Chapter 27
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
MYLO
“Ey, nice stubbies!” The stunt crew pauses their intense game of crazy eights as I pass by.
“I heard they’re all the rage here,” I say smoothly. That leads to some good-natured joshing with the locals on the crew.
If anyone guesses the clothes are Christine’s, or has any other questions about my whereabouts, they don’t voice them. Other than a couple folks saying they’re glad I’m feeling better, there’s no further mention of my ‘illness,’ and things are more or less back to normal.
Weirdly normal, actually. While Christine’s scent now strikes my nose as… pleasant, it no longer has that addictive quality. The general knowledge of her proximity is enough to settle my omega instincts, and I can finally focus on my job.
It’s a good thing, too. We have a lot to get done today.
I hit hair, makeup, and wardrobe alone, chatting briefly with the Keysha, Sharon, and Kristen, but mostly listening to music on my earbuds since I’d rather not field potentially incriminating questions about my recovery.
Then it’s off to set with Bella, who’s directing the second unit today.
Any scenes with Haley or Christine in them are directed by Lana, but today’s schedule is all the shots where they’re not needed, so Bella will be directing our group while Lana and the stars take care of shots that don’t need stunts.
The schedule takes us to nearly every location we’ve shot at previously, as well as some new ones. Crews have gone ahead to get everything ready in each spot so we can hit them while the lighting’s perfect.
I can feel Bella’s tension as I go through my first falls of the day, but once she sees me take them in-stride like usual, she relaxes.
A couple more shots in, and we’re having fun.
I’m getting paid to leap, tumble, and roll my way around breathtaking, otherworldly New Zealand wilds. There’s nothing better.
We move down the list like a well-oiled machine, and Bella occasionally consults the assistant script supervisor to give me notes on motivation and tone.
At midday, we approach the most challenging stunt of the day. I’ll make my way up a narrow ravine, leaping from side to side until I’ve crested the twenty-foot height. Already a hard maneuver. Making it look effortless? The kind of challenge I can’t resist.
“What do you think?” Bella asks as I size up the climb.
“Looks manageable. Wires would just make it more dangerous. Mats at the bottom aren’t nothing, but it’d fuck up the shot.”
“We can see about sliding some in as the camera pans up. I’ll work with the crew to block out the angles. You go get some water.”
Bella waves over a PA with water bottles—the same guy I helped before, Tyler—and points him toward me as she heads over to chat with the crew about the mats.
I only realize how thirsty I am as I start to drink—and then down the whole bottle. Guess I’m still dehydrated. At least that won’t raise any eyebrows; it’s consistent with the food poisoning story.
Tyler hands me a second bottle, and I drink this one more slowly, splashing some across the back of my neck. The sun’s heating things up more than I expected.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Tyler pull his hoodie tighter around himself, shivering.
Oh, god fucking dammit.
Not again.
Comparing to how I felt before… I probably have a few hours to work with. Enough to get through the rest of the stunts scheduled for today, if we stay on schedule.
Sweat prickles on my palms, and I resist the urge to pull my bodysuit away from my neck. I’ve had to work through sweltering summers before; this’ll be no different. Even though it’s technically winter.
While the team lays down a couple mats for my practice climb, I change into the specialty climbing shoes made to match Melinoe’s costume.
In the final film, several shots of me sprinting toward the ravine, leaping up the wall, and climbing it will be spliced together into one continuous sequence that will leave no evidence of the specialty wardrobe, careful planning, and different days of shooting.
In the original script, this scene was meant to be done with wire work, using a rig to pull the stunt professional up the ravine while they pretend to climb. But after Bella saw my demo reel, we agreed that we could do much better.
The climbing shoes are snug around my feet, and the slightly pointed polymer toes offer a far more versatile grip than athletic shoes would.
There’s a climbing consultant already suited up by the narrow point of the ravine, and we work together to identify potential pathways.
I climb slowly at first, getting a feel for the rock.
I need to figure out which holds are secure enough for me to launch myself across the ravine, at which point I’ll rely on skill and practice to catch the holds on the other side.
If I were out here just to climb, I’d be slinging a lot more chalk around. Even though it can be cleaned up in post, we want to keep myself and the rock as clean as possible, so I use it sparingly.
Once we work out a path I like, I give it a couple practice runs with the mats down. It’s something between climbing and parkour as I bound from wall to wall up the ravine. There’s no room for hesitation or second-guessing—just movement and instinct.
To get back down, I walk around to where a ladder’s been set up behind the cameras, saving my energy for the climb.
As we prepare for the first take, I stand in the shade, drying my palms on a towel. It’s hard to tell how much of the heat prickling along my limbs is from the exertion or from my core temperature trending slowly higher, but I put that out of my mind.
Right before I find my mark, I lightly chalk my hands, using only what was necessary for my previous runs.
“You ready?” Bella asks.
I take a deep breath and nod.
The rest of the crew’s confirmations echo around me, and Bella calls action.
I jump to my first target spot, pausing only long enough to feel my grip before leaping upwards, muscles exploding with power. I aim for a flat plane and push off, twisting and finding holds higher on the first wall. There, I scramble up for a few beats, then leap back to the other side.
I find my rhythm and continue like that until the top is within reach. After clinging to the cliff’s edge for a moment, I pull my weight up and over, tucking into a roll as I exit the frame.
Bella calls cut, and I jog around and down.
“I can go faster this time,” I say, getting ahead of Bella’s feedback.
She nods, and we reset for the second take.
This time is faster, but my foot slips briefly—a stutter in the fluid rhythm.
I return to my mark.
Bella checks the clock. “Actually, let’s keep it moving.”
I frown, wiping my sweating palms on a towel again. “I can do much better than that. Two takes is nothing.”
“I know, but we only have so much time. We’ll cut together the best parts of each run. I don’t want to tire you out.”
“We can squeeze in two or three more though, right? I can be snappy.” Last time I checked, we were still ahead of schedule.
Bella shakes her head firmly. “I’ve got enough to work with already.”
“Please, Bella. I know I can do better. It’s gonna kill me if I don’t get at least one more go at it.”
Bella hesitates, then nods. “One more, that’s it.”
She’s babying me, and I don’t like it.
Rationally, I can understand this is temporary. As far as she knows, I’m still recovering from being sick. Safety-wise, it’s the right call.
And if I really had been sick, it wouldn’t bother me so much. But I hate the idea of my… omega-ness getting in the way of anything I care about, especially this job.
I hate that I only got one go at the fight in the plane, that I didn’t get to drill that one over and over until I could make it perfect.
This feels like a chance to show what I can really do. And I’m about to lose it again, all because I can’t manage the most basic aspects of my biology.
But I can’t tell Bella any of that. I can’t tell her even half of why this means so much to me, why I need the chance to prove that I’m not fragile, to prove that I can do the work as well as any beta can. As well as any alpha can, for that matter.
If Bella says I only get one more take, then I only get one more take.
So I’d better make it count.
I roll my shoulders, ignore the sweat gathering under my arms, and nod to Bella.
Everything else goes quiet, fading out of focus, until I hear her voice again:
“Action!”
I am Melinoe, and I’m on a mission. I launch myself at the wall with crisp, smooth confidence. Each movement chains into the next, and I have utter faith in my own skill with every leap.
Power surges through my muscles—power omegas aren’t supposed to have—carrying me ever skyward. A jump carries me higher than before, and I choose new hand and footholds, effortless as a spider.
Twisting in the air, I spot the edge of the ravine, homing in on my target. My hands and climbing shoes find the rock, ready to push my weight up and over.
But my grip doesn’t feel right; it’s too slick. Then I’m tipping backwards, the rock gone from between my fingers, shoes slipping from their holds.
I’m falling twenty feet toward mats that may or may not make it in time.
The worst way to fall, the worst time to fall.
And it’s all my fault.
Instinct says to curl into a ball, but practice has my arms reaching back, my toes pointing, knees wide, as the ravine’s walls streak by me.
Earlier than I expect, I collide—but not with the stone below. Nor with a crash mat.
A wave of sea salt crashes through my senses, suddenly drowning me in heat.
I open my eyes to Christine looking down at me, cradling me in her arms, brow knit with concern.
Emotion knots in my throat as lingering terror buzzes in my veins. I’m too stunned to be angry, too grateful to be indignant.
“Put me down,” I whisper. It’s not out of rage, this time. It’s because if I’m here another second, I’ll grab her face and yank her mouth down to mine, and then I’ll have even more problems.