I can only suck in the cold air, trying to quell my racing heart.
He walks past me, toward the edge of the roof, and I have no choice but to follow, wincing with every step of my bare feet on the cold concrete. Past the climate control units. Past the hover car pad that remains empty, Danny somewhere else. He leads me all the way to the low wall that separates the roof from the void.
“I realized I’ve been asking the wrong questions.” He turns to look at me, and his eyes are even emptier than before, like someone carved out everything human and left only the weapon behind. “I’ve been asking what you know. What you reported, who you work for.”
The wind screams past us and I shiver uncontrollably.
“But that’s not what I really need to know, is it?” He steps closer, and I step back—but the wall is right there, pressing against my thighs, the only thing keeping me from falling to my death, and there’s nowhere left to go. “What I really need to know is simpler than that.”
“What?” The word comes out barely a whisper.
He leans down, his face inches from mine, and his voice drops to something soft and terrible.
“I need you to give me a good reason to let you live.”
And then his hand closes around my arm.
“No, Nate!” I try to pull back, but he’s already moving, already lifting me over the wall like I weigh nothing, and suddenly I’m standing on a narrow ledge with nothing between me and a seven-hundred-foot drop but his hand on my arm.
“Do you know what’s down there?” he asks, almost pleasantly.
“At the bottom?”
I can’t answer. Can’t breathe. The wind is screaming past us, and all I can see is the street far below, the tiny cars, the specks of people like ants. I think I’m about to pass out, my vision going grey at the edges, and that makes me tremble even more.
“Concrete,” he continues. “It’s the foundation of this fair city. And at this height, hitting it would be like hitting a brick wall at terminal velocity. Every bone in your body would shatter. Your organs would rupture. You’d be dead before you had time to feel it.”
I try to saypleasebut it comes out garbled, my heart in my throat, my eyes rolling back from the sheer vertigo panic-inducing drop of it all.
His hand leaves my arm.
It closes around my throat instead.
And then he lifts.
My feet leave the ledge.
My legs dangle over nothing.
The only thing keeping me alive is his grip on my throat—tight enough to keep me in his grasp and make breathing difficult.
“I could break your neck right now,” he says, and his voice has gone quiet, almost contemplative. “Right here, with just a little more pressure. Watch the light go out of your eyes. Drop your body and let gravity do the rest.”
I claw at his wrist, but it’s like scratching at steel. The suit. The strength. I’m outmatched in every single way.
I always was.
“But that would be too easy.” His grip shifts, and I gasp for air. “I think I’d rather see you fall. Give you time to think on theway down. About what you did. About all those lies. About how it feels to know you’re going to die.”
Tears are streaming down my face—from the wind, from the fear that’s eating me alive, from everything. The city blurs into streaks of light below me.
“So, here’s what’s going to happen.” His face swims into focus, and I see something crack through the emptiness. Desperation. “I’m going to ask you one question. And if you don’t answer, if you lie, if you deflect, if you give me the silent treatment one more fucking time, I’m going to let go.”
I can barely hear him over the wind and the roaring of my heart in my ears.
“Was any of it real?” he asks, pained.
The question hangs between us.
