Page 104 of Kings & Chaos

He grabbed my shoulders, like he knew I was about to lose it. “Are you getting this?”

I nodded like some kind of fucking puppet.

“Hold on to my hand, even when we hit the water.” His eyes glittered in the dark. “Then kick for the surface. Order your body to kick, even though you’ll be cold and in shock. If you do that, you’ll be okay.”

“Yo, we doing this or what?” someone called out from the group at the edge of the cliff. “I’m freezing my balls off.”

“Take off your shoes and jeans,” Neo said. “Socks too.”

My teeth clattered together, a mix of nerves and cold, as I stripped to my bra and underwear. I handed my clothes to Rock, who’d appeared next to us with Oscar.

“Do what he says,” Rock said. “We’ve all made this jump. You can do this.”

“Has… has anyone ever died doing this?” I asked.

“Don’t think about that right now,” Rock said.

“Don’t think about it?” I was about to jump from who-knew-how-high into a bunch of dark water that was who-knew-how-deep and they didn’t want me to ask if anyone had everdieddoing it?

“We’ve made this jump.” Oscar pulled me into his arms and kissed the top of my head. “You’ll be okay.”

“Let’s go,” Neo said.

I followed him to the edge. There was nothing in front of us, just open sky and the invisible yawn of the water below. Panic closed in again, the familiar buzz in my head, the encroaching darkness.

I swayed on my feet, and Neo grabbed my hand to steady me.

I felt the inevitability of the moment, the wheels in motion of something I couldn’t stop. I’d tried to cheat the system by refusing to participate in game two, but my descent into the Kings’ world was an unstoppable force.

It had been futile to fight it. The only thing left to do was surrender.

“We’ll go first,” Neo said.

Because of course we would.

I wondered why we couldn’t all go all once — misery loves company as my Nana Russo used to say — then realized we’d probably kill each other on the way down.

The only thing more dangerous than two bodies plummeting through the sky was ten bodies plummeting through the sky.

I glanced at Claire, standing in her underwear with Lucia, and felt bad that I’d been too terrified to give her any words of comfort. I would apologize later. She knew how I felt about heights, and especially about the cliff over the quarry.

She would understand.

“Back the fuck up,” Neo roared at the crowd.

They moved back, creating a large space in front of the cliff, and Neo tugged me back too.

“Remember, we need to run, push off and out from the cliff,” he said, still holding my hand. “You ready?”

No, I’m not fucking ready, you fucking sociopath! Are you fucking crazy?

I swallowed against my panic and nodded.

Then, as if the night couldn’t get more fucked up, he took my head in his hands and kissed me, fast and hard.

He looked down at me. “You can do this, Jezebel.”

And in that second, I almost believed him.

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