She hadn’t. Not yet.
But time was running out, and she had a plan. She needed everyone to stop fighting, and to work together.
She needed one more grand gesture.
Tiny could feel something in her changing. It had started after she’d thrown her poems off the top of the Empire State Building. She got a little bit stronger, a little bit more solid. She came back—a little bit. And again, after the ghost incident at the Plaza.
And again, when she ran off while Will was talking.
Before she knew what she was doing, she’d turned around and was running away, down the steps. She was taking out her cell phone. She was dialing.
Nathaniel and Lu were right, she realized, as the thunder rumbled beneath the sidewalk and the lightning crackled above her. Lightning takes the path of least resistance. This night was magical, but who knew if it would last? Just because she had some cool experiences and had thrown a hundred copies of her poem into the wind, just because she tried to be brave for a night, didn’t mean her whole life was suddenly going to change. Would they be friends again tomorrow?
Maybe. Tiny felt a responsibility to make it happen. Will had even said it himself. She was the glue. And it was time to glue them all back together.
The park was wild. It didn’t feel like she was in the city anymore. It felt like she was in a dark fairy-tale forest.
She walked farther into the deserted park. Normally, she’d be terrified to be in the park this late at night, alone. This is where people got murdered and attacked when the sun went down. Central Park in the middle of the night was where people went to disappear. But in the dark, amid the trees and shadows, Tiny was already hard to see.
And she was going there for a different reason.
“Hello?” said the voice on the other end of the line.
She was making a very important phone call.
One that she hoped would save them.