cascade | kotlc

14. The HALO Jump

June gasped as her eyes flew open. Dex was standing over her, holding an unconscious Grady.

"What- what happened?" she croaked, getting up. Her mind was clear, clearer than ever before, it felt like. "How long was I out?"

Dex looked at her after he set down Grady. "You're awake. We were starting to lose hope, but at least Bullhorn didn't... it's been a long time. A week?"

June gasped. "Where's everyone? Where's my sister?"

"She's-"

"Brant's the pyrokinetic! It was him, his love poems to Jolie -- you are the burning flame that is never seen, the burning flame that will never die. The Neverseen and Everblaze. It took me so long to figure out, is he-"

"I know," Dex said. "We just chased him down."

"And so you killed him?"

He hesitated slightly. "Apparently Grady almost. Sophie inflicted on him."

"Like she did on me," June practically shouted. "The Heart of the Matter. Inflicting comes from emotion, which comes from the heart. You can't shut down her heart."

Dex nodded, looking slightly confused. "But we had to let him go, because he was-"

"WHAT?" June shrieked. "YOU LET HIM GO?"

"Context. So the Black Swan told everyone, I mean Fitz, Keefe, Biana, to wait at Mount Everest and plan an ambush. They were preparing to catch the Neverseen. But we caught Brant, and he said they knew they were there, so they were planning a counter-ambush ambush- and gosh this is confusing, but we had to let him go so that Sophie could get there in time-"

"They're in danger?" June asked as she got up. "We have to help them."

Dex shook his head. "You don't understand. They're on the peak of Mount Everest. Even if we leaped to the Sanctuary -- also, I took off Sophie's restrictor-"

"Finally."

"Yeah, so I'm a criminal now, and my entire family's held for treason if they find out, so I can't be found, not until they're safe. But even if we leap, we can't make it to the peak in time."

"We need a form of transportation that's high. High enough to get to the peak of Mount Everest..." June muttered. Her eyes lit up. "Dex, can you drive an airplane?"

"What, those big, winged machines that take you up in the sky? Probably, I could figure it out, but- you can't actually. We'll have to go to the Forbidden Cities."

"Exactly," June said. "But it's the only way to help them."

Dex closed his eyes. "I can't land the airplane on the peak. How would you get off?"

"A parachute," she breathed. "Streamliner. Doesn't the eject give you a parachute? I eject myself onto the wing of an airplane -- oh, this is brilliant -- and you drive it over the peak and I jump off, deploy the parachute, and hopefully land on the peak early enough to save Sophie, we just need to get to an airport close enough!"

"Alden would probably have a crystal," Dex said slowly. "But this is very dangerous. First, it's illegal, but second... the odds of actually pulling it off are minimal. At best."

"I don't care," she said, sprinting to grab her shoes and Streamliner, which was lying on her desk in her room. "It's the only way to help Sophie. Do you want to come or not?"

"I do."

"Then come," June said, slipping on her shoes and dragging Dex to the fourth floor to the Leapmaster. "Everglen," she called, and the crystal fell down. "Let's go hijack an airplane."