Page 69 of Fearless
“Jesus.” I never had an issue with heights, but I now knew why some people did. It was a long, rocky way back down to the bottom. I didn’t even think about how I’d get back down.
The wind up here also felt much stronger than on the ground. I felt it pushing me around like a leaf on a tree branch, only my fingers were far less likely to stay connected.
I pushed on, with Horus occasionally hovering around me and chirping like a small, feathered cheerleader. The gloves were a good idea, but the soft leather was quickly getting shredded by the sharp rocks. The rock wall started biting into my palms, and not even my thick calluses could protect me. I ignored the trickle of blood running down my forearm. I was too close to stop now.
“Ah, fuck!”
One of my footholds tumbled loose and I found myself scrambling for a hold. My knees crashed into the rock face as my hands cramped painfully to bear my entire weight. A small shower of pebbles rained down, quickly going silent as they hurtled toward the earth. I never wanted to be a tiny rock so badly before now. If I fell I’d bounce and be unharmed, rather than raw meat splattered all over the place.
I took a breath. And then another. And one more.
I was still here, clinging to this cliff face for fuck knows what reason.
A harsh laugh escaped my lungs at the sheer absurdity of it all. I followed my dog and a bird to this wall, and was only climbing it because they indicated I should. If Mari was here, she’d be trying to make me see how impossible and unscientific this was.
But she’s not here. The whole reason you’re doing this is because she’s not here.
Hades had been silent in my head ever since Python’s execution, but I swore my bond to him only grew stronger since Mariposa came into our lives. That first night she spent with Jandro, he wasn’t sleeping at the foot of my bed like usual. When I got up to take a piss in the middle of the night, I didn’t see him anywhere. Stumbling around my house half-asleep, I finally found him sitting at a window, looking toward Jandro’s house.
When he growled in the market right before he started running, I felthisfear and rage separate from my own. It was like I could feel him in some compartmentalized part of myself that I never knew was there. I couldn’t even place if I felt him in my body or somewhere in my mind. All I knew was we felt the same thing, in the same space, but separately.
Whatever he was—dog, god, or something else—I trusted him. He cared about Mari and sought to protect her. And I knew that without him, my girl would be long gone.
Looking up, the top of the rock wall was only a few feet above me. Two more pulls and I’d be there. My hands were a bloody mess, but I couldn’t let that stop me. I gritted my teeth against the pain of my torn-open palms as I secured new handholds.One, two, three, pull up—
“No!”
The rock I grabbed came loose and my arms were windmilling. My hands held nothing. Everything slowed down as I teetered backwards, the rock wall getting further and further away as I tried desperately to grab for it. Only my heel remained connected as sorrow filled me and the open, endless sky filled my vision.
I love you, Mari. I’m so sorry…
Pain sliced through the top of my back. I didn’t expect to hit the ground so fast. Eyes closed, I waited for pain to wrack the rest of my mangled body and for death to take me.
Except it never came.
“Screeeeech!”
Horus cried out right next to my ear, but why…
I cracked one eye open, then the other to find myself staring at the rock face with my foot still connected.
And something holding onto the back of my cut.
“Horus?” I twisted my neck around trying to figure out how I was hovering with all but one foot in midair.
Another piercing screech filled my head, then the sound of cloth ripping as I dropped a few inches. I scrambled for the wall, leaning my weight forward. Only when I was secure did Horus’s talons unhook from the back of my shirt.
“No fucking way…”
The falcon, no bigger than a raven, flew to perch at the very top of the rock only a few inches away from my hands. He looked at me, tilting his head in a way that was eerily human. I never heard Horus speak like Hades, but if he was saying anything, it had to be something like,Yeah, I weigh two pounds and I just saved your ass, motherfucker. Now you gonna finish what you started, or what?
My hands reached the edge. All the pain was gone, either from the adrenaline or the sheer disbelief at being alive. I hauled myself up, placed one boot on solid ground, and then the other. I could’ve kissed the ground beneath my feet, but I wasn’t done yet.
“All right. I’m up here,” I said to the bird. “Now what?”
He turned and walked on those wickedly curved talons toward the far edge of the rock. It wasn’t completely flat up here, so I carefully sidestepped boulders and ridges to follow him. The moment I saw what was on the horizon, I dropped down out of sight, peering around a boulder.
Not five hundred feet from here was another huge rock formation, at least ten times the size of this one. Formed by millions of years of erosion from wind and rain, dozens of tunnels and caves had been carved into the stone. And parked outside one of the caves, surrounded by armed guards, was a box truck.
