Page 1 of The Fall Before Flight

PART 1

THE FALL

1

PREFACE

DAY 0

I didn’t try to kill myself. It was an accident. No—more than an accident. A natural disaster, unanticipated and sudden. Fate’s fickle lightning strike. Unseen forces joining in cataclysm. No stopping it. No way to prepare.

Et cetera.

No one believes me, of course. Try explaining to your binary-minded father that it wasn’t intent, but bad luck, that propelled the car off the cliff. It wasn’t even a cliff, really. I’ve seen cliffs. I’ve flung my body from them more times than I can count, lips in a rictus of glee, arms arrowed with cutting purpose toward roiling waters.

Not a cliff. Just a little hill. Grassy and rocky, with a mellow incline beyond a short, dinged guardrail. There’s no guardrail anymore, at least not where the impact of my car tore a section free, where pressure pushed sparks of defiance from rusted bolts that were no match for a luxury coup going forty-six miles per hour.

“It’s for the best, Mia.”

Blinking away residual thoughts of sparks and smoke, I look at my twin brother. Jameson’s haggard face bespeaks his sleepless worry, his eyes rimmed with red and underscored with shadow. The stress of my accident has triggered his insomnia.

Our demons exact different prices.

“I’m sorry,” my voice whispers between us, a vibration divorced from meaning. I don’t feel remorse, and he knows it.

Cold fingers descend onto mine, which clamp harder on the padded armrest.

“This place comes highly recommended. Secure and private. You’ll be well cared for.”

His voice, unlike mine, holds some semblance of emotion. Pleading, perhaps. A thin veil of grief. Or is it relief?

I don’t know why I bother, but I try again. “It was an accident. My shoe?—”

“It’s all right.”

I swallow the words on my tongue. Choke on the spike of disgruntlement. No one believes me. And I have no one to blame but myself—I’ve been courting danger with increasing brazenness since I was seven years old, when I broke my arm jumping off the roof.

But the memory of the pain, even the initial searing jolt, has always placed a distant second to the transcendent feeling of weightlessness. For mere moments, I’d been free.

There’s a soft knock on the door. An empty platitude, for it swings inward without delay. Jameson straightens from his crouch beside my chair, running fingers through his disheveled brown locks.

“Time for a trim, J,” I murmur.

He glances at me, eyes reproachful and amused at once, before facing our visitor. “Car’s here?”

My father nods, gaze darting to me and away. His evasiveness doesn’t bother me—it isn’t anything new. He clears his throat, and I watch his Adam’s apple bob beneath his square chin.

“Are you sure this place is better than… than a…” He doesn’t finish, but the words hang heavily in the air.

Psychiatric hospital.

Funny farm. Looney bin. Nuthouse.

I almost laugh.

Almost.

“Yes,” answers my brother. His fingers twitch toward his head, but he stills the urge by tucking his hands into his pockets. “Their program has a ninety-four percent success rate.”

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