Page 17 of Boiling Point
For an impossible moment, we were upside down, sky where earth should be, ground where sky had been.
The harness bit into my shoulders as gravity upended every expectation I had of it, pressing me down in ways that felt fundamentally wrong.
And then, just as suddenly, we were upright again.
At some point, my hand had found Gabrielle’s arm, fingers clutching the cool, supple leather of her jacket. She glanced at it, amused.
I let go immediately. “Right. Well. That was…” I swallowed. “An entirely unnecessary perspective shift.”
Gabrielle grinned, her eyes glinting with mischief. “You survived.”
I forced my shoulders to relax. “So I did.”
“Which means you’re ready for a loop.”
“If this is payback for yesterday’s quiz, I stand by it.”
Her laughter was instant and bright. “Oh, you are absolutely paying for that.”
I barely had time to process my impending doom before she pulled the nose up. The engine strained as we climbed—too steep, too fast. My stomach dropped as we arched backward into a full vertical loop. G-force pinned me into my seat, the pressure so intense I experienced my own weight in a way I never had before.
Until the top of the loop, where we hung weightless.
For a breathless second, I was floating, suspended, the world still.
And then?—
The nose pitched down, the shift from weightless to crushing snapping through me as the lake rushed back into view.
Gabrielle leveled us out smoothly, her hands steady, her breathing infuriatingly normal.
I, meanwhile, was gripping the harness as though it were my only tether to the living.
She let the silence stretch, then finally asked, “So? Worth it?”
I blinked at her, forcing my fingers to uncurl. “Gabrielle,” I said, voice hoarse, “I believe I saw my soul leave my body somewhere over the lake.”
She laughed. “And did it look impressed?”
“I think it was questioning my life choices.”
She grinned, easing back into straight and level flight. The engine settled into its steady hum, the world mercifully calm again.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. My heart slowed. I loosened my grip. My body accepted its survival.
And then Gabrielle turned to me, a quiet warmth in her expression. “You did good,” she said, softer this time.
I exhaled, glancing at her—the golden sunlight catching the curve of her smile, the easy confidence in her surroundings, the way she still looked at home here in a way I never would.
Something twisted in my chest, something that had nothing to do with physics or aerodynamics.
I looked away, out at the vast, endless sky, and found myself smiling.
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But I’d still prefer the ground.”
Chapter 8
Gabrielle
