Page 73 of Mirror Image

I nudge her with my elbow and hold out my palm.

“Hey, I lost my hair tie. Let me have one of yours.”

She rolls her eyes even as she pulls the pink elastic band from the bottom of one of her braids.

“What is it with you? I swear, it’s like you can’t hang on to one of these for a single day!”

Before I can comment, the ground falls away beneath us, and we’re silent—mesmerized as the world becomes smaller, quieter.

The air thins, the city shrinking to a map.

“You okay?” Jess calls over the sound of the wind.

“Yeah,” I lie.

We’re suspended now, four hundred feet in the air, the ocean glinting in the distance, and for a heartbeat, it’s beautiful.

Then—clank.

A metallic groan, deep and wrong.

Someone screams.

“Jess?”

The seats jerk. My stomach flips. To my right, the harnesses rattle; to my left, Jess’s seat tilts at a horrifying angle. A jagged crack snakes between us, splitting the platform.

She’s still smiling at first—confused, disbelieving.

Then she realizes.

“Jenn—”

I grab her hand, both hands, our fingers interlocked, sweaty and shaking. The metal screams again, louder this time, and I feel her slipping.

“Hold on!” I shout. “Hold on, Jess!”

Her mouth forms my name. Then she’s gone.

The seats crash back into alignment, the brakes slam, the world lurches, but she isn’t there anymore. The harness digs into my shoulders, and my hand burns. I realize I’m still holding the pink elastic—twisted around my wrist so tight, it’s drawn blood.

Below, I hear sirens. I see flashes of color, people running.

And somewhere in the noise, I swear I can still hear her scream.

I jerk awake, gasping. The light is still on, the air conditioner steady and indifferent. My heart hammers so hard I can feel it in my throat.

The clock on the nightstand reads 3:47 a.m.

I close my eyes, press the heels of my palms to them.

For a second, I think about calling Gabe. Just hearing his voice would help, the steady calm of it, the grounding. But I know what would happen. He’d want me to come home—or worse, he’d get on a plane himself.

So I stay quiet.

I lie there in the dark, counting my breaths until they even out again.

When I finally reach for my water glass, I catch sight of the thin elastic around my wrist.