JASMINE
The school rooftop wind shredded the night like a blade, flinging darkness into the gaps between my breaths. Mia's voice cuts through it thin, panicked, desperate carrying straight to where I am standing. Her words land like a command that doesn't belong in the world.
"Leave now… it will control you too!"
My body moves before my mind can catch up. Heat surges into my chest, fear and anger colliding and I push myself forward through the violent gusts.
My lungs burn as I run, one hand braced against the edge of the rooftop for balance, my boots skidding on grit and rain-slick stone.
I can taste metal in the air, in the wind, in the fear, and something sharp enough to make me feel like I have been shouting for hours.
"No!" I shout back, my voice cracking. "I am not leaving you here. Please get down from there!"
Mia stands at the very lip of the building. The ledge looks impossibly far below the kind of distance that turns thoughts into ice.
