And he doesn’t want to look, but he already is, so he sees Malcolm’s body hit the bottom, caught not by white-capped waves but jagged rock.
He’s glad he’s not wearing his glasses now, because his mind won’t be able to haunt him with the details, the places where flesh collides with stone, where vital bits spill out.
Jaxon scrambles backward. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” he mutters, running his hands through his cropped hair, and he’s still trying to steady himself, to wrap his head around what just happened, when he somehow hears another sound, over his raging pulse.
A gasp.
He twists around and sees Millie.
For a fraction of a second her face is perfectly blank, before horror washes over it.
“Oh my god, did you see that?” He starts toward her, and she takes a step back, away, as if she’s scared of him. As if she thinks—
“What did youdo?” she asks, and Jaxon blinks, trying to catch up. His brain feels sluggish, his thoughts muddy. Running usually clears his head, helps him think. But his runs don’t usually end with watching someonedie.
“Whoa,” he says, putting his hands up. “It’s not what it looks like.”
He’s close enough now to see the tears streaming down her face, the fear bright in her eyes. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
The sun has vanished behind thick, dark clouds.
Jaxon swallows, nods. “I tried to save him,” he says quickly. “I tried. I was finishing my run, and I saw him standing at the edge and I thought he was going to jump and I tried to get to him before—but I couldn’t—”
Maybe if he’d gone faster, if he hadn’t used it all up on his run, if he’d been able to shave a second off that final sprint, he would have gotten there in time. Oh god.
“Mill, you’ve got to believe me.”
She’s shaking her head, as if she doesn’t, her gaze flicking from Jaxon to the cliff and back again.
“You know me.”
“Not that well.”
It stings.
“Well enough to know that I can be an asshole, but I’m not amurderer.”
“Do you...” She shifts her weight. “Do you promise that you didn’t push him?”
“Jesus, yes! I promise. Please,” he says, “please, say that you believe me.”
She looks at him. Hesitates, then nods. “Okay,” she says, with a shaky voice, “I believe you.”
Relief floods his body. The air comes rushing out.
“Thank god,” he says, bending double.
“But we’ve got to tell the others.”
And just like that, the panic is back. “Tell them what?” he asks, because they’ve got to get on the same page, don’t they? It was an accident.
Millie chews her bottom lip as the first drops of rain begin to fall.
“That he fell... right, Mill?” asks Jaxon, and even though he feels like throwing up, he finds her eyes and attempts a rueful smile. “That’s what happened. So that’s what we’ll say.”
Just then, something catches his eye. The dragon weather vane is spinning with the wind. And just below, a person-shaped shadow is looking out from the top window. Jaxon frowns. “Hey, do you see—”
But Millie’s not there. She’s bolting. Sprinting away from him, and toward the front door.
