Page 22 of Kill Feed

Amani looks up at me. “You good?”

“Yes,” I claim, because I am. “Just busy.”

She nods, satisfied, and goes back to her shoes. She’s good at that; asking once, then trusting the answer.

Lucas grabs a chalk bag and shoves it toward me. “Come on. Show us a thing or two.” He eyes me up and down before scoffing. “Or do you still prefer the swimming pool?”

“Does it matter? I still climb better than you.” I say, taking the bag anyway.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever man. Not all of us devote our mornings to excessive exercise.” Lucas drones on as he walks off to a wall he feels fit for climbing.

Despite recent events and distasteful circumstances, the world moves on and so does our friend group. Not that the two of them spent time last Thursday evening putting up missing flyers all over the City with Xavier’s family. Thank fuck I was ‘sick’. I can’t imagine wasting my time like that.

We take turns on the wall. Lucas goes first, loud and dramatic as always, narrating his every move to his invisible crowd. He nearly slips halfway up, recovers with a curse, then drops onto the mat with a theatrical groan.

“Still alive,” he announces, throwing his hands up in the air like those of a child.

“Barely,” Amani bats, winking as she clips herself securely onto the rope. She scales up the wall effortlessly, and when she drops down, she barely looks winded.

Then it’s my turn.

My hands find the holds without thinking. Weight shifting, grip locking. The wall responds the way it’s supposed to, and the world narrows to angles, balance, pressure through fingertips and forearms.

This is good.

No noise in my head. No adjustment. Just movement doing what it’s told.

I hear Lucas somewhere below me. “That’s unfair. You don’t even look like you’re trying.”

I finish the route and drop back down, landing solidly on the mat. My pulse is up, but steady.

Amani hands me my water bottle without a word. I nod once in thanks. It doesn’t go without noticing that she’s particularly quiet today.

We fall into an easy rhythm after that; watching other climbers struggle through routes all while placing bets on who’ll bail early, and trading commentary.

Lucas flops down on the mat beside us. “Okay, serious question,” he says, hazel eyes flicking over to me. “If you had to survive a disaster scenario with only one of us, who would it be?”

“Neither,” I say, clasping my hands together and stretching my arms high above my head. “You’d both slow me down.”

“Ouch,” Amani scoffs in almost forced laughter. Lucas clutches his chest before uttering, “I’m wounded. Deeply and emotionally.”

“You asked,” I shrug.

“That’s true,” Amani adds, shaking her head.

“Still rude,” Lucas concedes, yet hardly taking my words to heart.

A climber slips on the wall nearby, dropping harder than planned as he swirls on his way down to the mat. We all wince. The guy pops back up immediately, laughing at himself before clipping himself loose and handing the reins over to a friend. Amani watches him for a moment.

“That’s how you know he’s fine,” she says. “He laughed.”

I absorb her words. Is that why the two of them laugh? To give the illusion that they are ‘fine’? All this for the sake of Xavier being missing?

Lucas nods solemnly. “And die with embarrassment.”

I huff, watching the group of friends pat the man’s back in consolation. He wouldn’t have twirled like that if he had his footing grounded. My thought gets interrupted when my phone buzzes in my pocket.

I ignore it.