Under Zenith Read online

  “And I have to get to the light?”

  “The light is where the safe house is,” he confirmed with a somber nod.

  I assessed the light in the distance, now understanding what I had to do. Somehow, Hayden wanted me to get from island to island until I reached the safe house. Of course I didn’t really think this exercise had anything to do with motor skills, but I also didn’t think pointing that out to him would do any good. At best he’d probably just brood some more.

  “Will something be chasing me this time?” I asked, wondering if I could at least catch a break on the whole zombie thing today.

  “I think this task is difficult enough without any motivation for you. Besides, it’s not about speed today; it’s about your hand eye coordination.”

  “And upper body strength,” I added, not sure I could really pull myself up onto the island from the dangling roots I’d undoubtedly have to grab when I failed to jump to the grass.

  “And that,” he agreed.

  “Should I just get to it then?” I asked hesitantly.

  “Would it make you feel better if I shouted ‘go’ or counted you off or something?”

  I didn’t dignify his snarky question with a response. I simply looked up at him through my eyelashes, trying to convey just how annoyed I was with him right at that moment.

  “One, two, three,” he deadpanned.

  “Thank you for that,” I said, walking to the very edge of the island and trying to gauge the gap between the two land masses.

  Of course both islands kept rotating slowly, meaning that if I wanted to stay lined up with the other one I had to keep walking to the right. That little detail was actually much more annoying than I would have thought when compared to the task that lay before me.

  “I’m just going to run and jump and hope for the best,” I told him, trying to give myself a little pep talk.

  “I’ll be waiting,” he answered.

  “Okay. Here I go,” I said, taking a deep breath and a few steps back.

  I ran as fast as I could, my eyes trained on a tree root sticking out of the light brown earth a few feet under the opposite island. Of course the second I got to the edge of the grass I stopped dead in my tracks and took a few steps away from the precarious edge.

  “Very impressive,” Hayden said sarcastically, giving me an arrogant slow clap. The guy could be such a tool. “Please do that a few more times just to make sure we’ve thoroughly exhausted the possibility that the island is going to come to you.”

  “You try it if it’s so easy,” I said in annoyance.

  I gave myself a mental and physical shake, trying to get rid of the screaming voice in my brain telling me it was completely insane to jump from one impossible floating island to another, hoping I could grab a tree root on the way down, then somehow manage to pull myself up ‘mountain climber’ style, without any kind of harness. I definitely wasn’t under the illusion that I was some sort of action hero. On my best day I could get halfway up the rock wall at the mini golf place. And now, somehow, I had to complete this task that no sane person would ever attempt?

  “Am I being punished for something?” I asked Hayden.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Punished,” I said again, slowly this time so that he couldn’t misunderstand me. “Is this because I took my dad’s car that night in high school before I had my license? Because I definitely had my driver’s permit so it wasn’t as bad as it sounded.”

  “What are you going on about now?” Hayden seemed genuinely confused by my sudden barrage of questions.

  “Or maybe it’s because I kissed Bobby Pikitis at that school dance in junior high when I was supposed to be telling him my friend sort of liked him,” I went on, now trying to remember every bad thing I’d ever done. “I did cheat that one time Tuck and I were playing poker to see who would have to pull the weeds in the backyard.”

  “Please, stop talking,” Hayden said with a sigh.

  He had started rubbing his temples with his eyes closed, apparently trying to keep his cool.

  “Oh no,” I gasped.

  “What?”

  “It’s because I lied to Mama about who really dropped her box full of china from Grandma,” I confessed with a hand over my mouth, my eyes wide. “I said my cousin Amelia knocked it off the shelf in the garage when she came to North Carolina to visit.”

  “I beg of you. Stop talking.”

  “She got into so much trouble,” I told him, shaking my head guiltily. “I’d almost forgotten about that.”

  “Just shut up and get to the island!” Hayden finally yelled, apparently no longer able to contain his rage that already bubbled so close to the surface.

  “You don’t have to be so bossy about it,” I said huffily. “All right, take two.”

  Following the same pattern as before, I gave myself a running start, kept a determined gaze on my goal, and stopped right before I got to the edge.

  “I can’t do it,” I wailed. “The island is too far! And if I don’t grab any of those roots on the way down I’ll fall to my death.”

  “You’re already dead,” he pointed out, quite unnecessarily.

  “Fine, I’ll die again. I’ll fail to reach my Destination and you’ll have a track record of oh for two.”

  “The island isn’t as far as it looks, just run, jump, and grab any tree root you see,” he told me.

  Of course he had to make it sound like the easiest thing in the world.

  “Fine,” I said simply, going back to my starting position once more, running, and failing to jump again.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Hayden said in exasperation. “I can’t take much more of this. My ten year old niece had harder tasks than this and completed them in half the time.”

  Except that she didn’t make it to the end, I thought, knowing that this fact was too sensitive to actually bring up. Still, I couldn’t ignore the fact that it was possible for me to fail and, looking at the impossible floating island, the odds were not in my favor.

  “Would it make you feel better if I did it with you?” Hayden asked, his brow furrowed in a concerned manner.

  It had to be a trick.

  “I thought you couldn’t help me,” I asked suspiciously.

  “It wouldn’t be helping you physically. It would just be offering some moral support if I made the jump with you,” he answered reasonably.

  I looked him over for a moment, wondering why he had suddenly turned nice and still sure it couldn’t be genuine.

  “Isla,” he said, placing his hands on my bare shoulders and looking at me with his icy blue eyes. “I want to make the jump with you, okay?”

  He was so close to me that I could smell the scent of soap on him and suddenly I felt as if I couldn’t breathe properly. How could I go from hating him to being flustered by him so quickly? Sure he was sort of gorgeous and had that whole ‘bad boy with an accent’ thing going for him, but he also happened to be the rudest person I’d ever met and completely unhelpful when I was facing death or death again circumstances.

  Except for this moment.

  For some unknown reason, Hayden had decided to grow a conscious right at the moment I needed his help desperately.

  “We can do this,” he whispered to me, his thumb tracing little circles on my bare shoulder.

  I hated myself for noticing how close his face was to mine and tried to regain some sense of composure.

  “Okay,” I said with a dopey smile.

  So much for my dignity.

  Hayden took my hand and walked with me back to my starting point.

  “Just let me know when you’re ready,” he said supportively, giving my hand a little squeeze.

  “Okay?” I said, sounding very confused over this personality change. “I think I’m ready.”

  “Great. Here we go.”

  With that, we both began to run full speed, Hayden holding on to my hand so tightly that I couldn’t back out of the jump even if I wanted to. If I suddenly
stopped running, I’d mess up Hayden’s speed. I might not go over the edge, but he definitely would and it would be all my fault.

  There was no other option. I had to do it.

  Screaming as loud as I could right before I got to the ledge, Hayden suddenly released my hand, slowed his pace, and gave me one extremely violent push right in the middle of my back. My feet left the ground and the air left my lungs from the force of his hands on my back, and before I knew it, I was sailing through the air, arms flailing ungracefully all around me and my mind going crazy with a million thoughts at once.

  I was angry at Hayden for tricking me, panicked at the fact that there was an endless amount of open air below my feet, and determined to grab at least one of the tree roots sticking out of the earth in front of me without being impaled by them.

  There wasn’t much room for error in the split second that I had to grab onto whatever came into my grasp. If I didn’t manage to stop my fall, I’d definitely be a goner, and something told me the unknown for those who didn’t reach their Destination was not a pleasant place.

  Letting out one final scream, I threw my hands out in front of me, unable to see from all the wavy white-blonde hair that flew in front of my face.

  With a horrible thud and a white hot pain in my middle finger, I grabbed onto the damp tree roots that miraculously held my weight. I pressed my cheek against the wet earth and clung for dear death to the side of the island, not looking up or down, simply panting and hating Hayden.

  “Start climbing,” his very unwelcome voice said directly above me.

  How on earth had he gotten onto the island?

  “I hate you!” I screamed, my entire body shaking from just how terrified I was at that moment.

  The endless expanse of air below me was scary, but knowing that I didn’t have the arm strength to pull myself onto the island and get out of this alive was the scariest part. At what point did I finally admit to myself that I couldn’t do it and just let go?

  “I don’t care for you much either. Now stop being completely useless and start climbing.”

  I hadn’t ever been a rage filled person. In fact, before I’d died I couldn’t name a single person I hated. Sure there were some girls I didn’t like much and a few cheating ex-boyfriends I’d rather not see. But no one I hated.

  At that moment, clinging to the dirty tree root like it was my only hope, I could very truthfully say, I hated Hayden.

  With a deep burning passion.

  “I can’t do it,” I called up to him, setting aside my hate in favor of my logic that told me I somehow needed to climb.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said, not encouraging me at all. “If you can’t even do this, there’s no way you’ll pass the other tasks. You might as well just give up now.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be rooting for me?” I asked incredulously. “Don’t you need me to make it to my Destination so you can get a raise or something?”

  “After listening to all your whining, I’m not sure it’s worth it,” he told me, shrugging his shoulders and walking away from the ledge.

  He couldn’t be serious. There was no way he wanted me to drop off a cliff just because I had whined a little (rightfully so might I add) about being dead.

  Slowly and carefully, I released the tree root with one hand and stretched it skyward toward the next root, closing my sore fingers around it and finding that I was still completely stuck. I couldn’t look down to see where I should put my foot. I couldn’t just hoist myself up and hope the root held me.

  Unless I was willing to suddenly become daring, there wasn’t really much I could do but stay there like a squirrel stuck halfway up a tree trunk. In this scenario, I saw Hayden as the mean little kid with a BB gun, repeatedly trying to fire at me.

  I definitely couldn’t die here (again) so I took a deep breath, steadied my nerves, and pulled myself up to the next tree root. My feet scrambled for purchase for a minute, but eventually found it, however unsteadily. The boots hadn’t been a great choice for my little mountain climbing experience. They had no tread, and were completely stiff and inflexible. I couldn’t have picked worse footwear if I’d tried.

  It was a slow long process to get myself up to the edge of the island. I was sweaty and terrified by the time the grass was within my reach and my entire body shook with the constant effort of keeping myself from falling. I wasn’t sure exactly how long it had taken me, but it felt like hours had passed in silence as I maintained a slow and steady panic.

  “About time,” Hayden said, peeking his head over the side of the grass and looking completely bored.

  “Hayden, I need you to give me your hand. There are no more roots and I can’t grab the grass without pulling it all out,” I told him evenly.

  I knew he was a complete jerk, but could it really be that difficult for him to just reach out his hand and help me up? I’d made the entire climb myself and now needed one small favor from him that would barely expend an ounce of his energy.

  “No can do, kiddo,” he said simply, getting down so that he was lying on his stomach with his chin resting on his hands.

  “Seriously? I need one thing. You can’t just do this for me?” I asked, now getting mad.

  “I told you, I can’t help you.”

  “You pushed me off the other island. Wasn’t that helping me?”

  “That was purely recreational. If I didn’t push you off the edge in a productive way, I probably would have done it later on down the line just for sport,” he informed me.

  “Hayden, please,” I pleaded. “I’m so tired. I don’t think I can pull myself up. I’ve done so much, just please help me with this one thing.”

  I didn’t really want to beg, especially when it came to him. But I also didn’t want to die again and go wherever the task failures went. If this was what purgatory was like, I could only imagine what the other place would hold in store for those who failed.

  As I clung shakily to the ledge, I couldn’t help but think that it was odd that we’d walked so far yesterday and I hadn’t even broken a sweat, but now I was exhausted; though walking a long distance and suddenly becoming a pro mountain climber were definitely two different things.

  Hayden shrugged his shoulders at me once more from his position on the grass and I tried my hardest not to cry. I wasn’t sad by any means, but I could feel the tears of rage building inside of me and those were the worst kind. That was what preceded an ‘ugly cry’.

  Burying my emotions deep within me, I reached my small hand up as far as I could and closed my fingers around a fistful of grass that I was sure would rip from the earth the second I put any weight on it. I brought one foot up to a higher root, trying to find purchase on the wet earth and hoping that I wouldn’t accidentally propel myself backward off the edge of the island right when I’d almost made it to the top.

  “You do realize you’ve doubled the time we normally spend in a cycle and you aren’t even close to the end of this task yet, right?” Hayden asked, now rolling over onto his back and placing his hands behind his head lazily. “You still have to do this all over again on the next island.”

  He wasn’t very good at encouraging people. He could definitely check motivational speaker off the list of things he might have done before becoming a Guide.

  I didn’t really have enough strength to yell at him and climb at the same time so I opted for the one that kept me alive…sort of.

  Taking one last deep breath, I hoisted myself up onto the top of the island. The handful of grass pulled away from the earth a bit, but held firm enough for me to complete the action, and the second I touched the top soil I fell onto my back next to Hayden, breathing heavily and having no idea how I could possibly do that a second time.

  “Ready for the next one?” he asked me, tilting his head so that he was facing me, his nose almost touching my cheek.

  “I want to hit you so badly right now, but I’m too tired,” I said, furrowing my brow and ignoring the sweat I could feel beading
there.

  “Stop being such a baby. Besides, the next one isn’t nearly as bad,” he said, getting up and walking away from me.

  Apparently he expected me to follow behind without taking a few moments to rest first. I knew that arguing with him was futile, and even if I did try to point out the fact that I’d just completed a very difficult task, he’d just say I was being weak, or something equally as obnoxious.

  “Oh and by the way, you got your dress dirty,” he called as he continued to move away from me.

  Looking down at my mud streaked white lace dress, I could see that he was right, though it seemed like a cruel thing to point out when he knew full well I couldn’t do anything about it.

  I stood from the grass and turned to take one last look at the sheer cliff I had just scaled, and then looked back at Hayden’s retreating form. Maybe falling from the island wouldn’t have been such a bad thing.

  Chapter 9

  I could feel the damp grass slowly soaking the bottom of my dress as I sat with my bare feet dangling over the edge of the island. I knew I’d have a very unattractive wet spot right on my bum the second I stood up, but I wasn’t planning on standing any time soon so it didn’t really matter. At the moment I was too preoccupied with tilting my head up toward the non-existent sun in the foggy sky, my eyes closed and a small smile on my lips.

  Maybe I’d get one of those overcast tans you get at the beach, that way I wouldn’t look like such a ghost with my pale skin.

  “What do you mean, ‘no’?” Hayden asked me, working himself up into a rage as he paced back and forth on the grass.

  He had some serious anger management issues.

  “This task is ridiculous, Hayden,” I responded, almost laughing as I said it. “What in the world does climbing a floating cliff have to do with motor skills? It doesn’t make any sense and I refuse to participate in the madness any longer.”

  “So, what? You’re just going to sit here and rot away?”