He raised his eyebrows at her. “Any time now…” he said mockingly.
Allyra took a deep breath, backed up to the edge of the platform, and tried not to think about whether Jason was going to catch her or not. As she trained over the past month, she’d done her best to snuff out any anxiety that dared creep into her mind. She’d stamped on it, crushing it mercilessly like a bug beneath the sole of her shoe. But, the truth was, it had a way of popping up at the most inopportune of times. Looking at Jason’s contemptuous expression, and the height and distance that lay between them, she couldn’t help but feel a knot of fear taking root in her stomach. Anxiety rose like a bubble breaking the surface of a glass of champagne.
She fell back on an old and reliable trick for quelling anxiety and started silently listing the chemical elements.
Hydrogen. Helium. Lithium.
A deep breath like it was her last, then two sprinted steps, and—finally—a blind leap of misplaced trust.
The distance didn’t cause her any issues—Gifted speed and agility saw to it that she flew through the air easily enough. Allyra kept her body rigid and her eye on Jason’s outstretched hands. She clasped her hands around Jason’s forearms, and as expected, her momentum kept her swinging forward toward the tower. Tightening her core, Allyra brought her legs forward to absorb the force. But as she swung forward, she realized that it wasn’t the only direction she was moving in—she was also slipping down.
Damn gravity and its relentless pull.
She had her hands firmly clasped around Jason’s wrists, but he wasn’t putting in a similar effort in holding onto her.
He was going to drop her.
She slammed into the side of the tower, and despite using her hips and knees to cushion as much of the impact as possible, the violence of it jolted her grasp on Jason’s wrists. In an instant, her left hand slipped through his. She tried desperately to hold on with her right, determined that should she fall, she was at least going to jerk the bastard’s arm out of its socket. But there was really no way of holding her entire body weight on a few fingertips.
It took only a split second for her to fall, but it felt like an hour, or two, or three… Their eyes met. Jason stared down at her, his lips quirked in a smile that was mostly a smirk, and then she knew—this was no mistake—he was deliberately dropping her.
She’d managed to hold on long enough that she was able to grab at the tower structure itself. But for all her Gifted agility and strength, nothing changed the fact that there was nothing really for her to hold on to. A million tiny wooden splinters embedded themselves in her skin and under her nails as she slid down the structure. It might not have been pretty, in fact, Allyra was fairly sure she was falling with about as much grace as a drunken donkey. But, it was enough to slow her fall, and by the time she hit the ground, she’d managed to downgrade her injury from a broken limb or worse to no more than a sprained ankle.
For all his professed disinterest, Master Akerman made his way to her with surprising promptness. “Are you okay?” he demanded.
Allyra nodded and forced a grim smile onto her face. Inside she was seething with anger, rage flooding through her veins, as corrosive as acid. Any empathy she’d felt for Jason had evaporated as surely as a raindrop under the midday sun. Logic and strategy be damned—she was going to kill Jason. But she managed to keep her anger in check—barely. She wasn’t ready to air her discontent in front of the crowd and confirm they were the weakest pair in The Five Finals.
“It’s fine, just a sprained ankle,” she replied.
“What the hell happened?” Master Akerman demanded, directing his question at Jason who’d climbed down—slowly, without particular concern.
Jason shrugged noncommittally. “She slipped, it happens.”
“That’s not bloody good enough!” Master Akerman shouted. “You didn’t try nearly hard enough to hold on to her!”
“She’s an Atmospheric,” Jason said coldly. “I thought that she’d be able to stop herself even if she did fall.”
Allyra dialed out of the conversation as Master Akerman and Jason continued to argue over the amount of effort he’d put in trying to save her. Under her tightly strapped boot, her ankle was hot and throbbing and her flesh was starting to swell uncomfortably. But it wasn’t the pain that was occupying her mind. It was Jason’s words and the truth of them.
During the seconds that gravity had pulled her to the ground, as she’d grappled for something, anything, to hold on to, it had never occurred to her to call on the Air Element to save her. Rob and Jamie had marveled over her ability to control the Elements, how it had all come so easily to her. It’s instinct, she’d told them, and it hadn’t been a lie. Except somewhere in the lateness of coming into her Gift and training with Alex in the Between, where the Elements simply didn’t answer the call of the Gifted—she simply didn’t possess the natural instinct, or perhaps the brain cells, to call on the Elements when it could’ve saved her life. It was slow and stupid, and, worse, it could’ve killed her.
Chapter 6 – Allyra
The nurse had shaken her head sadly at the sight of Allyra’s swollen ankle and recommended that she stay off her feet for at least the next week.
