Their Fractured Light
Page 19
“Doing good,” I whisper, wishing I knew better how to talk her through this kind of phobia—except it’s not really a phobia, because that implies irrationality. We’re twenty floors up, and that fall is plenty to fear for even the most logical of minds. The only upside is that if you did fall, you’d certainly be dead instantly on impact, no lying around in agony with broken bits. I don’t think Alexis would find that comforting, though.
I walk her through putting on the harness—I know she’s freaked, because she doesn’t even blink when I test the bands running around each thigh.
“You’re going to go first,” I tell her. “I’m going to have a rope attached to you, here.” I let her see me tying the lead to her harness. “Your job is to take these”—I hand her the bag of magnet grips—“and make us a path. You press them against the wall, like this, then do a ninety-degree twist, like this, to activate the magnet. Then you just slip the rope through the carabiner until it clicks—and always from this direction, so that if we fall, the rope can’t unclip itself.”
I look up to find her staring at me like I’ve told her to shoot me in the face. “You’re joking.”
I let my breath out slowly. “Not this time.”
She swallows, pressing her back against the wall of the elevator shaft as though she could escape all of this by sheer willpower alone. Her hair’s a mess, and there’s a red, tender-looking spot at one temple that looks like soon enough it’ll be a magnificent bruise. Her mascara’s still tracked down her cheeks in smudged black lines, and there’s a trace of blood at her swollen lower lip, from when her interrogator backhanded her. I’m not expecting the ache somewhere inside, at the sight of her. Then she sniffs. “Then what are we waiting for?”
My shoulders start aching again before we’ve gone a floor, in no small part due to the fact that with Alexis, the climb is taking twice as long. But despite the pain, it’s not all bad news. The view when I glance up to check on her progress is plenty of consolation. I keep that observation to myself. To her credit, she manages her task without complaint, though at one point I hear her breath shuddering as she inhales, and I realize she’s crying with each shaking movement upward.
When we get to the thirtieth floor, she hauls herself up over the lip of the maintenance ledge and stays on her knees, pressed against the wall, shaking. I let her stay there and keep going, adding a few more holds with the magnet grips until I can get at the access panel by the top of the opening. Ideally I’d just hack the panel, but my chip is in its pocket, and my pocket is underneath my harness, and my harness is all that’s keeping me from dropping thirty floors to an admittedly very swift death. I’m going to have to do it mechanically, and that’s not my forte.
I’ve pried off the cover and am tracing the wiring when a noise intrudes on my concentration.
“Gideon…” Alexis is whispering my name. “Gideon!”
“What?”
“The elevator—is it supposed to be moving?”
I stare at her for half a heartbeat, then look down to find the elevator car below us easing smoothly upward. Oh, hell. Though it’s slow at first, it’s gathering speed quickly. I meet Alexis’s eyes again for a fraction of a second, and then lean into the panel, cursing hard. My fingers falter—my breath hitches—my palms are sweating and I can’t get a grip on the wire and my nails are too short to dig through the coating on them, and Alexis’s shouting something beside me, and finally, finally I spark two of the wires together and the elevator doors at waist level creak open six inches.
I reach out for Alexis, shouting at her to move, and this time she doesn’t hesitate—I guide one of her feet to my leg and half shove her upward, my body screaming at the extra weight, the grip in my other hand—the one clamping the belay device closed—starting to fail. She clambers up through the opening, her body scraping either side as she wriggles through—then I see her again, as she shoves her foot against one of the doors and forces it open a few more inches. Then she’s leaning down—God, what the hell are you doing, go!—and I realize she’s reaching for me.
The elevator car’s rumbling beneath us like an oncoming train, and I know she’s shouting something at me because I can see her lips moving. Her hands grasp at my wrist and I give up on the belay device, letting the rope go slack and grabbing at the hold with my other hand. For one horrible moment I know I’m not going to make it, my muscles spasming—and then I’m moving, scrambling, feet kicking briefly at empty air before Alexis and I both go sprawling onto the floor, just as the car goes screeching by. Sparks spit from the open doors as the car shears my grips off the shaft walls like leaves being stripped from a stem.
Gasping, coughing, tangled up together and sweating and shaking, Alexis and I sprawl on the floor. I press my face against the cold marble, gradually coming back to myself and the world around me. The windows at the far end of the hall tell me dawn’s arrived—the first hints of light are streaking through the sky and gilding the window frames. The exit to the skybridge is just around the corner, and once we’re in the neighboring building it’ll be the work of moments to hack that system and catch a ride down to street level. We’re safe.
With that comes the realization that Alexis is lying on top of me—for a moment I’m tempted to stay still, to keep where I am as long as possible, because now that the threat of imminent splattage has passed, I could get used to this. But as we both sit up slowly, I realize she’s not pulling away because she’s shaking too violently to move.
I wrap one arm around her, alarm coursing through me. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
She shakes her head mutely, and I can see the terror lingering in her tear-streaked face. She wasn’t joking about not being good with heights—if I’d known she was this phobic, I never would’ve made her climb. I would’ve…I don’t know, figured something out. How in all that’s holy did she manage that?
My arm’s tightening around her before I register what I’m doing, tucking her in against my side. “You did it,” I murmur, turning my head to speak into her ear. “We’re okay. We’re almost out.”
She holds still within the circle of my arm for a moment, and then abruptly she’s pressing in against me, arms wrapping around my rib cage, face hidden against my T-shirt. She’s still shaking, harsh breathing muffled against my skin, and I wrap my other arm around her to squeeze her tight. This isn’t one of her acts. In this moment, she isn’t playing me, I’m sure of it.
I’m sure of way too many things all of a sudden, and first among them is that I’m in a lot of trouble.
“We should go. Once we get across the skybridge, we need to plan our next move while we’re still ahead.”
It’s like my words are a signal, and she clears her throat, pulling away from me, turning her head long enough to give her eyes a quick wipe, which I pretend not to notice as we climb to our feet. “I have to get back to my apartment,” she says, her bone-deep weariness showing through in the way her voice cracks.
“Dimples, you can’t go back there. You know you can’t go back there.”
I walk her through putting on the harness—I know she’s freaked, because she doesn’t even blink when I test the bands running around each thigh.
“You’re going to go first,” I tell her. “I’m going to have a rope attached to you, here.” I let her see me tying the lead to her harness. “Your job is to take these”—I hand her the bag of magnet grips—“and make us a path. You press them against the wall, like this, then do a ninety-degree twist, like this, to activate the magnet. Then you just slip the rope through the carabiner until it clicks—and always from this direction, so that if we fall, the rope can’t unclip itself.”
I look up to find her staring at me like I’ve told her to shoot me in the face. “You’re joking.”
I let my breath out slowly. “Not this time.”
She swallows, pressing her back against the wall of the elevator shaft as though she could escape all of this by sheer willpower alone. Her hair’s a mess, and there’s a red, tender-looking spot at one temple that looks like soon enough it’ll be a magnificent bruise. Her mascara’s still tracked down her cheeks in smudged black lines, and there’s a trace of blood at her swollen lower lip, from when her interrogator backhanded her. I’m not expecting the ache somewhere inside, at the sight of her. Then she sniffs. “Then what are we waiting for?”
My shoulders start aching again before we’ve gone a floor, in no small part due to the fact that with Alexis, the climb is taking twice as long. But despite the pain, it’s not all bad news. The view when I glance up to check on her progress is plenty of consolation. I keep that observation to myself. To her credit, she manages her task without complaint, though at one point I hear her breath shuddering as she inhales, and I realize she’s crying with each shaking movement upward.
When we get to the thirtieth floor, she hauls herself up over the lip of the maintenance ledge and stays on her knees, pressed against the wall, shaking. I let her stay there and keep going, adding a few more holds with the magnet grips until I can get at the access panel by the top of the opening. Ideally I’d just hack the panel, but my chip is in its pocket, and my pocket is underneath my harness, and my harness is all that’s keeping me from dropping thirty floors to an admittedly very swift death. I’m going to have to do it mechanically, and that’s not my forte.
I’ve pried off the cover and am tracing the wiring when a noise intrudes on my concentration.
“Gideon…” Alexis is whispering my name. “Gideon!”
“What?”
“The elevator—is it supposed to be moving?”
I stare at her for half a heartbeat, then look down to find the elevator car below us easing smoothly upward. Oh, hell. Though it’s slow at first, it’s gathering speed quickly. I meet Alexis’s eyes again for a fraction of a second, and then lean into the panel, cursing hard. My fingers falter—my breath hitches—my palms are sweating and I can’t get a grip on the wire and my nails are too short to dig through the coating on them, and Alexis’s shouting something beside me, and finally, finally I spark two of the wires together and the elevator doors at waist level creak open six inches.
I reach out for Alexis, shouting at her to move, and this time she doesn’t hesitate—I guide one of her feet to my leg and half shove her upward, my body screaming at the extra weight, the grip in my other hand—the one clamping the belay device closed—starting to fail. She clambers up through the opening, her body scraping either side as she wriggles through—then I see her again, as she shoves her foot against one of the doors and forces it open a few more inches. Then she’s leaning down—God, what the hell are you doing, go!—and I realize she’s reaching for me.
The elevator car’s rumbling beneath us like an oncoming train, and I know she’s shouting something at me because I can see her lips moving. Her hands grasp at my wrist and I give up on the belay device, letting the rope go slack and grabbing at the hold with my other hand. For one horrible moment I know I’m not going to make it, my muscles spasming—and then I’m moving, scrambling, feet kicking briefly at empty air before Alexis and I both go sprawling onto the floor, just as the car goes screeching by. Sparks spit from the open doors as the car shears my grips off the shaft walls like leaves being stripped from a stem.
Gasping, coughing, tangled up together and sweating and shaking, Alexis and I sprawl on the floor. I press my face against the cold marble, gradually coming back to myself and the world around me. The windows at the far end of the hall tell me dawn’s arrived—the first hints of light are streaking through the sky and gilding the window frames. The exit to the skybridge is just around the corner, and once we’re in the neighboring building it’ll be the work of moments to hack that system and catch a ride down to street level. We’re safe.
With that comes the realization that Alexis is lying on top of me—for a moment I’m tempted to stay still, to keep where I am as long as possible, because now that the threat of imminent splattage has passed, I could get used to this. But as we both sit up slowly, I realize she’s not pulling away because she’s shaking too violently to move.
I wrap one arm around her, alarm coursing through me. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
She shakes her head mutely, and I can see the terror lingering in her tear-streaked face. She wasn’t joking about not being good with heights—if I’d known she was this phobic, I never would’ve made her climb. I would’ve…I don’t know, figured something out. How in all that’s holy did she manage that?
My arm’s tightening around her before I register what I’m doing, tucking her in against my side. “You did it,” I murmur, turning my head to speak into her ear. “We’re okay. We’re almost out.”
She holds still within the circle of my arm for a moment, and then abruptly she’s pressing in against me, arms wrapping around my rib cage, face hidden against my T-shirt. She’s still shaking, harsh breathing muffled against my skin, and I wrap my other arm around her to squeeze her tight. This isn’t one of her acts. In this moment, she isn’t playing me, I’m sure of it.
I’m sure of way too many things all of a sudden, and first among them is that I’m in a lot of trouble.
“We should go. Once we get across the skybridge, we need to plan our next move while we’re still ahead.”
It’s like my words are a signal, and she clears her throat, pulling away from me, turning her head long enough to give her eyes a quick wipe, which I pretend not to notice as we climb to our feet. “I have to get back to my apartment,” she says, her bone-deep weariness showing through in the way her voice cracks.
“Dimples, you can’t go back there. You know you can’t go back there.”
