Chapter 115: Carried

The drop came with a hard rush of weightlessness that made Elias squeeze his eyes shut on instinct.

He braced for pain.

When the impact came, though, it was wrong.

Or rather, it was missing.

He felt the ground. He felt the jolt of landing. But the kind of pain he should have taken from a fall like that never arrived. Confused, he opened his eyes and found Giselle’s face close to his, her eyes closed, her skin gone a little pale.

She had turned in midair.

At the last second, she had forced her own body underneath his and taken the landing for him.

"Giselle." Elias grabbed at her shoulders at once. "Giselle, wake up. Hey, wake up. Giselle!"

This time his panic was entirely real.

What was she doing trying to look cool right now? If his leg had snapped, he could still deal with it. If something happened to her, though, that was a disaster. The mission would be a mess, the favorability arc would go with it, and his retirement plan would get shoved farther into the distance again.

The helicopter settled back onto the ground a moment later. The pilot and the rest of the passengers jumped out almost before it had fully stabilized. Every face that came toward them looked stricken.

If Giselle Frost had actually been hurt here, none of them were getting out clean.

The commotion pulled more people over. Naomi Vale came in fast, and Sloane was right behind her. Whatever else they were, the concern on both their faces was real.

"Call 911," someone shouted. "Now. Get an ambulance here."

Another voice took it up. Then another.

The whole drop zone had gone ragged and loud.

And then, in the middle of all that noise, Giselle opened her eyes.

Her blue gaze was quiet.

She looked at Elias first, still sprawled half over her, then lifted her head and looked past him at the others.

"I’m fine."

Her voice was steady enough to make several people stop talking at once.

She started to get up from the ground. Elias scrambled off her immediately and caught her arm to help her rise. She let him steady her just long enough to stand, then pulled her arm free the second she had her balance back.

When she looked at him again, her eyes were cold.

Elias’s lips moved, but nothing came out at first. In the end, the only thing he managed was a trembling, "I’m sorry..."

Around them, the tension finally eased now that it was clear Giselle was still standing, still conscious, and not coughing blood onto the dirt. Relief spread through the group in a visible wave, but the aftershock of fear had to go somewhere, and it found its target in Elias almost immediately.

Even Sloane turned on him.

What she had just watched had scared her badly enough that some of the usual amusement had burned right off.

"Are you insane?" she snapped. "You grabbed onto a helicopter."

From where she stood, both of them were out of their minds. One of them insisted on doing a night jump, and the other had literally tried to hang onto an aircraft with his bare hands. What did they think this was, some trashy teen drama?

The rest of the crowd joined in with no hesitation.

"Seriously."

"If you want to kill yourself, do it somewhere else."

"Don’t drag everybody down with you."

A few of them had the nerve to sound irritated instead of shaken. Their logic was simple. If Elias had died here, this site would have become a problem overnight. Access would tighten. Investigations would follow. The place would lose its usefulness. They were angry because his stunt might have inconvenienced them.

Under all those eyes, Elias did not argue.

He only kept apologizing, his head lowered, not daring to look up again.

It was Naomi, of all people, who cut in.

"All right, enough." She glanced at Giselle, then back at the others. "She’s standing here, isn’t she? Better this than him actually making it all the way up and dying on the way back down."

"That’s not the point," Sloane began.

She got no farther.

Giselle turned her head and fixed her with a look sharp enough to stop the rest of the sentence in her throat. Then, before anyone else could pile on, she lifted one arm, caught Elias by the shoulder, and dragged him straight into her chest.

"Have you all said enough?" she asked.

Her voice was quiet, but it landed like ice water.

It sounded like the question was meant for Sloane. It sounded just as much like it was meant for every person standing there.

Elias went still the second she pulled him in.

Warmth closed around him without warning. For a moment he simply froze in her arms, genuinely stunned. Then he tipped his head up, wanting to look at her, and she shoved it right back down with a flat hand to the crown of his head, pressing him into place as easily as if he weighed nothing.

Only then did it hit him.

She was protecting him.

A bright little flare of satisfaction went off in his chest.

Good. Very good.

That whole scene had not been wasted.

The performance had landed. The iron tree had finally sprouted a flower.

The people around them reacted exactly as expected. A live spectacle unfolding in front of rich thrill-seekers was already bad enough. A spectacle with Giselle Frost as one of the leads pushed the whole thing into something close to disbelief. Their jeers turned into laughter, whistles, excited chatter. The tone changed fast. Now they were watching for romance where a minute ago they had been watching for blood.

With all that noise around them, Giselle kept one arm around Elias and started walking.

He staggered along with her at first, but the farther they went, the less stable he got. Between the strain of clinging to the helicopter and whatever he had pulled on the way up, a deep aching heaviness was spreading through his body. His muscles felt swollen from the inside, every movement dragging on something sore and raw. He could not see the ground properly with his glasses gone, and after a few more steps his legs stopped cooperating altogether.

He sagged against her.

Giselle loosened her grip just enough to look down at him.

Under that gaze, Elias tried to force himself upright. His body refused. His hands, weak now, closed in the fabric of her clothes while he leaned against her, using her to stay standing at all. Even then he still tried to save face.

"I can stand," he said quietly. "I really can..."

The next second he let out a short yelp.

Giselle had bent, slid an arm under him, and lifted him clean off the ground in one smooth motion.

He reacted by instinct, both arms going around her neck before he even had time to think about it.

If this had happened any earlier, she probably would have thrown him for the reflex alone. More likely she never would have picked him up in the first place. Now, though, her expression barely changed.

The position was awkward, and Elias shifted slightly, trying to find a less uncomfortable angle.

"Stop moving," Giselle said, her tone sharp enough to cut. "If you keep wriggling around, I’ll drop you."

Elias went still at once.

Then, tucked obediently in her arms, he smiled to himself where she could not see it.

He had already checked the panel.

Giselle’s favorability had finally moved.

It had been stuck at sixteen percent for what felt like forever, and now it had jumped another ten.

Extreme sports really were wonderful.

At this rate, if Giselle ever decided to take up cliff climbing, he would not mind putting on another performance.

A short distance away, Sloane and Naomi stood watching the whole thing. After a while, they both turned and looked at each other.

Naomi clicked her tongue. "I swear, I cannot deal with her."

Then she asked, "Who is that boy?"

Sloane sounded annoyed clear through. "How would I know? Go ask Giselle. At this point I doubt even she knows what he is to her."

Giselle carried Elias over to the car parked beside one of the temporary canopies and set him down across the back seat. Before he could start talking again, she cut him off.

"Don’t say a word. Stay here and lie still until I finish changing."

Elias shut his mouth.

Then, the instant she turned away, his mood brightened again.

Looks like the ice queen is getting addicted to playing the hero. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Compared to Serena, Giselle had more of the CEO feel to her. The way she moved, the way she gave orders, the way people gave ground when she looked at them, all of it had a clean kind of authority. It was hard not to admit that she looked good doing it.

Outside the car came the soft rustle of clothes shifting.

Giselle had started changing right there.

Elias’s interest sharpened at once. He raised his upper body as much as he could manage and craned toward the window, trying to get an angle on whatever was happening outside.

He still had not actually seen Giselle’s body.

Then again, other than Serena, no one else had gotten much farther either.

That only made this a rare opportunity. He had no intention of wasting it.

[ ... ]

System Theta had been about to express concern for its host. It now felt that concern had probably been unnecessary.

Elias was still trying to work out a better line of sight when the car door opened.

Giselle appeared in front of him, already changed into expensive street clothes.

Elias froze exactly as he was, twisted halfway up from the seat like a thief caught with his hand in the drawer.

The silence that followed was deeply embarrassing.

Giselle looked at his posture, frowned, and asked, "Does it hurt that much?"

Slowly, Elias eased himself back down and lay flat again as if that had been his intention the whole time. "It doesn’t really hurt..."

Giselle reached out without hesitation and pressed a hand straight down onto his thigh.

Pain shot through him so hard and fast that he let out a sharp cry before he could stop himself.

Giselle’s eyes went colder.

"This," she said, "is what you call not hurting?"

Elias had no answer for that.