Chapter 36 Dear gravity, stop hating me

Chapter 36 Dear gravity, stop hating me
Hazel’s POV
The other guy grabbed the green-haired one by the sleeve. “Nope. Not worth it. I like being alive.”
They backed away. The green-haired guy hesitated, glaring at me over his shoulder, pride bruised, but then the axes scraped again, louder this time. They ran. Just like that. 

We were alone. I stared after them, then slowly looked back at the guy who had definitely kicked me earlier. There was no way. No way the same person who punted me like a football had just saved me. 
He turned his gaze to me. I couldn’t see his face; only his mismatched eyes, Partial heterochromia －one eye brown, the other this strange mix of gray and brown, dark and sharp above the scarf.
“I can see,” he said quietly, “you’ve already made quite a number of enemies.”
I lifted my chin. “I have a gift,” I replied. “People meet me once and immediately regret their life choices.”

A low chuckle slipped out of him; deep, humorless. “Trust me,” he said, “quite a number of people want you dead.”
My smile froze. “…Dead?”
He didn’t answer. His eyes dropped to the shovel still clutched in my hands. 
The air changed. 
Something cold slid down my spine. 

I glanced at the shovel, suddenly very aware that I was holding the emotional support weapon of a very unstable delinquent who apparently has some kind of relationship with this guy. No surprise there.
“Oh－ uh,” I said quickly, stretching it toward him while carefully keeping my balance, “this is his. You can have－”

“How dare you touch her.”
He stepped toward me. Both axes dragged behind him now, metal screaming against concrete.
My heart slammed against my ribs. “What?”
“You hurt him,” he snarled. His breathing grew uneven. Faster. “You caused him pain. You caused me pain.” He laughed suddenly－ sharp and broken. Unhinged.
“I trusted him to stay alive for five minutes,” he went on, voice rising. “And now he’s bleeding out because of you.”
“I didn’t kill him!” I said, panic clawing up my throat. “I was helping him breathe－ he was dy－”
He broke into a sprint. Straight at me. 

I barely had time to gasp before he slammed into me, the force knocking me clean off my feet. The shovel flew from my hands. I hit the ground hard. Pain exploded through my hips and ribs as the world tilted violently, the last thing I saw being the blur of black coat and silver-tipped hair as everything went spinning. 
And then he suddenly grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked. Pain exploded across my scalp, sharp and blinding. A scream ripped out of me before I could stop it. “Ah－ no, stop!!”

He didn’t even look back at me. He just started walking. Dragging me behind him by my hair like I was nothing more than dead weight. My hands flew up, gripping his wrist, but it only made him pull harder. My neck burned. My eyes stung. My feet scraped uselessly against the ground as I stumbled after him, half-running, half-being hauled. Every step sent fire through my hips and ribs.
“Stop－” my voice cracked, humiliation burning hotter than the pain. “You’re hurting me!”
He ignored me completely. The stairs loomed ahead; half broken, uneven concrete steps leading upward. He took them without slowing, yanking me up each one.

I cried out as my knee smashed into the edge of a step, my grip slipping, my body jolting. By the time we reached the terrace, my face was flushed, my chest heaving, tears blurring everything. He let go. For half a second, I thought it was over. 
Then he grabbed my hair again and slammed me backward. My head hit the concrete hard enough that stars burst behind my eyes. A sob tore out of me, raw and ugly, before I could swallow it back.
He seized my arm. “Get up.”
I didn’t. I couldn’t. My body refused to cooperate, pain locking me in place. I shook my head, breath hitching, teeth clenched so hard my jaw hurt. 
He reached for my hair again. I forced myself upright instantly, terror overriding pain.
My legs wobbled beneath me, but I stayed standing because the alternative was worse. That’s when I noticed where we were. The edge of the terrace. High. Too high. The ground below felt impossibly far away, like the world had stretched just to make the fall worse.  He grabbed the back of my head and forced my face downward. My stomach dropped.

“No! don’t－” I whispered, panic flooding my chest. My vision doubled as I tried to pull away, but his grip was iron.
“You already want to meet your end this badly?” he said calmly. Too calmly. “Guess I should speed things up.”
Before I could react, he grabbed my collar and lifted. My feet left the ground. Everything inside me screamed. The wind rushed past my ears, loud and cruel, tugging at my skirt, my hair, my breath.
My feet kicked uselessly in the air, toes scraping for ground that wasn’t there anymore. I clawed at his wrist, fingers slipping against his sleeve, my heart hammering so violently I thought it might burst. The world spun. The drop below looked unreal, like something from a nightmare. “Please,” I cried, the word breaking apart. “Please don’t－ I didn’t kill him. I swear. I was helping him－”

Tears spilled freely now, hot and humiliating. I hated myself for it, hated how weak I sounded, hated that my pride meant nothing when I was dangling in the air like this. 
He stared at me. Like he was memorizing the look on my face. My hands trembled as I tightened my grip on his wrist. “I didn’t do this,” I whispered, voice shaking. “I wouldn’t! I wouldn’t－”

He didn’t answer. If anything, his grip tightened slightly, he leaned closer, lifting me another inch higher just to prove he could. My breath hitched violently. And in that moment, suspended between concrete and sky, all I could think was,
He might actually let go.