Siren Suicides (Second Edition)

Chapter 19. Paradise

"YEAH!" 

Hunter's voice echoes into space as he takes his hands off the bike handles and intertwines his fingers with mine. At the same time, I reach out to him. Joined, we spread our arms like wings before the wind tears off our madness feathers. The bike roars, sputters, and falls out from under us, crashing over treetops along the steep incline. On inertia, we arch away from the slope and propel down into the rocky valley. Wind flaps our shirts and Hunter is falling face first, I hover over him. One second passes, and then another. I'm hit with a full-blown panic attack.What the hell are we doing? The air is thin and freezes my guts. The wind,rumbling loudly, tears at me with its fingers and the rush deafens me. 

My mind reels with big red pulsing letters forming one word: WRONG!

As if to tell me—wrong way, wrong decision, wrong direction. But it's too late to turn back. Too late for anything at this point. Another five seconds or so and we'll be mush at best, slime at worst, to be scraped off the rocks as our final act of togetherness.

This is a hundred times worse than jumping off the Aurora Bridge. This is so scary that I think my heart will stop beating and I'll slide into a coma before we hit.

Hunter's fingers clench mine with the force of a corpse in its final death grip, bone-crunching and icy. We tear through the milky fog. A clump of pines is lined up as spikes, ready to puncture our fall. I briefly think about creating a pocket of air to cushion our landing, when the direction of the wind shifts. We hit a dense air mass at the wrong angle and spiral out of control. My thoughts ruthlessly tossed aside, my body takes over and my siren survival instinct kicks in.

I scream.

Desperation passes through my vocal cords and exits as a battle cry, a death growl, a rebel yell, all combined into one. We're two seconds from hitting the ground when the mist shifts. Droplets appear out of thin air and multiply at an alarming rate. Water condenses around us and wafts down in a river of rain. I forget my promise to Hunter. All I want right now is to save him. I don't want him to die. I clench my arms into a tight hold, curl my knees and lift my legs up, twisting in the air, surrounding Hunter with my body like a blanket, my back to the ground, acting as a protective shield.

Crack!

We crash through pines at the very bottom of the incline. Branches snap across my back, their furious hands slapping my face and covering me in a shower of needles. I lose all sense of direction, closing my eyes and keeping only one goal in mind. Protect Hunter. At any cost, protect Hunter.

Thud!

My back lands on the wet ground, softened by all the water. It's like I managed to create a floating sphere of liquid and landed in the middle of it, bursting it apart. A shockwave travels through my spine; its force seems to break every one of my bones, stretching every muscle to its snapping point. Still, I don't release my arms, pressing them tighter. It doesn't matter what happens, I won't let Hunter go.

I can't quite pick up the echo of his burning soul, or his breathing, or the beating of his heart.

Nature itself seems to be unperturbed by our fall, hurrying on its way. A cold whiff of rapidly moving mountain river fills my nostrils. Despite my pain, I smile and take a deep inhale, noting the aroma of moss, passing fish, and evergreen trees.

A huge Douglas fir towers over us in a protective gesture. It's solitary, standing all alone, a long way from the cluster of firs. A silver line of river glistens behind it.

Guilt crushes me. I'm alive. Before I descend into the dark tunnel of self-loathing, I hear something through the diminishing ringing in my ears. There it is again. A flood of elation pulls into instant happiness unlike anything I've felt before.