Chapter 15
MINHO
Regardless of how many times we’d gone through the obstacle course in practice, nothing could have prepared me for the real thing. While I’d never had any issues with heights before, I also had never walked along a fucking tightwire ten stories above the ground before.
Halfway in, we were all struggling. The wind was so much worse than any of us could have anticipated, and the excessive amount of practice both Ace and Noah had guilted us into this past month was the only thing getting us through.
It took every ounce of my willpower to focus on my footing and not look for Noah.
I had to trust that he could handle himself, just like he had every day that we’d practiced.
I figured out really early that my nerves couldn’t handle actually watching him on the wires.
Not when I knew he wasn’t clipped onto a safety line.
This was a hundred times worse than I’d prepared for. My noise-cancelling headphones meant I was alone with my thoughts and the stomach twisting view of the ground far, far, far below us.
I hardly dared to breathe, keeping my eyes on August and Ace ahead of me. Several times already, Ace had grabbed Augie’s arm to redirect and save him from missing the steps…but every near miss from August only made me more anxious for Noah.
Fuck. If he fell…
Nope. No, it wasn’t an option. He was too good at this shit, and as dangerous as it all seemed to the rest of us, it was on par with a lot of his stunts. He’d free-climbed taller structures than this in the past, so the danger was not new to him.
Our course was nowhere near as complicated as typical tree-top courses, since we only had the three towers to securely tether the wires to.
With the addition of a suspended platform in the middle of the triangle, it allowed us to create six obstacle paths.
Some we needed to double up to finish back in the tower we’d started from.
Somehow, with my lungs burning and my stomach in knots, I made it to the second-to-last obstacle—a zip line between two towers.
One point was just a single story higher to create a decline for gravity, but the nature of the fixed pulley meant it required teamwork to get it back across for the next person to cross.
Ace went first, landing smoothly on the far platform.
He waved dramatically, indicating to me that he was sending the pulley back across, and I gestured back to say I was ready.
He pulled it back, then threw it as hard as physically possible, sending the pulley whizzing back up the line.
I leaned past August to grab it just as we’d practiced.
Because Augie was blindfolded, he couldn’t catch it.
“Got it,” I said out loud, despite the fact I couldn’t hear myself. August could hear me, and that’s what counted. “Here.” I took one of his hands and placed it on the pulley rope, helping him get a firm grip on the handlebars, and then he was gone.
My heart leapt to my throat as I watched my friend flying blindfolded between the two buildings, but then Ace caught him with a strong arm around his waist, and I could breathe again.
Ace threw the pulley back once again, and it was my turn.
Surprisingly, I kind of loved the feeling of zip-lining. It was exhilarating, usually. But today all I could think about was all the ways it could go wrong. It was making me sick. And by the time Ace caught me, I was nearly shaking with anxiety.
“Are you good?” Ace mouthed at me, grasping one of my slightly trembling hands in his.
I swallowed hard, squashing down my nervousness with determination, nodding my head. Freaking out now wouldn’t do us any good. It sure as fuck wouldn’t help Noah.
As if unable to stop myself, I looked across the course and found him instantly.
Last. He was the last of us, and Xavier stuck to him like glue. That had to give me some level of comfort, that Xavier was with him. He wouldn’t let the cute little Chicken fall. Xavier would see that as a failure, and he didn’t handle failure well.
Ace poked me in the side to get my attention, giving me a hard look when I met his eyes. “He’s fine.”
Psychic fuck knew exactly where my head was at.
In my defense, I really liked Noah. As a friend.
He just…shit, he was just enjoyable to be around.
Like he lit up every room he walked into with just a smile.
I’d had more fun on Team Olympus in the last month than I’d had in the six months before he joined.
Realizing he could dance had only strengthened our bond, too, especially when he was showing off one night and perfectly nailed the full choreography for one of my former group’s lesser-known songs.
One that I’d written—not that anyone knew.
He told me that his sister, Millie, was a big K-pop fan and she’d forced him to learn the choreo, but I wasn’t buying it.
Noah was a closet fan, for sure. A small, somewhat perverted part of me wondered if he had any of our albums or posters at home.
I was too scared to ask who his bias was, though, just in case it wasn’t me. That’d sting.
Ace prodded me again, and I sighed. I needed to focus on the challenge instead of thinking about my favorite human.
Waving to Torin in warning, I threw the pulley back across the wire for him.
He caught it, but a light smattering of raindrops sent panic flooding through me and I yanked my headphones off. Fuck the challenge.
“It’s raining!” I exclaimed, spinning to glare at Ace.
He scowled, putting his palm out as if to confirm what was already obvious. Dark gray clouds had formed in the sky, and the droplets were already falling faster. “I can see that.”
“It’s not supposed to rain today!” I replied, my pulse racing as I looked over to Noah and Xavier. They were halfway through the slightly inclined swing steps toward the zip line platform and had paused there. Xavier’s head tipped to the sky in an echo of my own disbelief.
“I’m aware,” Ace snapped, clearly frustrated. “Apparently the weather forecast was wrong. Shocker.”
Outrage and anger flooded through me, but he shook his head firmly. “We just need to finish.”
“Hey, Minnie, did you take your headphones off?” August asked, still blindfolded. “No fair, can I—”
“No!” Ace growled. “Shit, Torin!”
His warning was too late, as Torin came hurtling in on the zip line faster than I could respond, meaning I didn’t catch him, and he rebounded along the wire and out of my reach. Fuck. Double fuck.
For a moment, Ace and I just stood there, staring and shocked as Torin dangled like a teabag just a fraction farther than we could reach. Close enough for it to be extra frustrating and not at all funny.
“Uh, guys? What’s happened?” August asked, and I winced. Torin was gagged, but his eyes conveyed enough expletives that I got the picture. He was not happy.
Ace scrubbed a hand over his white-blond hair and groaned. “Nothing. We’re fine. Minho, you’ve got this handled, yes?”
I wrinkled my nose and nodded. “Yep. So fine.” Across the course, Noah and Xavier had started moving again, only slightly slower thanks to the rain…but they seemed okay. Cautious, slow, but stable.
Ace murmured for August to continue on with him to make space on the platform, and I whipped my T-shirt over my head before putting my headphones back on.
Using my teeth and brute force, I tore my shirt open to create a makeshift rescue rope and tossed it out to Torin.
Thank fuck he was close enough that he could catch the fabric between his feet then held on tight as I reeled him in like a giant koi.
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered as he reached the platform and he glared venom at me.
“I know. Throw it back over. Skye’s waiting.
” I left him to catch our next team member and hurried across the tightwire that would take me to the ending point.
It was a simple one, with a wire at shoulder height to hold for balance, and I made it across before Skye had even caught the pulley for the zip line.
Ducking through the window at the end of the tightwire, I yanked my headphones off and bent double to catch my breath. It was harder than it should have been, since I really hadn’t exerted that much energy on the challenge itself.
“Drink some water,” Ace ordered, putting a bottle in my face even as he rubbed my back comfortingly. “He’ll be pissed if he realizes we had such little faith in his skill, right?”
Fucking hell, Ace always saw straight through me.
I didn’t even try to deny it, nodding as I took a sip of water and made my way back to the window to watch.
We were done, but the rest of the team still needed to make it.
“Here comes Tor,” I murmured, watching him crossing the tightwire a lot more cautiously than I’d just done it.
Fair, though, seeing how fast the rain was now falling.
Beyond him, Skye had just caught Z from the zip line. That meant it was just Xavier and Noah to cross that obstacle…
Torin jumped through the window, unclipping from the safety line and collapsing to the floor with a groan. Several of the Olympus staff rushed over, but he waved them away as he ripped the tape off his mouth with a curse.
“Min, what the fuck was that?” he growled, rolling to his knees. “You weren’t even paying attention!”
I winced, guilt tightening my chest. “Sorry, Tor. I was distracted.” Even as I said it, I gravitated back to the window, waiting eagerly to see the rest of our team finishing the course in the pouring rain.
Skye edged along the tightwire, taking it slow and steady while the rain intensified, and Z threw the zipline pulley back across to Xavier and Noah.
“Yeah, I bet,” Torin grumbled, standing beside me. “Quick thinking on the T-shirt thing, though. Fans will just hate seeing you shirtless in the rain while saving my dangling ass.”