Lost Destinies

↳ 15: The Bold, The Brave, The Stubborn As Hell

The air sped past them, whipping at their hair and dragging them terrifyingly downward. Ramona watched the magic carpet almost gleefully dash away like a wisp in the wind. The one thing that could have broken their fall was gone in an instant. This is it. After everything we've been through, we're all about to die. But in the chaos, everything cleared, and Ramona's panic gave way to calm. This was her most familiar state of mind. In the midst of havoc and terror, in total free fall, she was at home. This wasn't improv, a plan gone wrong. This was freedom.

Ramona's eyes adjusted to the dusk of her surroundings and she yanked off her suit jacket, discarding it into the evening sky. It was earlier than it had been in Snow. She couldn't tell who was screaming—maybe everyone—but she allowed it to fuel her focus, forcing her wings through the slits in her undershirt with a dull stinging sensation. They snapped open and steadied her. Suddenly everyone else was falling much faster than she was. She made a split-second decision and dived.

"You're heavier than I thought you'd be," she said breathlessly, arms clutched around Minerva's stomach. It was a half-joke, more to ease her own nerves than Minerva's.

"You did it," Minerva gasped, eyes uncharacteristically wide with exhilaration and fear.

"Grab Lindsay." She was the closest to them, just barely out of Minerva's reach. Fingers grasped desperately at each other before linking, and Ramona sank, weighed down by the both of them. Thoughts along the lines of I can't do this clawed at the edges of her mind, but she was too far in now to quit, so she ignored them. She raised her voice so they both could hear. "I'm going to lower you guys down some before dropping you, alright? Don't let go!"

Ramona swooped down and dropped them only a few feet from the ground, wasting no time in flying back upward. Her muscles were aching already. Penny and Bear were hanging onto each other for dear life, Claude sinking through the air a little ways away. There was no way there would be time to grab all of them, she thought frantically, and Bear alone was heavy enough to cause her to drop like a stone—wings or no wings. She took ahold of the back of Penny's collar anyway, grunting with the effort and concentrating on controlling her sudden descent. What else could she do? She managed to fly low enough that when Bear's hands slipped, he landed dizzily on his behind. Penny followed suit, tucking her knees so that she rolled harmlessly before coming to a stop sprawled on her back, hyperventilating but seemingly okay.

Ramona rocketed through the air one last time, thinking not of the time she had left but of what she needed to do with it. Claude was dangerously close to splattering to a glittery-eyeshadow-covered end. She was already drained from the exerting and sudden use of her wings, but she forced every last bit of adrenaline she could muster into her muscles, wrapping her arms tightly around the first friend she'd ever truly had and sending them both spinning and hurtling to the ground as everything in her gave out.

Claude and Ramona tumbled across the grass, her wings instinctively curled to protect the both of them as they skidded violently through dirt from the sheer momentum of the fall. She squeezed her eyes shut, crying out in pain—something was definitely broken. Claude gripped her with fresh ferocity, as if he hadn't just narrowly evaded plummeting to his death. His lavender eyes were locked onto her muddy brown ones like a vise.

"It's okay. It's okay. You can rest now. You did it."

She'd done it. She'd performed the spell. And they were all alive.

Claude helped her stand with significant effort. She was exhausted and stumbled, slumping forward into his arms. Her wig had come loose in flight. She tore it free, her bodyguard ensemble sticking to her with sweat. Her real hair was tied into a small ponytail and frizzed at the top from that awful wig, and she would have killed for a bath.