Page 67 of Drop the Mitts

She squinted at him and hissed, “What kind of sick bastard tricks a woman into a vertical drop with a loop?”

“I pointed at the slide!”

“I didn’t see theloop! I don’t trust centrifugal force this much!”

He leaned in slightly, his grin devilish. “It’s calledliving, Grace. Also, there’s a camera mid-loop. Not as good as the mirror, but it will have to do.”

Her eyes widened.

“Miss?” The teenager exhaled, motioning to the death canister.

Her palms were sweating. “I’m going to die.”

André tilted his head. “I’ll make sure your things get home safe. Except that black bra. I’m keeping that.”

“Can you shut the hell up?” She clenched her hands into fists, her heels digging into the grippy rubber mat. The lifeguard opened the door and gave her a politely blank expression. Grace turned back. “Do we have a deal?”

André smirked. “Absolutely.”

Grace’s lips parted. Absolutely? She was expecting at least a little push back. Definitely some balking. Something she could latch onto and use as an excuse to wait another couple of people and hopefully work her way back down the stairs. “You’re going to quit?”

André nodded. “Yep. As soon as you make it to the bottom.”

The employee gave another sigh. “Miss, if you’re not going to?—”

She stepped inside the tube, the trapdoor glinting beneath her feet.

No, no, no!Her mind screamed, but she couldn’t force her legs to move in the opposite direction. If she didn’t go on this damn slide, Megan would, and while she wasn’t into comparison typically, the idea of André standing with her on the stairs andgiving her a peek of his pubic bone made her want to stab someone with a fork.

“Arms crossed, ankles crossed.” The employee pointed at an illustrated sign.

She got into position, her heart slamming against her ribs. What the hell was she doing? The door was shut. She was standing over a moving floor! Her head started to spin, and she searched for André through the scratched plastic.

He gave her two thumbs-up, and a robotic voice started counting.

Chapter

Twenty-Two

Grace

Three.

Grace couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Her brain screamed that this was a mistake, that she could still bang on the walls and beg to be let out.

Two.

She looked at André one last time. He mimed smoking a cigarette, then crushed it under his heel and winked.

One.

The floor dropped out from under her.

Her stomach followed.

She wasn’t sliding—she was falling, vertical, head back, water whipping up around her as the tube screamed past her ears. The air disappeared, sucked out in the first second as gravity grabbed her by the ribs and flung her through the loop.

Her scream was swallowed whole. For a second, she thought she was upside down, then she was dropping again, and then her swimsuit was shoved so far into her butt crack, she wondered if it had been torn off.

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