“I’ll be right back,” I tell Dakota and Corissa.
“Faith?” asks Dakota. “Faith? Are you okay?”
“She looks like she’s just seen a ghost,” mutters Corissa.
“I’m fine,” I tell them as I stumble over their legs, ducking under the velvet rope and practically jumping off the platform.
I try to follow Peter’s dark head of hair through the crowd. A door swings open on the other side of the bar and he’s gone.
I throw myself into the pulsing crowd. A hand grasps for my arm.
“Faith!” Matt shouts through the crowd, but I don’t even turn around.
What the hell is Peter doing here? Corissa was right. I’ve seen a ghost.
I push through the door and am met with steep concrete stairs leading up to another door. Racing up the stairs in the stupid red velvet high heels Matt talked me into wearing, I push the door open with the momentum of my whole body.
A rush of cold air jolts me. I find myself on the roof. The only other person here is a tall white blond girl with stringy hair in a red leather dress, hipbones protruding from her body and black liner smudged around her eyes. She shivers as she puffs on the joint dangling from her fingers. Around her wrist is a black VIP wristband. I look a little closer. “Swan?” I ask. “Swan Belle?”
Swan’s parents fell in love very publicly at the height of their musical careers, and the whole thing ended tragically when Swan’s mother died in a plane crash. Her dad, Raymond Belle, is a big record exec these days and rumored to be in an on-again, off-again relationship with Margaret Toliver.
“Tell Marge I’m not coming down. For Chrissake, I don’t give a shit about the cast toast.” Her words slur a bit as she swings her legs over the ledge of the building.
“Look at ’em,” she says, pointing down to the line of people waiting to get in. “All these grubby little people waiting to get their taste of Hollywood.” She cups her hands around her mouth. “It tastes bitter!” she shouts, even though none of them can hear her.
Swan has had many failed attempts at becoming a serious actress, so I’m sure The Grove wasn’t exactly her first choice of jobs. And she doesn’t even play a main character. Just Parker’s nagging cousin, who makes an appearance a few times every season.
She turns back to me, eyeing me up and down. “And who are you? Someone’s assistant?”
I stand a little straighter. “A friend of Dakota’s.”
She barks a laugh. “I should have known. She’s got a thing for strays.”
I let whatever assumptions or insults she’s attempting to hurl at me roll right off. “Have you seen a guy up here? Dark hair. Tall.”
She holds her arms out, swinging her legs around again with her back to the street below. “Just me and you. No dark and tall strangers to be found.”
Something about the way her body sways and how she’s perched here on this rooftop makes me nervous. I don’t want to leave her up here alone. “Hey, maybe we could go back inside? It’s pretty cold and you don’t have a coat.”
She rolls her eyes and stabs her finger in my direction. “I knew it! I knew Marge sent you for me!” She sways backward, and I stumble forward to steady her. “I’m fine,” she says. “Tell Marge to stick my joint up her ass.”
There’s not much else I can do. It’s not like I can physically restrain Swan Belle. “I’ll be sure to pass the message on,” I tell her.
I walk across the rooftop back to the door as Swan pushes herself up from the ledge, but she’s not so steady on her feet, and suddenly she’s tipping backward. Everything happens in slow motion and at warp speed all at once.
I rush forward, and adrenaline sweeps me off my feet as I soar to her.
She screams but nothing comes out, and the panic in her eyes as she loses her balance and falls off the edge of the roof is one of the most raw things I’ve ever seen.
I can see the headlines now. It would be reported as a suicide. Swan Belle Takes Her Own Life; Swan Belle Succumbs to Depression; Swan Is Roadkill.
Swan Belle might be miserable, but she’s definitely not making an attempt on her life. At least not tonight she isn’t.
I loop an arm around her waist, and for a moment we hover in the air and I can’t help but think of the bird’s nest a few weeks ago and how I survived the same crash that killed my parents and how all of humankind is a walking contradiction of fragility and resilience.
Swan is suddenly very aware and very alert. There’s no mistaking the horror and awe in her eyes as we float above the unknowing crowd below.
“Holy fuck,” she whispers, her voice much more sober than minutes ago.
“Hold on,” I tell her, trying to focus on one thing at a time, and right now that thing is getting both of us safely back on that roof.
With her wrapped around me like a koala, I direct us back onto the roof. I stand there for a minute, carrying the weight of her before I say, “You can let go now.”
“Oh, right,” she says, clumsily getting to her feet. Then, as if the events of the last sixty seconds have just caught up to her, she’s gasping for air. “You—you just—you . . . ,” she stutters, unable to get the words out.
Yeah, I think, I flew across the roof and saved you. Spit it out. But I’m caught between the thrill of actually having saved someone’s life (because OH MY GOD THAT WAS BADASS) and using my powers for good and the sheer terror that she knows who I am—sort of—and she knows that I can fly. Peter never gave me any rules. He wasn’t really the kind of guy who gives the newbie a Superpowers Orientation for Beginners, but instinct and years of pop culture have taught me that the best thing I can do is keep my recently acquired talents to myself.
“That—that shit was nuts!” she shouts. “Are you like a fucking superhero? What the hell was that?” She laughs to herself in a maniacal pixie kind of way, and her words slur just enough that I can see she is still very drunk and very high.
I don’t have many options here. Think fast, Faith.
Spreading my legs a little, I brace myself, Swan still babbling, and rear my fist back. And then I punch Swan Belle square in her temple, knocking her out cold with one blow.
“Ow!” I howl, hugging my fist as I stumble to catch her before she hits the ground. “Ow, ow, ow!”
I sit there with her head in my lap. She’s not so bad when she can’t talk, and with the life she’s had, I’m sure I’d be pretty awful too. Ches’s older brother, Tyler, taught me, her, and Matt how to punch the summer before seventh grade. I was resistant to the idea, but Tyler insisted. A supposed witch, a fat girl, and a gay kid, he’d said. You three could use a lesson in self-defense.
But now what the heck do I do? And why is it so freezing up here? Calm down, Minnesota winter. Jeez.
I check my phone. The blue light flickers as notification after notification pops up. Oh crap.
MATT: Where are you?
CHES: Matt’s getting antsy
CHES: And this party is really not my thing.
MATT: Did you ditch us?
MATT: This is so not like you.
CHES: I think we might go home. I don’t feel good about leaving you here, though.
CHES: That bald security guard said he would get you home.