Kiss of Death by Lauren Henderson Read Free Book Online Page B

preserver. The edge of the staircase. Has to be. It’s a ninety-degree angle: my fingers are flat on the surface, my palms squeezing against the vertical face of the wall below, my hands clamping with everything I have as they take the weight of my entire body, which slams into the wall a second later.
    Owww! —my nose —I brace my arms, desperately trying to hold myself far enough away so I don’t smash it full force into the wall. The tip does smoosh against the wall, but I manage to jerk my chin up and lock my arms to give me a half inch or so. Barely adequate, but although I whack my nose, the cartilage doesn’t break, thank God. I’ve seen girls break their noses before in gymnastics practice, taking headers onto the beam, and I know how bad it is. No way would I be able to keep clinging to the stair rung with that sort of pain in my face and pints of blood gushing out of my nostrils.
    I’m flailing with my legs, but there’s nothing below me; the stair wall ends about midthigh. I can feel it cutting into me. I could try to swing my lower body enough to propel me forward onto the staircase below, but that’s so high-risk the thought terrifies me immediately; if I don’t make it, I’ll land on my back or neck on the railing. And even if I do make it, I could still turn an ankle, break a leg, or worse, tumbling down the staircase.
    No. Can’t do it.
    And my fingers are starting to slip.
    Okay. Stay calm. Find a Plan B. There’s always a Plan B.
    Taylor and I have been doing a lot of oblique curl-ups recently. Trying to get into our waistlines, narrow them in. Neither of us has much in the way of a waist naturally, so this is something we’ve been working on hard: hanging off the bars at the school gym, pulling our knees to our chests, twisting from one side to the other.
    Normally I would take a deep breath before I try this, but the heavy gray smoke surrounding me isn’t going to help much with that. I cock my right hip, heaving it up as far as I can, using my abdominal muscles, curling into them to get my hip even higher so that my right leg can kick out sideways onto a stair edge.
    My bare foot connects with two poles. Banisters, I think in triumph a second before I stub my toe painfully, unable to control how hard I sent my leg up and into them.
    Ow! But I can’t flinch. I need that banister to keep me alive. I push through the pain, driving my foot between the two banisters, jamming it there, my sole flat to the stair below, giving me enough purchase to take one hand off the stair it’s on and reach for the stair rail above. I make it just as the other hand slips off, so sweaty by now it can’t maintain its death clamp.
    But I’m safe. One hand on a stair rail, one foot wedged between two banisters: that, to an ex-gymnast, is total security. My left foot snakes up to find the stair wall, walking up it vertically till my toes curl round the stair edge; my right hand comes up to grip the same banister as my left hand; like a monkey, I climb up it, swinging myself over the rail and landing on the concrete staircase.
    I’ve never been more grateful to feel cold concrete beneath my feet in my life.
    Cold! I think instantly, relief exploding in my brain. If the fire were really dangerous, it’d be warm by now—which means it’s okay to go downstairs—
    I dash down the stairs, smoke surrounding me, one hand on the stair rail to keep me oriented. I’m very aware that someone just pushed me—lured me into that stairwell and tried to kill me, or at least hurt me badly. I don’t think she can have been watching my struggle to save myself, because the smoke is just too thick; but she could be lurking on the staircase, waiting in ambush.
    She won’t hear me though—bare feet make no sound on concrete. And I’d like to see her try to catch me. I’m down two flights in thirty seconds, flying on the pads of my feet, swinging round each turn of the stairs, pivoting round my hand on the stair rail like a