
By then, Zach has managed to pull me high enough for him to catch the back of my shirt. Between them, they drag me onto a sloping patch of rock beneath the broken shelf.
Sam fastens something around my waist with hands that are not quite steady.
"Look at me," he says.
I do not want to.
"Maggie."
I lift my eyes.
His gaze catches on mine.
For half a heartbeat, his hands stop moving.
I see it.
I wish I had not.
Then he looks down and pulls the strap tight.
"Can you hold on to the rope?"
I nod.
"Good. Jojo's going to help pull you up. I'll be right behind you."
"What about him?"
I do not mean to ask.
Both of them look at me.
Zach is sitting with his back against the slope now, his hand pressed to his side again. His face has gone very pale.
Sam's mouth tightens.
"He can climb."
"He caught me."
"I saw."
"He's hurt."
"So are you."
"No," I whisper.
Sam looks at my hand.
There is blood on it. Dirt. A smear of gray stone dust.
No wound.
He looks away first.
"We're getting you up."
For a moment, I want to argue.
Then I glance at Zach, and he gives the smallest shake of his head.
"Go," he says.
There is something painfully familiar about the way he says it.
Not the word.
The expression.
Like I have seen him bleeding before.
Like I have stood in front of him somewhere else and hated leaving him there.
A flash passes through my mind.
A long table.
Broken glass.
Zach kneeling on a tiled floor, refusing to look at me.
Then it is gone.
I grip the rope so tightly that the fibers bite into my palm.
"Jojo!" Sam calls. "Pull!"
Getting back to the top is slow and horrible.
By the time Jojo catches my arms and helps drag me onto solid ground, my knees are shaking too badly to hold me.
He guides me away from the edge.
"Sit."
I sit.
No argument.
He crouches in front of me and shines a small light toward my face.
I flinch away.
"Sorry," he says, surprising me. "I need to check your eyes."
"My eyes are fine."
"Then this won't take long."
I keep looking down.
His silence changes.
I can feel it.
"Maggie," he says, quieter now. "Look at me."
Behind him, Sam climbs over the edge.
"Leave it, Jojo."
"I haven't said anything."
"I said leave it."
Jojo turns his head.
Something passes between them that I cannot understand.
Or maybe I understand it perfectly, and I just do not want to.
I wrap my arms around myself.
There is a tear in the knee of my trousers. Through it, I can see dried blood on unbroken skin.
I cover it with my hand.
A few feet away, Zach pulls himself over the ledge.
Jojo stands immediately, reaching for his weapon.
Sam moves between them.
"Not now."
"He's one of them."
"I know what he is."
Zach does not even look at Jojo.
He is looking at me.
"Willow."
I close my eyes.
"Please stop."
When I open them again, the hurt on his face makes my chest ache.
"My name is Maggie."
He swallows.
Then, very carefully, he nods.
"All right."
Somehow, that is worse than him arguing.
Sam kneels beside me.
"We're going home."
Home.
His little kitchen. The guest room. A plate of steak and a name he picked because I did not have one.
I want those things so badly that it hurts.
But as he helps me stand, Jojo takes a step closer.
"Sam. Before you put her in that car, you need to see her hand."
Sam does not look at him.
"I've seen it."
"No. You've seen the blood." Jojo's voice is strained now. "Look at what she's holding."
I glance down.
My right hand is still closed.
Slowly, I uncurl my fingers.
A piece of dark stone rests in my palm.
There are four deep impressions along one side.
My fingers fit them perfectly.
No one speaks.
Then Zach says, very softly, "You always did that when you were frightened."
The night seems to tilt around me.
For an instant, I am somewhere else.
My hand is closed around the broken arm of a chair.
There is blood on a white floor.
And my own voice—calm, cold, unmistakably mine—is saying:
"Zach. Shut the door."
I drop the stone.
Sam catches my elbow.
"Maggie?"
I stare past him at Zach.
He has stopped breathing.
Or perhaps I have.
Because I remember what came next.
Not everything.
Just the sound.
Someone on the other side of that door, begging me to let them out.