Above me, Flint curses again, and Macy yells, “Hold on, Grace! Flint, go get her!”
“Wait!” I shout back to be heard over the wind. “Don’t!”
But then Macy screams, and I whirl around, terrified I’m going to see her plunging to her death. And that’s when the worst gust of wind yet hits, and I lose my grip on the tree completely.
I scramble to grab on to something—anything—but the wind is too strong. The branch I’m sitting on issues an ominous crack.
And then I’m falling.
20
There’s Never
a Parachute Around
When You Need One
For one second, I have perfect clarity—I can hear Macy screaming, Flint calling my name, the wind roaring like a freight train—and then it’s all drowned out in the panicked beat of my heart as terror races through me.
I brace myself for bone-crunching impact, but before I hit, Flint is grabbing me, pulling me against him, spinning us in midair. He hits the ground, back first, and I land on him, my face buried in the curve of his neck.
We hit hard enough that the breath is knocked out of me. For one second, two, three, I can’t do anything but lay there on top of him, trying desperately to drag a breath into my abused lungs.
Flint’s not moving either, and panic is a wild animal inside me as I struggle to get my weight off him. His eyes are closed, and I’m terrified that he’s hurt—or worse. He took the brunt of the fall, deliberately spinning us so that he slammed into the hard, snow-packed ground while all I slammed into was him.
It’s as I push up into a sitting position, knees on either side of his thighs, that I finally manage to pull in a huge gulp of air. It’s also at that moment that all hell breaks loose.
Macy is screaming my name as she scrambles down her tree, and people swarm us from all directions. I’m too busy shaking Flint and slapping at his cheeks—trying to get him to respond—to pay any attention to what anyone else is doing.
At least until he opens his eyes and drawls, “I’m beginning to think I should have let you fall.”
“Oh my God! You’re okay!” I scramble off him. “Are you okay?”
“I think so.” He sits up with a little groan. “You’re heavier than you look.”
“You shouldn’t move!” I try to shove him back down, but he just laughs.
“The snow broke my fall, Grace. I’m good.” To prove it, he jackknifes to his feet in one lithe movement.
It’s as he stands up that I realize he’s telling the truth. There’s a Flint-shaped indention in the snow from where he hit. For the first time since moving to this state, I’m grateful for its ridiculous climate. After all, when you’re falling twenty feet, snow is so much softer than ground.
Still, if that’s the case… “Why did you jump after me? You could have been hurt.”
He doesn’t answer, just kind of stands there watching me, a weird look in his eyes. It’s not concern or annoyance or pride or any of the other expressions I’d expect him to be wearing right now. Instead, it looks an awful lot like…shame.
But that doesn’t make sense. He just saved me from a concussion or a couple of broken bones—at least. What does he have to be ashamed of?
“What was the alternative?” Macy demands, voice shaking like she just got back the power of speech. “Let you be hurt?”
“You mean it’s better for Flint to get hurt?” I ask bewildered.
“But he didn’t, did he? And neither did you.” She turns to him with a grateful look. “Thank you so much, Flint.”
Her words make me realize that I’ve been too busy worrying about—and yelling at—Flint to do what I should have right away. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
The words sound awkward after all my admonishments, but they are nothing compared to the look on Flint’s face as he stares over my shoulder into the crowd. It alternates between looking like he’s going to throw a punch and like he’s dying to run away.
I figure it’s because he’s bad with gratitude—I’m terrible with it, so I get that—but as the talking in the crowd dies down and people start parting like a human Red Sea, I turn.
And nearly wither on the spot at the coldness in Jaxon’s eyes. Only the fact that it’s directed at Flint and not me keeps my knees from giving way completely. Because I only thought he was intimidating at the welcome party.
Right now, the look on his face is absolutely terrifying. And the five inscrutable guys at his back—I assume I’m seeing the whole of the infamous Order for the first time—only reinforce the fact that there’s a problem.