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Back The Abyss Surrounds Us Save as PDF
Chapters (37)
  1. Dedication
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. 11
  13. 12
  14. 13
  15. 14
  16. 15
  17. 16
  18. 17
  19. 18
  20. 19
  21. 20
  22. 21
  23. 22
  24. 23
  25. 24
  26. 25
  27. 26
  28. 27
  29. 28
  30. 29
  31. 30
  32. 31
  33. 32
  34. 33
  35. 34
  36. Acknowledgments
  37. About the Author

She gives me a shove with her shoulder, her mouth drawn into a taut smile, and something inside me takes flight. Onboard the Minnow, the constant scrutiny and the balancing of power makes it nearly impossible for me to be certain of Swift’s motives whenever she does something like that. But out here, in a space that was completely her own until she decided to share it with me, Swift’s laid bare. I can see her for who she really is.

And I guess I really like her when she’s honest.

She catches my eye. “Hey, if it’d help put your mind at ease, we can go check on Bao. I’ll bet the crowds have died down, so there’s less of a chance you’ll end up in a video.” Swift stands, reaching down to help me up with her cuffed hand. As she grabs me by the wrist, I feel her nervous energy buzzing from her palm into my arm, and for once in this whole messy disaster, I feel like I have the upper hand.

“So how do we get out of here?” I ask, searching the walls that surround us. None of them look climbable, even by a single person. With the two of us chained together, it seems impossible to reach the roofs we slid down over.

But Swift isn’t looking up. Her gaze is fixed on the jungle of metal below us, on a spot that I can’t quite see, and my feeling of upper-handery vanishes. Suddenly I want my wrist back. She whips around her other arm, snaring my waist again, and just as the first word of protest is leaving my lips, she topples backward off the ledge, dragging me along with her.

24

24

We fall.

I scream, flailing my unchained hand as if I’m going to catch something. Panic threads in my veins.

But Swift is laughing, her fingers fisted in the back of my shirt. Her idiotic hair whips into my face as she yanks me closer and says, “Brace yourself.”

I don’t have time to question it. Swift twists in the air, rolling me off her so that we’re plummeting on our backs, and it’s not a second too soon. We hit canvas with a whumph and get tossed back in the air, gasping to recover the breath that’s been driven from our lungs. The second hit is better. We sink in, float up, and then come to rest.

“Holy shit,” I wheeze.

Swift’s still cackling.

I raise my free arm to hit her, but it’s shaking so badly that I can’t go through with it. “Warn me. Jesus, Swift, I thought we were going to die.”

“If I’d warned you, you wouldn’t have made that amazing face.”