The Date from Hell--A Novel by Gwenda Bond

Author:Gwenda Bond
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CALLIE

People talk about how time slows down in emergencies, but researchers say that isn’t true. There was one experiment where people were harnessed in and dropped from great heights to see if their brains sped up, if the experience seemed to happen more slowly. But that wasn’t it. The truth turns out to be that when we experience deep, bone-chilling fear the amygdala lays down an extra set of memories. It captures everything.

Or at least we feel like it does.

Luke grabs Sean—presumably to push him out of the way of the arrow—but Sean misreads his intention and shoves him back. By the time Sean looks over his shoulder to dodge the arrow, it’s too late. It hits Luke.

Luke, who stands on one foot, nearly balancing. So graceful. But the arrow tips his weight. It hits him on the side of his thigh … or does it? I’m not sure, I can’t see the detail well enough because of the blazing sun. I do know it doesn’t sink into the flesh, but keeps going. Maybe it only brushed him?

That doesn’t matter, though, because either way he’s falling. His arms straighten in the air like they’re seeking his wings and I wish them to him but it’s too slow. Everything is too slow, and so very fast.

He keeps falling until he’s hidden by the wall in front of me.

My borrowed senses sharpen, my emotions intensifying to something approaching the heat death of the sun. I hear molecules expanding and contracting, the universe gasping its slow final breaths, beyond it the screams of the damned.

Everything narrows and slows, from the grandest vista of all life to what’s in front of me limned in painful detail. The fabric of creation twists around me tight as a starving boa constrictor, and I feel Luke’s power forced from my body. My heart gets a sucker punch. In the wake of becoming human again, there’s only pain.

Eventually, I become aware of my feet on the narrow stone ledge and my heart speeds up, my breathing shallow. How will I ever get down? And Luke. Where is Luke?

Did he get his powers back in time to save him? His wings? He must have.

“Jump!” Saraya yells to me, standing below.

She holds her arms wide.

I don’t hesitate—I’ll marvel at that later, probably—but I do as she says. I careen through the air with screaming lungs, tourists around us shouting in startled cries and I want to tell them, You have no idea what you’re actually witnessing.

I plow into Saraya, but she takes my weight easily. She’s braced and lets out a gentle Oof. I scramble to my feet, and then I run. She trots along beside me—she must be going slower than she would normally on my account. That makes me more afraid than anything so far.

“I’m sure he’s uninjured,” she says, and I hear the uncertainty.

We reach the other end of the ruined abbey. The other side of the wall … the place where Luke fell.

A teenage girl wearing cargo shorts gapes at the ground.

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