Page 141 of A Dead Girl's Guide to Living
I nodded, tightening my grip on the handle. I knew Dove didn’t miss it—judging by the slight tug at her lips when I did.
“I’m fine,” I murmured, blinking a little frantically. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“I can,” Dove said, leaning a little closer, her lips at my ear. My skin tingled. “You’re a lot braver than you think, Ellis Langley—and you want to see the world. This is just part one of a very big adventure you’re about to have.”
Her words stoked that simmering fire that had been building inside me—that slow-growing need to see more—and reminded me, all over again, of just how big the world really was.
My cheeks burned when she pressed a chaste kiss to the shell of my ear and leaned back, her eyes dancing as she looked toward Gia, who clapped her hands.
“All right, everyone,” Gia said with a grin. “Let’s go find some sky.”
I held on as we began to lift, and Dove squeaked with muffled excitement, also gripping the handle. The ground drifted away from us so effortlessly, and my stomach flipped.
As Albuquerque fell away beneath us, becoming nothing more than a sun-washed sprawl of city, my heart fluttered in my chest and butterflies danced in my stomach. The roads spread out like veins, and cars became nothing more than scuttling dots—almost like ants.
When Gia finally told us the balloon had hit full altitude, I let out a long breath, and Dove laughed, rubbing my back softly. I watched as the world opened out beneath us, trying to ignore the searing heat of her palm as I focused instead on the vast and layered earth below.
The Rio Grande cut through the land like a lazy, effortless thread of silver—quiet, still, and endless.
It made everything else feel insignificant.
I peered over my shoulder.
Liv was upside down, dangling off the side of the basket, her long, boot-clad legs hooked over the top as she hung—what I could only compare to a bat—her pink hair swaying beneath her like silk.
Something in my chest spiked at the sight of her. Fear.
“She’s fine,” Dove murmured beside me, her voice low so Gia or the assistant couldn’t hear. “Dead, remember?”
I blinked and let out a soft laugh. “Why do I always forget that part?”
Dove’s face held a gently amused expression, her hand moving to just barely brush mine as she rested them on the basket’s edge. “Because she does things so un-human it goes against all our physical and mental wiring of survival.”
“You’re cute when you worry about me,” Liv called loudly from over the side of the basket, and I refrained from saying anything out loud, lest I scare Gia and her assistant, Leon.
“I’m not cute,” I muttered under my breath, so faintly only Dove could hear.
“Yes, you are,” Dove mumbled beside me, so low I almost missed it.
I swallowed as heat crept up the back of my neck.
“Come on,” Dove said suddenly. “Let’s get some pictures for your granddad.” She stepped away and lined up her phone as I blinked at her. “You look amazing with terror etched on your face, but I bet he’d love a smile.”
I snorted and rolled my eyes as Gia laughed.
I fixed my expression and stared down Dove’s camera lens, watching as she frantically snapped what had to be a thousand pictures. Her need to take fifty just to get one perfect shot was mind-boggling.
“Great, now face the sky and pretend you’re thinking super deeply,” Dove instructed. “If you don’t get a whimsical photo in ahot-air balloon that’s totally not staged, did you even go in a hot-air balloon?”
“Facts,” Liv called out.
A laugh escaped me, and I turned to face the view, my hands resting on the edge of the basket.
“Pretend you’re deeply poetic,” Dove said. “Thinking deep, important thoughts.”
I tried to look as natural as I could for a staged photo, and as soon as Dove released me, I turned the camera on her—capturing a shot of her backlit by an endless stretch of sky, that soft blue fading into clouds.
She never looked like someone who was faking anything.
