by Lynette Noni
“You promise?” Pipsqueak asked, her big blue eyes staring at Alex as if the words alone would keep her safe.
“I promise,” Alex said. Really, what else could she say? Gone was the snarky girl from earlier, and in her place was a scared teenager needing reassurance—something that Alex could provide.
“Okay,” Pipsqueak whispered, and she lowered her body over the edge and quickly wrapped her legs around the rope.
The rest of them shouted encouragement and watched as she pulled herself slowly but surely along. But something happened when she was halfway across and, for whatever reason, she stopped moving forward.
“What’s she doing?” Declan asked Alex, the two of them the only ones left to cross.
“I have no idea,” she answered, but her stomach tightened at the sight of her classmate dangling motionless so high above the ravine.
“What’s the hold-up, Pip?” Declan called.
Pipsqueak didn’t answer, but Alex could see that something was wrong when she pulled herself in closer to the rope, almost as if trying to hug it tightly. Even from where Alex was standing, she could see the tremors shaking Pip’s body and vibrating along the rope.
“I think she’s having a panic attack,” Alex whispered fearfully.
Declan groaned. “Worst possible timing.”
From the other side of the ravine, their classmates were calling out to the frozen girl too, but she was oblivious to everything around her.
“What are we supposed to do?” Declan asked. “How do we calm her down? If she doesn’t move soon, she’s going to get tired and…”
Alex didn’t need to hear the end of his sentence to know where the ‘and…’ led.
Tugging firmly on the rope, she said, “How much weight can this hold?”
He looked at it thoughtfully. “Honestly, I’m not sure.”
That wasn’t the answer Alex wanted, but she’d have to make do with it. “Do me a favour and hold onto it, just in case.”
He realised what she intended to do, and nodded, walking to the boulder where Hunter’s arrow was lodged into the rock. He gripped the rope and braced himself in preparation for something that hopefully wouldn’t be necessary.
Alex looked across the ravine to her other classmates and saw they must have noticed Declan’s position, as Kaiden and Jordan were now leaning over the edge, supporting the rope on their side. Tom and Blink took up positions behind them to hold onto them if necessary. And Skyla… well, she did nothing, but that was to be expected.
“Hang on, Pip, I’m coming,” Alex called out, deciding then and there that she would never again promise anyone anything in the heat of the moment.
Once her backpack was secured, she wrapped her legs around the rope and dropped over the edge, pulling herself along swiftly.
Don’t look down. Just don’t look down, she chanted to herself with each swaying pull across the rope.
When Alex approached the halfway mark, she wasn’t sure what to do next. Her head was directly behind Pipsqueak’s feet, which made having a conversation difficult, but she had to try.
“Pip?”
The other girl didn’t answer, so Alex unlocked one of her hands and reached out to touch Pipsqueak’s trembling leg.
“Pip!” Alex said, much louder this time, and she squeezed her classmate’s leg for emphasis. “We need to move!”
Like a whisper in the wind, Pipsqueak’s words came to her. “So high. We’re so high.”
“Phillipa Squeaker!” Alex all but screamed. “Snap out of it!”
Pipsqueak continued to babble about the height and Alex realised her words were having no effect whatsoever on her classmate’s frozen state.
She had to find a way to calm Pipsqueak. If she were calmer, then she might be able to start moving again.
Alex hadn’t spent much time inspecting her emergency medical kit, but she’d heard one of the others scoffing about a fast-acting relaxant. That sounded exactly like what Pip needed. The only problem was that Alex had no idea how to get the kit out of her backpack.
“Just keep holding on, Pip,” she said, realising what she had to do. “We’ll get you out of here in a minute. I promised, remember?”
Fuelled by her own determined words, Alex made sure her legs were secured as tightly as possible, took a fortifying breath and released her hands until she was dangling upside down in mid-air. She ignored the startled yells from her classmates and focused on retrieving the medicine as fast as possible.
Releasing one strap first and then the other, she craned her neck as she lifted the bag to unzip the main pocket and glanced inside. Being upside-down was disorienting, but she managed to reach a hand in and feel around until she found the medical kit.
A strong gust of wind caught her off-guard and for one terrifying moment she swung uncontrollably. Her legs were almost cramping with the effort of staying attached to the rope. Once she settled again, she wrapped the strap of the backpack around one arm and opened the medical kit, finding the small spray bottle she needed. She clenched it between her teeth and threw everything else into the bag before manoeuvring—quite impressively, in her opinion—the pack onto her back. Muscles screaming, she pulled herself up to grasp the rope again.
After taking a moment to ease her heavy breathing, Alex let go with one hand to retrieve the medicine from her mouth so she could check the instructions. Somehow she had to spray it directly into Pip’s face so that the other girl inhaled the contents, and the effect would be instantaneous.
“You so owe me for this, Pip,” Alex muttered, placing the medicine between her teeth once more.
She crawled as close to Pipsqueak as possible before she unlocked her legs and let them drop beneath her. It was a precarious position, but the only way she could get to Pip’s face was by moving over to her other side.
“Just keep holding on,” Alex encouraged around the spray bottle in her mouth.
She awkwardly reached around Pip’s body with one arm to grip the rope in the small gap between the other girl’s limbs. The new position was almost impossible to hold, and Alex had to hastily swing through the air when she felt her grip slipping.
She released a trembling breath as soon as she was on the other side of Pip and wasted no time in pulling her legs up to lock her body securely around the rope again.
“Time for you to wake up now,” Alex gritted out, after taking the medicine from her mouth again.
Pip’s protective body-cocoon meant that her head was tilted away from Alex, but it was easy enough to move the bottle into position and spray the fine mist into her face.
Just like the label said, the effect was instantaneous, but Alex hadn’t taken into account the full extent of what ‘sudden relaxation’ actually meant.
“NO!” Alex screamed when Pip’s limbs loosened their grip entirely.
Never before had Alex been so grateful for her well-honed reflexes. With barely a split second to react, she let go of the spray bottle and released her other hand from the rope to reach out and catch Pipsqueak, who had dropped like a dead weight.
“Oh, hey!” Pipsqueak said happily. Her eyes were glazed as she looked up at Alex who was once again dangling upside-down and straining to keep them both from plummeting into the crevasse. Only her steel grip on Pipsqueak’s forearms kept the other girl from falling. But the strength required to hold the both of them in the air was taking its toll on Alex and she knew she wouldn’t last long if Pip didn’t help.
“Pip, you need to snap out of it!” Alex said desperately.
“Are we flying, Alex?” Pipsqueak asked, with a dazed smile on her face. “This is fun. We should’ve listened to Skyla and made wings. Then we could fly all the time.”
“Pipsqueak!” Alex shouted. Her body was being stretched painfully from head to toe, with her muscles burning from the strain of dangling for so long.
“Why are you yelling at me?” Pipsqueak asked. “That’s not very nice. Oh, look! It’s Kaiden. Hi, Kaiden!”
“Pip, what are you—”
Alex didn’t get a chance to finish her question before she felt something warm brush up against her side. The rope had been wobbling so much from her and Pipsqueak that she hadn’t realised someone else was climbing along it. But when she turned her head and saw Kaiden hanging upside-down directly beside her, she released a shaky breath of relief.
Without saying anything, he reached out and grabbed Pipsqueak’s arm just a little further along from where Alex’s grip ended, transferring most of her weight into his hands.
“Hey, Pip, how do you feel about a piggyback ride?” he asked the drugged girl.
“Yay!” she cried, and Alex sucked in a painful breath when Pipsqueak bounced around with excitement.
“How are you holding up, Alex?” Kaiden’s quiet voice held a tone that she couldn’t decipher, and she wished she could turn around again to see his expression.
“I’m… hanging in there,” she answered in a strained voice. He didn’t laugh, so she guessed it wasn’t the best time to joke about their current predicament.
He’d taken the bulk of Pip’s weight from her, but Alex was almost completely drained. She needed to get on solid ground, and soon.
“I’ll need you to help me get back upright so we can start moving,” Kaiden told her. “We’ll both have to reach up and grab the rope with one hand and pull her up together. Do you think you can manage that?”
“I think so,” Alex said, knowing she would have to even though she felt like her body was about to tear in two. “Will you be able to carry her? She might be small, but she’s heavy.”
“I take offence to that,” Pipsqueak said moodily. It seemed like her emotions were all over the place because of the relaxant.
“We have a very important mission for you, Pip,” Kaiden said. “Do you think you’re up to it?”
“You bet I am!” she said, excitement replacing her moodiness.
“In a moment when we’re all back up near the rope, I’m going to need you to climb onto me for your piggyback ride. You’ll have to hold on really tight because we’re going to race against Alex and we’ll lose if you let go. You don’t want to lose, do you?”
“No way,” Pipsqueak said, sounding like a small child. “We’re so going to win. I promise I’ll hold on tight.”
“Good girl,” Kaiden said, as if he truly was talking to a child. “On three, Alex?”
“One,” she said, starting the count.
“Two,” Kaiden continued.
“Three,” they said together, and they both strained upwards for the rope with their free hands and pulled Pipsqueak up between them. Alex sucked in a terrified breath when Kaiden dropped his legs immediately, dangling by one white-knuckled hand while he helped Pipsqueak wrap her legs around his waist. Once she was secure, Alex released Pip so she could wrap her arms around Kaiden’s neck, which left him free to grasp the rope with both hands again.
“Ready?” he called back to Alex.
“Just go!”
With her legs cramped, Alex had to use Kaiden’s hand-over-hand method to cross the remaining distance of the ravine. When Tom and Jordan helped pull her up onto solid ground after Pipsqueak and Kaiden, she promptly rolled away from the edge far enough to curl into a ball, waiting for her trembling limbs to relax.
“Alex? Alex! Are you okay?” came Jordan’s frantic voice.
“Define ‘okay’,” she said shakily.
He didn’t answer, but she felt someone reach out to take her backpack and she mumbled her thanks.
She heard Tom call out for Declan to come across, and only when she heard the big guy’s voice amongst the rest of them did she open her eyes and sit up from her collapsed position. Her body screamed at the move, and she almost bit through her lip to hold back a moan of pain as she began to massage her aching limbs.
Her classmates noticed her movement and began to cluster around her.
“Whoa, that was just… whoa…” Blink said, apparently beyond a proper sentence.
Alex shook her head at him and continued to stretch out her cramped everything.
“Here, this should help,” Jordan said, kneeling beside her with a light green vial of pain relief medicine.
She took it from him gratefully and swallowed it in one go. Her pain disappeared almost immediately and her muscles instantly relaxed. Jordan then pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. He held her tight against his trembling body, causing Alex to realise just how much she must have worried him.
When he dropped his arms, he moved his hands to her shoulders and looked her sternly in the eyes. “You better not pull a stunt like that ever again.”
“I couldn’t just leave her, Jordan,” she said quietly. “I promised.”
He sighed and released her to run his hands through his hair. “I know. But you have no idea what it was like watching you out there. That was just… I don’t even know what to say! I’m supposed to be looking out for you. Dix will kill me when she finds out about this. And Bear will find a way to revive me only so he can kill me again. Either way, I’m a dead man. And rightly so.”
Alex couldn’t bring herself to feel annoyed by his overprotective nature, so she smiled reassuringly and said, “They won’t be able to kill you if they don’t find out. It can be our little secret.”
Jordan huffed out a disbelieving breath, but when she nudged him with her elbow he smiled back at her.
“Eugh. You two are so gag-worthy,” Skyla said. “How long have you been together, anyway?”
“Pipe down, Blondie,” Pipsqueak said, her expression dazed from the relaxant. “Love is a beautiful thing. I think they’re adorable.”
Alex looked at Jordan in mortification.
“That’s not a very nice face, sweetheart,” Jordan said jokingly as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. He smirked at her when she shot him a disgruntled look and tried to struggle out of his grasp.
“We are not having this conversation,” Alex informed everyone. “But, for the record, Jordan is one of my best friends. Emphasis on ‘friend’. I can’t believe that after what we’ve just gone through, you’re all wondering about something as unimportant as my love life!”
“So you do have a love life?” Skyla asked eagerly.
“Unbelievable,” Alex muttered, and she turned away from them and stalked over to where someone had placed her backpack. She pulled out her water bottle and took a swig, waiting for the conversation to move on before she joined them again.
“They’re just trying to ease the tension.”
Alex glowered sullenly at Kaiden when he knelt beside her and reached for his own water.
“I don’t see how asking about my relationship status helps,” she said. “And it’s none of their business, anyway.”
“It was only Skyla and Pip who asked,” Kaiden pointed out. “The former we know is an airhead, and the latter is currently as high as the clouds. Maybe give them a little leeway, considering.”
“I had no idea the spray would do that to her,” Alex admitted, her annoyance dissolving as the horror of the memory caught up to her. “She wouldn’t do anything. It was like she couldn’t hear me. I thought if I got her to calm down, she’d be able to move again. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You were incredible,” Kaiden said, holding her gaze. “What you did was amazing.”
“She fell because of what I did,” Alex said, remembering the terrifying moment when Pip dropped from the rope. “She could have died.”
Kaiden reached out to rest his hand on top of hers. “You caught her.”
“I was stupid.”
“You were brave.”
Looking into his serious eyes, she almost believed him. “We would’ve fallen if you hadn’t come to help,” she whispered.
“I don’t believe that. You would’ve found a way to get both of you safely across.”
Alex had no response for that, and she lowered her gaze to look at his hand still covering her own. He s
queezed lightly and only let go at the sound of someone clearing their throat.
“We—Uh—We should probably get going,” said Tom, shuffling his feet and looking uncomfortable.
Alex watched as he hurried off to round up the others, and she turned to look at Kaiden questioningly. “What’s up with him?”
Kaiden bit back a smile and rose to his feet, helping her up with him. Despite his amused expression, he didn’t answer her question. Instead, he told her something else.
“We found Hunter’s next arrow while we were waiting for everyone to cross.”
“Fantastic,” Alex muttered. “Do we get to throw ourselves off another cliff?”
Kaiden glanced at her. “Don’t even joke about that.”
“Too early?”
“Definitely. And don’t get me started on your ‘hanging in there’ comment.”
She laughed lightly and ignored the playful glare he sent her. “I was quite proud of my wit at the time.”
He shook his head at her and she was denied a response when the rest of their classmates came over to collect their backpacks. Pipsqueak was humming quietly to herself and Alex felt a pang of concern.
“How long until she’s normal again?”
“Depends,” Tom answered. “Usually people sleep it off.”
“So, we have to wait until she wakes up tomorrow?” Alex clarified.
At Tom’s nod, Jordan dryly said what they were all thinking. “This should be fun.”
The sarcasm wasn’t lost on any of them. Well, except for Pipsqueak.
“Fun?” she asked, jumping into the conversation. “I love fun. What’re we gonna do that’s fun? Another race?”
“No, definitely not,” Kaiden said quickly.
“That’s not very fun at all,” Pipsqueak said with a pout.
“We need to move,” Declan intervened. “I reckon we only have another hour or so before it’s too dark to see.”
“Where’s the arrow?” Alex asked, looking around for Hunter’s sign.
“Over here,” Jordan said, leading the way along the edge of the ravine.
When they were all standing around the arrow—but keeping their distance from the edge of the mountain—Tom reached out to grab the paper. His brow furrowed in confusion as he read.