Playing with Fire

by April Henry

CHAPTER 36

  INTO THE EMPTY AIR

  11:03 A.M.

  AFTER WYATT RETURNED TO the bridge, a wave of dizziness crested over Natalia. She braced her hands on her knees to keep from tipping over. Her breathing was too fast. But she couldn’t tease out how much was from crossing the bridge—and how much from Wyatt’s kiss.

  By the time she finally gathered herself enough to straighten up, Wyatt was already halfway back with AJ. Even though crossing the bridge had felt endless, she realized it couldn’t have taken more than a minute or two. Once AJ was on the other side, he gave her a sweaty hug that lifted her off her feet.

  After AJ, Wyatt brought over Zion and then Darryl. Each was greeted with more hugs. Next was Trask. Because he was in the child carrier, it took even less time.

  As he undid the carrier’s waist strap, Wyatt came over to Natalia.

  “Can you watch him while I take back the carrier to see if Blue will fit in it? Beatriz and Marco won’t let me bring them over until they’re sure Blue can go, too.” He made a face. “And I’m going to bring Jason last. I don’t want him scampering off without us again.”

  Natalia helped Wyatt set the carrier down and then undid the chest strap. As she did, Trask startled awake. He began to fuss, rubbing his screwed-up eyes with his fists. She pulled him free. The bottom of his overalls bulged alarmingly, and he smelled strongly of pee. When they made it back to civilization, he would probably have one hell of a diaper rash.

  “It’s okay, Trask.” Setting him on her hip, she began lightly bouncing him up and down, ignoring the squishy sounds it created. Through some alchemy it was no longer painful to look at him. To hold him. He still reminded her of Conner, but the pain had been leached away.

  Twisting up his face, Trask stiff-armed her. Pretty much everything was wrong in his universe. No food, bee stings, little sleep, a wet diaper, being carted around by strangers. He had been remarkably resilient, but everyone reached a breaking point.

  On the other side of the bridge, Beatriz and Marco, with some assistance from Lisa, were already stuffing Blue into Trask’s child carrier. They managed to get him more or less into it, but as soon as they attempted to hoist him onto Marco’s back, his rear legs started to scrabble. They pulled him free.

  Meanwhile, Wyatt was guiding Susan across. Her eyes were darting around, her lips moving, but Natalia couldn’t hear what she was saying. Wyatt kept up a quiet string of assurances.

  They were two-thirds of the way across when Susan abruptly stopped. Instead of sliding along, her right foot stepped back from the bottom chord and found only air. She started to tip sideways. The leash pulled taut.

  With a shout that echoed back from the steep sides of the canyon, Wyatt grabbed Susan’s upper arm with his left hand while his right arm hooked over the handrail.

  Natalia watched, frozen. She wasn’t breathing. It felt like even her heart stopped beating.

  But somehow Wyatt got Susan to shift her body until both her feet were on the bottom chord. At his urging, they began moving again. Still, Natalia didn’t take a full breath until the two of them were safe on her side.

  Wyatt began to unwind the dog leash from Susan’s waist. Susan made no effort to help him, her hands dangling at her sides. She seemed lost. Not in her own thoughts, but lost even to herself. Afterward, she let the others hug her, but it was clear by her expression she didn’t understand why, or even who they were.

  Before Wyatt went back, his eyes briefly met Natalia’s. The look they exchanged said more than words could have. Her look said she was afraid, and his reassured her, and both of them acknowledged they couldn’t stand to lose the other.

  And then Wyatt stepped back up. On the other side, Marco and Beatriz were emptying out Susan’s pack.

  Natalia was the last to hug Susan, an awkward sideways hug because she was holding Trask. Releasing the older woman, she said, “Are you okay, Susan?”

  “I guess so.” Her brow creasing, Susan looked down at her forearms, dotted with scabs. “What happened to my arms?”

  As Natalia explained for the dozenth time, Marco and Beatriz managed to fit the bottom half of Blue inside Susan’s pack. He seemed calmer now that his feet had purchase. Beatriz and Lisa helped Marco lift the pack onto his back. Half curled up, Blue faced forward, both front feet resting on Marco’s right shoulder.

  By then, Wyatt was waiting for Beatriz. After hugging Marco, she let Wyatt wrap the leash around her waist. In ninety seconds, she was on the other side greeting the ones who had crossed before her.

  Back with Marco, Wyatt threaded the leash under the backpack and around Marco’s waist as everyone fell silent. What if Blue freaked out mid-span? Wyatt had been strong enough to pull Susan back up, but could he pull the weight of a man and a dog? Or what if Blue decided he needed to be free of the pack and leapt?

  As they started across, Beatriz pressed her fist against her mouth, biting the side of her index finger. But Blue never shifted on Marco’s back. He didn’t look anxious, just resigned. Even once Marco was on the other side of the bridge, Blue waited patiently to be freed from the backpack.

  Carrying Susan’s empty pack, Wyatt made his way back once more. Only Lisa, Ryan, and Jason were left. Ryan and Lisa were pointing at each other. It was clear Ryan wanted his wife to go first, while she was arguing the opposite. Natalia’s stomach growled. She let herself think ahead. In two hours, they could be back in civilization. In two hours, they could be eating. Even the thought of stale hospital saltines filled her mouth with water.

  Ryan won the argument. While Jason started refilling Susan’s pack after Wyatt pointed at it, Wyatt put on the empty child carrier with the trekking pole dangling from it, and then began to shepherd Lisa over, more slowly than he had any of the others. She grimaced each time she had to put full weight on her right knee.

  Trask had been sunk is his own miserable torpor, but suddenly he stiffened in Natalia’s arms.

  “Mama! Mama!” Screaming, he started to thrash. “Mama!”

  It was like trying to hold a live eel. He began to slide from Natalia’s grasp and down her leg. She tried to shift her grip, but he just slipped free, landing on his butt with a wet plop. He turned over, pushed himself to his feet, and began to run toward the bridge as fast as his short legs allowed …

  Already off-balance, Natalia desperately lunged for him. But Trask was a moving target and she fell short. The tips of her fingers only brushed him before she hit the ground hard.

  Trask kept running straight toward his mother, arms outstretched. Lisa was just behind Wyatt, about ten feet from the end of the bridge.

  “Mama!” he wailed. “Mama!”

  “No, Trask!” Lisa shouted. “No!”

  Everyone was now screaming at him to stop, but Trask’s only goal was to reach his mother. Arms reaching for her, he ran the length of the first diagonal, which was about six inches wide. He took two steps on the second before he realized where he was. He looked down. And froze.

  He stood teetering. Everyone else had also gone silent and rigid. They only had eyes for the toddler, and the deadly drop below his feet.

  Natalia screamed, but only inside her head. In reality, she didn’t make a sound. If she startled Trask and he turned, he would surely slip and fall to his death.

  Which he was going to do anyway. It was just a matter of time.

  Without making a decision, Natalia jumped to her feet. She started to sprint.

  Trask took a step back, away from the drop he could see in front of him. A step back into the empty air.

  Natalia’s feet danced over the first diagonal.

  Just as Trask began to drop like a stone from the second.

  For an odd, warped moment time stretched out. Then it began to tear.

  And in that moment, Natalia launched herself into a dive.

  CHAPTER 37

  HER FATE

  11:24 A.M.

  HER HANDS OUTSTRETCHED, NATALIA dove through the air. A scream trailed behind her like a sp
ent comet.

  Time slowed to a crawl. Her senses picked out every detail of what was happening. The colors were impossibly bright, sounds a smear.

  Tick. Trask began to drop into the triangle formed by the crossbeam, the diagonal, and the bottom chord.

  Tick. In slow motion, his small hands started to rise above his head. Pudgy fingers spread wide.

  Tick. Now, Natalia told herself. Now. She shaped her hands like Cs.

  Tick. The webs between her fingers and thumb made contract with Trask’s sweaty wrists.

  Tick. Her fists clamped closed.

  Tick. She landed hard on her belly across a metal beam.

  Tick. Deep inside her chest something snapped.

  Suddenly, time resumed its normal pace. Natalia lay facedown, folded in half across a crossbeam, holding a dangling Trask above a sixty-foot drop to churning white water.

  And Trask’s weight was slowly pulling her down.

  “No!” Lisa screamed. “Not my baby!”

  Natalia’s heart had been replaced by a cold fist of horror. She already knew how this would end.

  On either side of the bridge, people were screaming and shouting, punctuated by Blue’s barking. But it was Wyatt’s voice, just above her, she paid attention to.

  “Natalia, listen to me. There’s a diagonal beam right behind you. You should be able to hook your legs under it.”

  Straightening her legs, she slowly let them rise. As she did, her balance began to shift incrementally toward Trask.

  What if Wyatt was wrong? What if she missed the beam? The toddler’s weight would make her somersault forward, pulling her off the bridge entirely.

  Then first her left thigh and then her right calf made contact with the steel of the diagonal beam. Ignoring the grating in her ribs, she arched her back to press her legs even tighter against the diagonal. The move compressed her diaphragm against the crossbeam, forcing her to breathe shallowly. Pressure was building up in her face. Even in her teeth. Her head felt like a balloon about to pop.

  But Natalia’s thoughts were only on the child she had to save.

  “Trask.” Lisa’s voice was hoarse with panic. “Don’t move, baby. Be still.”

  But asking him to be still was like asking a horse to walk upright on its hind legs. He started to fuss and kick at the empty air, making his wrists shift in Natalia’s fists.

  It was all so familiar. Suddenly, she was back in the past. Back in her old house, the one that had burned down six years ago. A child’s life in her hands and all her choices bad. Back in the place that haunted her nightmares.

  She struggled to draw a breath. There was no fire now, she reminded herself. They had already successfully escaped from it. But the slot canyon she was dangling Trask over was far more dangerous than a fall from a second-story window. If a fifteen-foot drop had killed her brother, what would a sixty-foot fall do to Trask?

  “Lisa,” Wyatt was saying. “Hold tight. I’m going to unclip myself, put the leash over the rail, and then clip it to you.”

  A beat later, out of the corner of her eye, Natalia saw Wyatt begin to lower himself onto the second diagonal beam. He moved as carefully as a tightrope walker.

  On both sides of the bridge, the others were frantically debating how to save them. But Natalia felt strangely removed from the discussion. They didn’t understand this was her fate, the one she had wrongly escaped six years ago. It was all going to happen the same way it had before. The boy would fall from her grasp, and then she would follow him down. Only this time when she let herself fall, she really would die.

  No! Natalia caught herself. No one was going to die today, not if she could help it. She was no longer a scared eleven-year-old. History was not going to repeat itself in an even more terrible iteration. She couldn’t let it. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t leave Lisa and Ryan childless. She had seen how much her brother’s death had damaged her parents. And if she died today, their wounds would burst open again. Would never heal.

  Not to mention that she had so much to live for. Including the guy who was now straddling the second diagonal. In one hand he held Lisa’s trekking pole.

  Her biceps were starting to tremble. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing,” she said, “hurry.”

  “I think I can catch the back of his overalls with this.” Stretching out on his belly, he wrapped his legs around the beam. “Okay, Trask, try to stay still. We’re going to help you, buddy.”

  He began to slide the trekking pole underneath one overall strap. But three inches from the tip of the pole was a small black circle, a rubber skirt meant to keep it from sinking too deep into the earth. Now as Wyatt tried to slide the pole farther in, the rubber circle got caught on the fabric of the overalls.

  Wyatt adjusted the angle and tried to wiggle the pole deeper under the strap. As he did, Trask made a wordless sound of protest. Natalia guessed the tip must be digging into his shoulder.

  “Stay still, Trask!” she begged as he twisted in her hands. Lisa’s and Ryan’s cries echoed hers.

  But Trask was too little to think ahead, to know what would happen once he succeeded in getting away from Wyatt’s poking pole and Natalia’s clinging hands. All he knew was he wanted out.

  He kicked harder, setting himself swinging back and forth. Millimeter by millimeter, he was sliding from Natalia’s grasp. Her arms felt as weak as spaghetti. Her vision began to spin like water swirling down a drain. She had nothing left. Nothing emotionally. Nothing mentally. Nothing physically.

  This was it, then. This was the end.

  But it wasn’t just Natalia’s grasp on Trask’s wrists that was shifting each time he kicked. His movements also opened up a gap between his back and his overalls. Suddenly, the trekking pole slid to the far side.

  With a roar of effort, Wyatt threw himself forward. And just as Trask slid from Natalia’s wrists, he grabbed the far end of the pole.

  CHAPTER 38

  STARTING OVER

  ONE YEAR LATER

  “A TOAST.” NATALIA LIFTED her paper cup filled with Martinelli’s sparkling apple cider. The cider had been packed in, along with the rest of the picnic lunch. Today, everyone wore backpacks as well as boots, and she didn’t need to look inside them to know that they had all kinds of gear. A year after the hike that had almost cost them their lives, most of their little group was back where it had all begun. Back at Basin Falls.

  The trail to the falls had reopened only two weeks ago. While the water and rocks looked the same as they had the year before, everything surrounding them was different. Many of the trees still stood, but their trunks were charred black as charcoal and missing all their lower branches. The forest floor, which last year had been lushly carpeted with ferns, was now bare except for a few small, bouncy green fronds.

  Still, they were lucky to be able to be here. Due to the danger of rockfalls and landslides, the Forest Service had announced that many other trails, including Twisted and Cougar Creek, would not reopen for months or even years.

  “A toast to Susan and AJ,” Natalia continued.

  “To Susan and AJ,” people echoed as they raised their cups and then tipped them back. This was the first time all of them had seen each other since the hospital. It had felt important to gather today to mark the anniversary of their narrow escape.

  Three of them were missing, but for different reasons.

  Susan was now living in an assisted-living facility. Natalia had visited her a few times, but on the last occasion it had been clear that the older woman didn’t remember her. The only consolation had been that the facility also housed two cats and a golden retriever. Susan’s daughter had told Natalia that her mom sometimes spent hours with the dog, petting and brushing it.

  AJ was also absent. Right after the fire, he had joined a gym and then, three months ago, the navy.

  And, of course, Jason wasn’t with them. He was still sitting in jail awaiting trial. The museum guard had also been arrested. Their partner, Brian, had managed to evade the law.
The other stolen jeweled items—a belt buckle, a hair clip, a necklace, a pair of earrings, and even shoe buckles—had never turned up. Because the pieces were so recognizable, it was feared that they had been broken down, the gems recut and the gold melted to render them sellable.

  The jewelry wasn’t the only thing that had undergone a transformation. Today it was strange for Natalia to think of her old self, the girl who had been in this exact same place a year ago. She had been so anxious at the beginning of that day, anxious about hiking, anxious about Wyatt, anxious about pretty much everything.

  That single stretch of less than twenty-four hours in the woods had changed her. Had changed them all, as far as she could tell.

  After Wyatt had managed to catch Trask with the trekking pole, he and Lisa were able to hold on to Trask and get him back into the child carrier. At the same time, Marco had lashed himself to the handrail with Darryl’s belt. On his back was the child carrier. Wyatt and Lisa managed to wrangle Trask inside. Then Wyatt had grabbed hold of the handrail with one hand and Natalia hand with the other. With him pulling, she had clambered to her feet and then immediately wrapped her arms around the handrail. With Wyatt’s surefooted guidance, all of them had been able to get back to solid ground.

  Once Wyatt and Natalia were on the other side, with Trask safe on his back, Wyatt gave her another hug and an even bigger kiss.

  Then he gave Trask to Lisa, squared his shoulders, and went back across for Ryan and then Jason.

  Once they were all across the bridge, the group somehow hiked the last three miles to the road, staggering forward powered by nothing more than sheer determination. Just before they reached it, Ryan’s and Darryl’s cell phones got service. First they called 9-1-1, then they passed the phones around so people could notify their families. By the time they clambered up the last bit of trail, paramedics, search and rescue volunteers, and a sheriff’s deputy were just arriving.

  The group’s first stop was the hospital, which evaluated and treated their injuries. Natalia had two broken ribs, which she was told would heal on their own in about six weeks. Even Blue’s scorched paws were salved and bandaged. As a precaution, Marco and Zion were kept overnight. Ryan spent two days in the hospital, but in the end didn’t need skin grafts.