The Key Chased the Blade

I followed Simon's lead. He crawled out the windowpane and onto the roof, and a blast of cold air chilled me. I ignored it and clambered after him. After setting my feet onto the shingles, I realized the roof was covered in a sheet of frost. Simon seemed to realize this too. He slid down on his butt, and his arms quivered as he tried to keep himself steady. His shoes dug hard enough into the roof to leave little trails of scraped frost. "Be careful," he said. He wasn't going to risk moving his hands to sign at me.

I didn't say anything back and slid after him.

"We're going to go to this side of the house," he said as softly as he could. "The ivy is here. We'll just have to climb down it and we'll be good. You've got that?"

"Yeah," I said. But as soon as we got close to the edge, my hands slipped from under me.

I shrieked involuntarily and my shoes suddenly lost their traction. I started speeding down the roof. Simon tried to grab me, but it pulled him off balance. I crashed into the gutter and I flailed madly for a handhold, but then Simon came slipping right after me and knocked us both over. Then I felt weightlessness. I wanted to scream, but I didn't get the chance to, because that paralyzing fear took me over and I hit the ground hard.

The air slammed out of my lungs. For a brief moment, I couldn't breathe, and I knew I was dead. God, I was dead. I knew for a fact that I had just died and my life was over. But after that second of the panicked burning in my lungs, I got them to work. I sucked in a breath. Oh my God. I wheezed in another breath. Oh my freaking God.

"Noah!" I saw Simon clinging to the ivy on the wall of his house. He shimmied down that wall faster than I had ever seen him climb and rushed to my side. "Noah, are you okay!?"

I gasped. "Shut up!" That was barely all I could manage. I was still breathing hard. "Your parents will hear us!"

Simon grabbed onto me, but then he let me go. "Are you hurt? Is anything broken?"

Jesus. "Yeah, I'm fine." I sat up and shook the ice off of me. "I landed on the grass, so I'm okay. We'd better get the hell outta here before your parents come looking." I must've screamed loud enough to wake up the whole neighborhood.

"Okay. Okay." Simon was still freaking out though. "Come on, I'll help you up. You sure you're alright? Okay. Let's just go."

Simon and I hauled myself to my feet and we booked it outta there.