Come Tumbling Down (Wayward Children #5)(30)

“What do you think?” asked Sumi.

“I think it’s not my place to comment on someone else’s religion. Science is my god. Lightning is my miracle, and storm clouds are my catechism. I don’t need anything else to give purpose to my days. I find my purpose in the scalpel’s shine, and the knowledge that I’m doing exactly what I was put in this world to do.”

Sumi gave Jack an approving look. “You’re like unnerving fudge with a chewy creepy center. School is a lot more boring without you there.”

“Perhaps, but I wager there have been fewer murders.” They had reached a rickety wooden suspension bridge, stretched across a canyon wide enough to almost qualify as an abyss. Jack pulled the horses to a stop again. This time, she tied off the reins before sliding out of the wagon and announcing, “We walk from here. Follow me, and try not to plummet to your deaths.”

“Ha, ha,” said Christopher flatly. When Jack didn’t laugh, he frowned. “That was a joke, right?”

“I’m not a comedian,” said Jack.

“We should at least go one at a time,” said Christopher. “That doesn’t look entirely stable.”

“We can’t.” Jack gave him one of those unnervingly anxious looks, the ones that seemed to be ticking off her remaining capacity to cope. “Splitting up here, this close to the Drowned Gods … when they feed, they feed on the unprotected. We go together, or we’re likely to disappear alone.”

“That’s fun,” said Sumi.

“I’m well aware of the situation, thank you,” said Jack, and stepped out onto the bridge.

It was narrow enough to sway with every step she took, and while there were rails, of a sort, they were made of braided rope, and didn’t seem nearly sturdy enough to keep her from losing her balance and falling to the water below. The water far below: the drop from the bridge to the surface looked to be around eighty feet, and there were … things … writhing in those depths, things that would have looked like the arms of an octopus, if not for the fact that each of them was easily as big around as Cora’s torso.

“This is terrible,” said Sumi brightly. “I mean, we knew it was going to be terrible when we followed a mad scientist and her dead girlfriend to a horrifying murder world, but this is bonus terrible. This is the awful sprinkles on the sundae of doom.” She skipped out onto the bridge, not seeming to care when it twisted and swayed under her feet. Christopher followed, his bone flute already in his hands, fingers moving through silent arpeggios to calm his nerves.

Kade was the last to leave solid ground for the swaying causeway. As bad as the bridge had looked from solid ground, it was worse. It shifted. It shook. The boards were damp from the ocean air, and his feet slipped and slid with every step, making him cling even harder to the ropes. If he missed a step, he’d fall, and if he fell—

He was so focused on keeping his balance that he didn’t hear the board crack beneath his feet until it fell away and he was dangling over empty air, his grasp on the ropes the only thing keeping him from falling. He screamed, high and bright and clean, all of his terror and all of his resignation expressed in a single sound.

“Kade!” Christopher turned and bolted back to his position, dropping to his knees on the rickety wood and grabbing for his arms. “Take my hands! Don’t let go!”

The two commands seemed contradictory: to take his hands, Kade would have to let go, have to risk that split second when he wasn’t holding on to anything. Still, he started to loosen his grip, willing to gamble everything on how quickly they both could move, and was on the verge of reaching for him when the board Christopher was kneeling on snapped in two. Sumi grabbed the back of his shirt, dragging him to safety before anything worse could happen, and Kade was left dangling alone, surrounded by nothing but empty space.

“Kade!” shouted Christopher.

“It’s all right,” said Sumi, helping Christopher to his feet. She kept her eyes on Kade. “He’s a hero too, remember? We’re all heroes here. Sometimes a hero has to fall.”

The words were needles, red-hot and sharp as anything. Kade closed his eyes. If he held on, the others would keep trying to save him—even Jack, who looked lost and scared, as if this change to her plan were already too much to stand. She was more fragile than anyone remembered her being, faced with the loss of home and mentor and even her own skin. She was falling apart, and Kade was just … falling.

If he stayed where he was, the others would kill themselves trying to do the impossible, and in the end, he’d fall anyway. That wasn’t what a hero would do. That had never been what a hero would do.

He was never going to make it back to the school, never going to take over for Aunt Eleanor. He felt bad about that. By letting go, he would become one more person who let her down. But he didn’t have a choice. Not anymore.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Cora’s waiting for me.”

Then he let go.

He fell like a star, closing his eyes so he wouldn’t be tempted to look back up and see his friends growing smaller and smaller on the bridge, which was still intact enough to get them where they needed to go. He was the only sacrifice it had demanded, and he didn’t want to take their faces to his grave.

He fell, and the arms of the water were there to open wide and drag him down, without a sound, into the depths of the sea.