“Everything I did was pointless,” I say, shortening my strides as the mountain path cuts sharply up. “But it’s all behind me now, so it’s—” “Leah, careful—” I don’t even have time to react when Cyrus pushes me to the side, the movement so sudden that my stomach swoops low, my back slamming against the trunk of a tree. It all happens in a disorienting flash of color and sound: the branches scraping my hair, the gray sky spinning above me, and Cyrus’s body curving around mine, his hands firm on my shoulders. Rocks clatter sharply onto the path like shrapnel where I had been seconds before—where
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