"I need you." She grabbed his shoulders. "You can't leave."
"Let me go." He pushed her hands away.
"You really can't. You don't k—"
"Stop it." He dodged her hands. "I need to go."
"You can't!" Her arms circled his chest from behind, clipping his arms to his side. "Just wait, Venice's almost here, please L—"
"Her? How could you call her?" He verged on desperation. "Look, I really need it, and it's," he pointed downwards, the branches below their feet swayed in foreboding, in sync with her quivering lips, "down there."
"Just a while more, okay? You not ready t—or I can go for you, in... in a few m—" Her voice shook at the mere suggested prospect of jumping down.
"Stop, sis. We both know you would never dare. And we both know you don't want to graduate."
His words stung her, but she could not deny it.
"I'll go okay? I... I promise, I get it for you, I'll graduate, and I'll find it kay, so—"
"It'll be too late!" He exploded, "do you think something like that could last even a few months down there?" He pushed her away from him, "it will die." His voice trembled; his legs too, were inching backwards.
"You can't, you only have one right now, you won't survive the fall, you haven't even learnt how to f—"
"It's not im—"
"Stop cutting me off!" She screamed. She caught his hand and pulled him inward, towards her and away from the verge. "Listen to me! I can't lose you!" Her bare feet digging into the wood were probably bleeding.
"Leo, what are you doing at the edge?" A familiar voice from above froze the pair of struggling siblings.
"Aunt Venice," a breathe of relief exhaled from Aria while a gasp of horror escaped Leo's lips.
With renewed urgency, Leo flung his sister away from him, and ran towards the tip of the branch.
"Leo!" An overlap of Venice and Aria's voice resounded in the distance as the boy's feet pushed off the branch.
"Don't you dare!" Despair clouded Aria's vision as she accelerated towards her brother.
In that flash of a second, time slowed.
Her hand grabbed Leo's flailing arms. With a harsh tug that almost pulled her arm out of her socket, she launched herself forward, throwing her brother backwards with a reverse momentum she created with the swing of her arm.
The snap of the branch below her foot where she had landed on broke the bubble.
Her eyes widened in disbelief as a surge of noise crashed into her—she didn't even have time to gasp.
"Aria!"
The pale echo of a high-pitched cry along with an aching shriek against the blurring background of the green pine flashed across her eyes.
She fell.
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