So This is Love || Book 1

Identities and Inabilities

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The panic I felt as the bird man took us higher was immense. My shoulders ached from his talons and my ankles were bent in a weird way from Peter hanging off them. I felt like I was being stretched apart.

We were rising higher and higher, the wind rushing past us as I continue to scream. All I could see was lights zooming by and the two green orbs of the bird man as he glared down at us.

I could hardly breathe or react to anything as it was all happening so fast.

Until I heard a light beeping sound over the wind and my screams. Suddenly, a loud woosh came from below and Peter wasn't clinging to my feet anymore.

I watched in horror as he got tangled in his parachute and before I knew it, the talons on my shoulders came loose and I was also falling, screaming louder than I ever had. I held my arms out to bubble but was stopped when I collided with Peter in his chute, both of us trapped in the flailing fabric of the parachute as we continue to fall.

Everything is nightmare fuel, my claustrophobia, my exhaustion...

FALLING FROM THE FUCKING HEAVENS WITH NO MEANS OF SAVING MYSELF.

My screams were cut short when water suddenly engulfed us.

We landed in a river.

And now, we were both struggling within the fabric, unable to free ourselves and swim up.

But even if I did manage to get free...

I didn't know how to swim.

Water immediately floods into my mouth and I start to struggle harder, feeling the burn in my chest and lungs as my movements grow erratic, flailing my arms around in the water as we sink deeper into the river.

I wasn't thinking straight anymore.

I couldn't even focus on Peter struggling with me.

I was panicking.

Drowning.

Dying.

And like always, the first thing I looked for was my dad. Even if he was all the way in India.

As water filled my lungs, all I wanted was to feel his hand in mine. To be pulled out of the dark depths and into his arms again. I was scared.

And I wanted my dad to save me.

My vision started to go dark from both being so deep into the water and my inability to breathe.

Until I slowly stopped breathing and started seeing black.

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Everything hurt.

Not like when I get exhausted from using my powers.

My lungs, my limbs, my head as I recovered from coughing up so much water earlier.

My dad did end up saving me... Technically. As I knew this was just the suit since he was still all the way in India.

Peter was sitting next to me on the jungle gym, wringing the water out of his mask as he retold our experience to my dad.

"And then he just, like, swooped down like a monster and he picked Neoma up and I grabbed her feet and he took us up like a thousand feet and I fell! And he dropped Neoma!"

I kept my gaze on my lap, already waiting for my dad's reprimanding for sneaking out after promising not to.

"How'd you find us? Did you put a tracker in my suit or something?" Peter asked the Iron Man suit that was hovering in front of us.