Chapter 112: Night Drop Zone

After parting ways with Victoria Frost, Elias went straight back to Westbridge University for class.

He was not in a hurry.

No matter how reckless Giselle Frost was being, she was still one of the female leads in this world. Someone like that was never going to die off that easily. Compared to whatever stunt she was pulling tonight, his coursework still felt more immediate.

He sat through the rest of his afternoon classes, ate dinner on campus, and only then took out his phone to look up the nearest skydiving sites.

The result made him frown almost at once.

By a coincidence that felt less like coincidence and more like the universe having a sense of humor, the place was attached to another Sinclair property. It was part of the same sprawling entertainment empire Sloane Sinclair’s family ran, though this one sat far enough from the center of the complex that it might as well have been its own little kingdom.

[What is it?]

Elias stared at the map and answered in his head, There isn’t a single bus route that goes out there. If I want to get there, I have to pay for a cab.

That alone was bad enough.

If he got there and found out he had to spend money on anything else after that, he really might start resenting the entire female lead system on principle.

Heh.

[ ... ]

For no clear reason, System Theta felt a small, cold flicker of fear.

By the time Elias finally got out there, the sky had already gone dark.

He stepped out of the cab, bent slightly before shutting the door, and said, "Thanks for taking the trip."

The driver let out a tired sigh, waved him off, and pulled away without even pretending she planned to linger for another fare.

Elias stood there and watched the taillights disappear.

His teeth came together a little harder than they needed to.

Drivers hated coming this far out. The people who actually spent time at a place like this were rich kids and heiresses who drove themselves, or got driven in private cars. Nobody came here and needed a cab ride back into the city. That meant anyone willing to make the trip out could count on a long, annoying return with no passenger and no real way to make the mileage worth it.

He had only managed to get someone to agree after wasting time cycling through rejections, and once he finally got in the car, he had spent most of the ride listening to the driver complain. He could not even argue. She had not been wrong, and technically he was the one asking for the favor.

Since landing in this world, it was the first time he had really taken a clean loss.

Ahead of him, far off in the dark, the main entertainment complex rose in blocks of color and light, bright enough to stain the night sky above it. It looked less like a building and more like a private city that had decided sleep was for other people.

Elias switched on his phone flashlight and started down the road.

The farther he walked, the more the place annoyed him.

There was nothing around him except dark roadside dirt, patches of scrub, and the low crunch of his own steps. The air smelled faintly of dust and fuel. Now and then a gust of wind came across the open stretch and cooled the sweat at the back of his neck. After a while, he slowed and looked at the map again.

Something was off.

The skydiving site was here, technically. The pin was not wrong. But it had only marked the general area. If he wanted the real location, the exact one, he still had several more miles to go before he even reached the center of the larger complex.

Elias drew in a slow breath and started walking faster.

At this point, it felt personal.

By the time he finally made it to the hotel attached to the complex, his legs were not sore yet, but his patience had already burned down to almost nothing. Worse, arriving there did not mean he had found Giselle. It only meant the search was officially starting.

He had barely decided to stop for a moment and catch his breath when a familiar voice spoke behind him.

"What are you doing here?"

He turned, saw Sloane Sinclair, and turned his head away again.

Being ignored like that would have annoyed most people. Sloane only laughed. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

She came closer, her heels tapping lightly over the polished stone near the entrance. "Come on. You’re still upset because I didn’t give you a ride that time? It’s not that serious."

Elias kept his face cool.

If he really wanted to review the chain of events, Sloane’s refusal to drive him had led directly to him ending up in Serena Blackwood’s car, which had then led to Serena tormenting him the whole way.

Rounded off properly, that made this Sloane’s fault too.

That conclusion only made his expression feel more justified.

She looked him over, then noticed the difference. "Wait. You cut your hair?"

Because he had his glasses on, she had only just caught it.

Sloane nodded once, as if issuing a formal verdict. "This is way better. That blond mess you had before was awful."

Elias did not react much.

For the version of himself he used around Giselle and Sloane, the dark hair fit better anyway. The blond had given him a trace of rebellion, a careless edge. This version of him looked neater, quieter, almost stubbornly proper, the kind of boy people assumed kept himself clean and out of trouble.

System Theta fell silent for a beat.

It was not entirely sure that was how that phrase worked.

Sloane kept watching him, waiting for some kind of response. When none came, she finally pulled out her trump card.

"I can take you to Giselle," she said.

Elias turned so fast it almost counted as whiplash. The light in his eyes sharpened at once.

A car.

Sloane clicked her tongue, clearly irritated by how immediate the reaction was. Mention Giselle and suddenly he could hear again.

She took her keys out, tossed them once in her hand, and headed for the exit.

Elias followed at a much calmer pace.

By the time he stepped outside, Sloane had already driven up in front of him. She leaned toward the horn and tapped it twice.

Beep. Beep.

Then she lifted a hand and crooked two fingers at him through the open window. "Get in."

She was trying for effortless.

Elias took one look and thought, not for the first time, that she still had nothing on Liora Voss. When Liora did this kind of thing, it happened naturally. On Sloane, it felt arranged in advance.

He opened the passenger door and got in.

As he reached for the seat belt, Sloane looked at him and said, "Do you know what it means when you sit in the passenger seat of a car a woman is driving?"

She did not wait for an answer.

"There’s only one kind of relationship where that looks right," she said with a teasing smile. "Usually it means the two people are together, so if you sit there like this, it kind of makes us look like a coupl..."

She did not get to finish.

Elias froze mid-motion, turned, and immediately tried the door handle.

Locked.

"Open it," he said, looking straight at her.

Sloane put on an innocent face that would have been more convincing if she had not been enjoying herself. "It was a joke. Why are you so tense?"

Elias’s expression stayed flat.

If Sloane knew what happened to the people who became his lovers, she probably would not be making that kind of joke with such an easy smile.

"Seat belt," she said. "We’re leaving."

Before he could try the door again, she started the engine. The message was obvious. She was not giving him another chance to get out.

Elias pulled the belt across his chest and clicked it into place.

On the surface, Sloane always came off easygoing, amused, the kind of rich girl who knew how to keep a conversation light and make herself look fun. Under that, though, the same arrogance still sat where it always had. The entitlement was old-money smooth instead of loud, but it was there.

In that sense, she was not all that different from Giselle.

Sloane drove away from the hotel and, instead of taking the proper road, cut straight toward a stretch of half-cleared land that looked like it had been abandoned halfway through development. The paved surface gave out almost immediately. The car started jolting over loose stone and packed dirt, and the bumps grew stronger the farther in they went.

Headlights swept over scattered rubble, broken ground, and the occasional marker stake driven into the earth.

"This land belongs to us too," Sloane said, one hand on the wheel, her tone still light even as the car bounced. "We just haven’t developed it yet, so a lot of skydiving people started using it on the side."

Then, after a pause, she added more seriously, "To be honest, even if you hadn’t shown up tonight, I was probably going to come find you."

That finally got a look from Elias.

He did not ask out loud. He did not need to. The question showed on his face.

Sloane let out a breath that sounded halfway between annoyance and concern. "Skydiving is already dangerous enough in the best conditions. Out here, with half the facilities missing, it gets worse. A lot worse." Her eyes stayed on the rough path ahead. "You know I can’t stop her if she’s decided on something. But you..." She glanced at him briefly. "You might actually be able to talk her down."

Elias gave a small nod.

That, after all, was exactly why he had been sent here.

He was not sure what Sloane had based that confidence on, but she clearly believed it.

A little later, she narrowed her eyes at the darkness ahead and said, "We’re almost there."

Her foot eased off the gas.

Elias focused and looked into the distance. His vision was better than most people’s in low light, and after a moment he picked out several dark shapes against the night. They looked like tents, low and clustered near what had to be the drop zone.

Then Sloane’s face changed.

"Are they insane?" she said sharply. "It’s already night. They still plan to jump?"

Once she said it, Elias caught it too.

Under the wind and the engine of their own car, there was another sound in the distance, faint but unmistakable.

Helicopter blades.

His expression shifted at once.

What exactly was wrong with Giselle? Jumping at night? Did she think she was some kind of special-operations legend?

Then the real horror hit him.

This was revenge.

She was trying to take a knife to his retirement plan.

Concern flooded his face so fast it looked almost sincere enough to belong in a different genre.

"Drive faster," Elias said, the urgency in his voice no longer hidden. "Now."

"I know," Sloane snapped back.

She drove her foot down hard, and the car surged forward over the dark, broken ground toward the waiting tents and the sound of the helicopter.