Safety is Relative

Chapter Six - Now for the Easy Part

The crowd has gone wild now, and I know that someone must be finishing. I turn run over to them as they practically dive across the line, and I see, with a burst of utter joy, that it’s Jasper.

‘Jasper! We were getting worried!’

He’s gasping, and looks totally exhausted, but a grin is cracking his face in two. He probably had to sprint the whole way.

‘Jasper O’Neill, nineteen minutes and fifty two seconds,’

Everyone gasps at how close he was to failing, but Jasper just stands up and whoops.

‘I think that’s a record right there for the closest finish,’ he says, hugging me in the exuberance of his happiness.

I’m startled, but I hug him back. He seems really nice, and I am really glad he managed to finish.

When he draws back, I turn to Ash. ‘Oh, and I bow down to your amazingness, bro,’ I tell him. ‘You must have been seriously good to finish in time.’

Quinn looks sort of annoyed, but Ash grins.

Some more people are finishing, so I steer Jasper out of the way of their family and supporters. We go over to Nina, who is in conversation with a statuesque woman, who can only be some relation of hers, judging from her glossy locks, and a very tall man.

She sees us and waves, hurriedly hugging the woman.

‘Your parents?’ I ask, as she comes over.

‘Hm? Oh yeah, the cherished Mayor Romero and his beautiful wife,’ she says, rolling her eyes.

They wave at us, smiling.

I wave back. ‘Your dad’s the mayor?’

I do vaguely remember her telling me her father was on the council, but not that he actually was the most important person in town.

‘Yup,’ she says, ‘So watch out, missy.’

Jasper joins us again after being swallowed up by the crowd a few moments ago. ‘So what do we do now?’

‘You can go and tidy yourselves up,’ says a girl, wearing a green tee-shirt. She hands us towels. ‘Go around the back of the church and you’ll find a shower block.’

We take the towels and head off to the shower block, but before I’ve gone five paces she’s calling after me.

‘Hey! You’re Quinn’s sister, aren’t you?’

I am strangely awed and a little freaked out by the fact that Quinn seems to be so well known. Obviously he’s some sort of super-slayer.

‘Yeah, that’s me.’

She grins. ‘What time did you get?’

‘Thirteen minutes something,’ I say, feeling a pang. Am I supposed to have remembered my time? Is it supposed to stay with me forever as a cherished memory? All I can remember is I had over five minutes left and the relief, not the actual digits.

Her smile slips slightly. ‘Oh, well done then.’

Then she is accosted by some other girls bearing towels, so I follow the others to the shower block.

Nina is laughing at me. ‘What was all that about?’

I sigh. ‘I think everyone’s expecting me to be of the same calibre as Quinn, which obviously, I am not.’

‘I don’t think it really matters what time you get,’ says Jasper, ‘after all, it only matters that you finished in time.’

I have a sneaking suspicion he’s giving that advice to himself as well as me, but I smile anyway.