Page 25 of Star Bright
She dangled a moment, catching her breath from the adrenaline rush, slowly rotating to bonk first her feet then her head as she scrambled to get her weight back under her and orient to the wall again. Her hands were trembling a little, which was ridiculous because she knew the safety measures. But knowing it in her head and in her body were apparently two different things.
“Darcy!”
When she heard it again, she realized Vash had called out to her at least twice already. How embarrassing. She twisted around a little to see Vash standing next to Yadira and a dripping Ug with a naked little drakling boy beside him. Definitely embarrassing.
“Both hands on the wall,” Vash barked. “We’ll get you down.”
“I’m fine,” she called. Thankfully, her voice was steadier than her hands. “Just got a little cocky about whether I could keep up with Yadira.”
She cast a grin at the teen.
Who stared at her, green eyes fixed wide and horrified.
Because she’d just watched someone fall…
Darcy wanted to smack herself in the head again. When the withdrawn teen had asked what the climbing wall was, Darcy had thought it would be the perfect chance to give the girl someof that physical outlet Vash had mentioned for the beast hiding within her.
Who did she think she was? Some drakling expert? As if her own mental state hadn’t been so bruised that her friend had to give her a place to run away. Not just embarrassing but reckless.
“I want to try next,” Atsu demanded as Darcy’s feet hit the ground.
“No,” everyone said at once even Ug in his growling voice.
So much for her flying adventure.
“A buffet will be served in fifteen local minutes in the dining hall,” Kong’s voice announced through the intercom. “All honored guests are invited to attend.”
“I’m starving,” Atsu announced as he streaked across the gym toward his discarded clothes.
Meanwhile, Yadira looked more stricken than ever.
As they followed the map to the dining room, Darcy turned Vash briefly aside. “I am so sorry,” she whispered. “I wasn’t thinking at all and now I’ve made things worse.”
“Did you fall on purpose?”
She grimaced. “Definitely not.”
“Then as you told me before, it is no one’s fault. The therapist said there would be lingering issues, and of course falling would be one. Which explains why Yadira’s beast has hidden itself.”
“Green eggs! My favorite,” Atsu yelled.
Vash sighed. “I wonder if being a bottomless pit is also a symptom of grief.”
Atsu pointed at one of everything, while Vash helped him more intentional selections.
As Darcy contemplated why the eggs might be green, Yadira shuffled up next to her. “Are you… Did you get hurt?”
“I’m fine,” Darcy said. “The harness and helmet worked like they were supposed to. I was just startled.”
“I should’ve been watching.” The girl’s voice broke. “I should’ve been watching the rope. I should’ve been watching you. I should have made sure you didn’t—”
Darcy reached out one hand as Yadira’s voice pitched upward. The kind of rise that came before a terrible fall. “Yadira,” she said softly, soft enough that the girl had to catch her erratic breaths to listen. “This was my first time rock climbing, and yours too, at least like this. And you were better at it than me. When I try again, I can just stay on the easier path until I’m ready to try something else. I’ll spot while you do the harder one, and with some practice maybe I’ll get good enough to join you.”
The girl stared at her with preternaturally green eyes. Abruptly, the pupils distorted to inhuman spindle shape and narrowed to slits, like an angry cat. The little hairs at Darcy’s nape prickled in alarm, and somehow she knew she wasn’t just with the unhappy teen anymore.
“You’d climb with me again even though I let you fall?”
Darcy drew a breath to explain that it hadn’t been Yadira’s fault, or even an issue with the climbing equipment, just a momentary misstep that the device had rectified quickly enough that she doubted she was even bruised.
