A Party Trick at Thirty Thousand Feet Chapter 07

The first box is filled with stacks of boarding passes and train tickets.

They’re all from the past few years, collected during the trips I took with them. Every time, forced myself to overcome my physical fears just to enjoy the scenery and join their adventures.

On the back of each ticket, I’ve written pages of little reminders to myself.

[Don’t cry. Don’t throw up.]

[Caleb will be upset if I do.]

[My brother is right. I have to be brave.]

Will’s hands begin to tremble uncontrollably.

He opens the second box.

Inside lies a medical record from three years ago, along with a psychiatric evaluation.

[Severe acrophobia accompanied by severe post–traumatic stress disorder.]

[The patient should avoid all high–altitude activities and stimuli. Exposure could easily trigger an irreversible psychological breakdown and severe physical stress responses.]

Beneath the documents is a bottle of antidepressants, more than half empty.

Will grips the thin medical report so tightly that his knuckles turn white.

The paper crumples into a wrinkled ball in his fist.

At last, he remembers that night three years ago, when I was left hanging from a tree branch over the cliff for an entire night.

He finally begins to understand the kind of desperation I must have experienced in that darkness.

And what was he doing while I was suffering?

He was in the next room, gently comforting Rebecca over nothing more than a mild fever.

Will sinks onto the cold floor, looking like a broken man with nothing left inside him. He covers his

face and bursts into tears.

Rebecca wakes up in her VIP hospital room.

The sunlight outside is beautiful.

She opens her eyes and sees Jonathan sitting beside her bed, his face deathly pale.

She doesn’t ask how I’m doing. She doesn’t even ask when my funeral will be.

Instead, she suddenly sits up and grabs Jonathan’s arm, panic unmistakable in her voice,

“Jonathan, are the police going to come for me?”

“I wasn’t the only one who came up with that exposure challenge. Everyone agreed to it.”

“I don’t want to go to prison. I’m supposed to apply for a study–abroad program in Spain/next

month.”

“Please help me. Tell them it was an accident, okay?”

Jonathan stares at her as if she’s some kind of monster.

Slowly, he pulls his arm out of her grip.

“Juli is dead.”

“A tree branch pierced her stomach, and she bled to death.”

“And the first thing you ask when you wake up is whether you’ll still be able to study abroad?”

Rebecca freezes for a moment. Her eyes instantly fill with tears.

They stream down her cheeks like a broken faucet.

“I didn’t want this to happen!”

“Who knew she’d actually die? I was only trying to play a little prank on her!”

The hospital room door suddenly flies open with a loud bang.

Caleb stands in the doorway.

He’s lost so much weight that he looks almost unrecognizable. His eyes are sunken, and he looks

more like a walking corpse than a living man.

He slowly approaches the bed, clutching a USB drive in his hand.

“A prank?”

Caleb’s voice is so hoarse it sounds like sandpaper scraping against glass.

“You’re the one who pointed out that discarded parachute pack and told her to take it, aren’t you?

Rebecca frantically shakes her head and shrinks toward the corner of the bed.

“No! There was only one pack left on the rack! I thought it was real!”

Caleb lets out a cold laugh.

He plugs the USB drive into the television in the hospital room.

It’s surveillance footage from the equipment room at the helicopter base.

The video shows Rebecca sneaking into the equipment room ten minutes before we leave.

She stands on her tiptoes, takes the only fully functional backup parachute off the rack, and hides it inside a nearby storage cabinet.

Then she places the red dummy pack marked 04 in the most conspicuous spot:

When the footage ends, the hospital room falls deathly silent.

So it wasn’t a mistake after all.

Rebecca knew all along that the pack was empty.

She just wanted to watch me panic and beg for help in midair. She wanted to humiliate me.

She wanted me to fall awkwardly, break my legs, and lose any chance of competing with her for their affection ever again.

She simply hadn’t expected the main parachute they’d tampered with to turn into nothing but a

shower of confetti.

Caleb’s eyes instantly turn bloodshot, burning red with rage.

He suddenly lunges at her.

His hands clamp around Rebecca’s throat like iron shackles.

“I’ll make you pay for her death!”