Chapter 12

chapter twelve Well, you're doing it, Jack. You're really doing it. Yep. I'm climbing the cliff. No amount of Spider-Man movie-watching and Spider-Man video-gaming could have prepared me for this.

The cliff is everything Skaelka promised: gross, scary, and BIG. Two hundred feet, er—talons, looks like a lot when you're staring up at it—but, trust me, it feels like even more when you're clinging to the side of it. When I pictured the climb, I figured my friends and I would say a bunch of emotional stuff first, before I started. But that didn't happen. I think we all knew it wouldn't help. Instead, Dirk was just like— if you die, I get your stuff, okay? But your stuff is lame and I don't want your stuff. So don't die.

And with that, I was off. My backpack—with Quint's human hamster ball packed inside—digs hard into my shoulders. My body is all pain. The good thing about the pain, though, is that it distracts from everything else. My mind is blank, unthinking, as I climb: hand over hand, foot finding foothold. I don't stop until I'm nearly a quarter of the way up. And I only stop because my arms have turned to rubber. I find a small recess, just large enough to fit my butt and one leg. I wait for the blood to return to my limbs and the air to my lungs. I'm just inching out of the nook, reaching for a handhold, when—

foom I can't believe I volunteered for this. A crashing gust of wind suddenly pounds the cliffside, swinging me away from the wall like a screen door crashing open, turning me nearly horizontal. Seconds before I'm hurled into oblivion— SCHLURP! The Cosmic Hand finds a protruding rock and clamps down, hard as a vise. When the wind finally lets up, I crash back into the cliff face, dangling like the most perilously placed ornament on the Christmas tree.

The Cosmic Hand squeezed harder than hard— harder than I ever could—during the blast. I don't love the way the Cosmic Hand is, like, starting to know things. But I won't argue now. Not the time to complain when it just saved me from a death drop. The higher I climb, the stranger the cliff becomes. The more... unearthly. Goop bubbles out of cracks and crevices. The jagged stone glistens like it's made of gelatin. I'll say it again: no amount of Spider-Man movie- watching and Spider-Man video-gaming could have prepared me for this. Though Quint might disagree. Back in the day, before the monster apocalypse, we spent a lot of time talking about the logistics of Spider-Man's abilities...

His hands are sticky. It's that simple. It's not that simple. He's part spider. His hands are covered in spatula. Hundreds of teeny tiny spatula. Oh yeah. Then what about his gloves? The spatula go through his gloves. How convenient. And I bet you think they go through his sandals too. When does he wear sandals? FOCUS, JACK! I scream at my own brain. Stop thinking about Quint! Stop thinking about the time before you had the Cosmic Hand! There's no point, and it won't help any— But... But what about June? On the train? I wanted to help her, but I couldn't—so the Cosmic Hand did it for me. And the Cosmic Hand cut her. It was just a scratch, sure. But what about next time? My mind is suddenly racing, out of control. Is what I'm doing right now making a next time inevitable?