by Molly E. Lee
“We’ll have to hug the mountain’s wall and, inch-by-inch, work our way across the tiny gap until the terrain flattens out enough for us to hike again.”
“You’re shitting me,” Rain blurted out and then slapped her hand over her mouth.
I chuckled as I slipped off my pack and set it down before me. “It’s okay, we can edit that part out.” I dug in the bag, pulling out a set of hooks and rappel rope.
“Sorry, but really?” She eyed the ledge I’d pointed at, which was only wide enough for the toes of our boots.
“It’s the only way to the cave I’m leading Corrine’s team to. Hopefully it’ll be enough of a risk to make them turn back, or go their own way, but if they do continue to track us I have a great endpoint to lose them. Then we can finally get on our own course to Harrison’s cave.”
She sucked in a breath.
“Haven’t you ever climbed before? To photograph mountain lions or goats or something?”
“Yes, but never under the slim terrain you’re suggesting.”
I stood up after fixing the rope, and tied it around her waist, looping it through a steel hook. I couldn’t help but gently brush her flat stomach after finishing, torturing myself with the feel of her body. “It’ll be fine. You’ll be tandem with me, and I’ll secure us to a good anchor on this end.
“And the other end?”
I cracked a grin and walked as close to the edge as I could. I fastened a grappling hook to the opposite end of the rope and tossed it to the other side. It took me three tries before I got the thing good and wedged in a wide gap in the rock wall on the other end. I returned focus to the camera.
“For the safety of the one crew member I have with me on this mission, I’m using the tools that would easily be found in a climber’s pack. It’s not far-fetched to believe a climber could find themselves lost and stranded on the mountain range, so we’re operating under the assumption the supplies would be readily available. Trick is, I can only use this once, as we’ll have to cut most of it loose once we successfully get to the other side, so you have to choose wisely and only make use of the precious tools you have at the perfect moment.” I pointed to the thin ledge and looked down at the over two-hundred-foot drop to the rocky terrain below, allowing my own camera to capture the vast fall that would occur if we made one wrong move. “You ready?”
Rain nodded, her eyes sharp and focused with a little hint of fear.
“Just follow my footings and mimic my movements, but go at your own pace. You’ll do fine.” I’d made climbs like this too many times to count, so when I took that first step, pulling onto the rope and making it taut from the other side, it was like riding a bike. My heart rate jacked, my body remembering all the times I had misstepped and fallen, breaking bones and damaging my muscles in ways I hadn’t thought possible. It never stopped me, though. Nothing could.
I hugged the wall of the mountain with my chest pressed against it, risking a turn of my head to check on Rain. She was at least twenty feet behind me, her slow pace keeping her focused on the right track. I kept my own pace, wanting to get to the other side as quickly as possible in case the anchor slipped—it was the only thing keeping my worries for Rain’s safety at bay. I knew she could handle this, handle anything thrown her way, but I also knew that anchor would keep her alive if she misstepped. My calf muscles strained against the weight of my entire body placed on nothing but the tips of my toes, my boots struggling to find purchase in the tiny space allotted.
Tiny scratches sliced the palms of my hands as I tried to grab the rock wall, but there were only small, sporadic cracks where I could squeeze a good grip. I winced with each movement, the breath coming harsher from my lungs as I pushed myself beyond the limits of my water-starved body.
One final step, and my feet hit glorious, solid mountainside that flattened out into a valley. I sucked in a lungful of air, the motion burning as I watched Rain slowly but surely make her way over to me. I held on to the rope, pulling the slack tight every time it loosened as she grew closer.
She was only about ten feet from me and the safety of the ground beneath my feet, when she slipped her hand into one of the wider cracks in the rock wall in order to gain a better grip. I glanced behind me, mentally calculating how much farther I could hike before collapsing from lack of water. The thick expanse of trees that peppered this side of the mountain gave me high hopes of finding a stream . . . I’m sure I remembered one from—
“Easton!” Rain’s bloodcurdling scream shook my chest, and I snapped my eyes to her.
The breath stalled in my lungs as I watched her, frozen in place against the mountain wall, her mouth gaping open as she stared down a partially-coiled snake that quickly raised its long neck. The thing sat an inch from her hand, where she gripped the mountain. Its head had sharp angles above its eyes, making it look like it had horns. The tan scales and dark-brown sporadic lines turned my blood cold. A Persian horned viper was one of the most poisonous snakes in Israel. I’d only seen one once but had been lucky enough to chop its head off with a machete I’d been carrying. I didn’t even have a dull knife to use now.
“Don’t move, Rain!” I yelled, though she would’ve heard me clearly if I’d spoken normally, she was that close. “I’m coming.”
I moved to the ledge, but an audible hiss stopped me. The snake had coiled tighter and now had its mouth open. I saw the moment of panic in Rain’s eyes seconds before she jerked her hand away from the snake’s strike, its flat head hitting the rock with a sickening thud. Her fast, erratic movement threw off her momentum, and she lost her footing, the weight of her pack propelling her backward.
She didn’t even have time to scream, she fell so fast.
I instantly dug my boots into the ground and gripped the rope that attached us as it jerked her to a stop, flinging her against the wall beneath me. She yelped as her body hit the rocks, but she managed to keep herself from doing it over and over again by planting her boots against the wall.
The strain of her weight seared my muscles, threatening to rip them to shreds as I clung to the rope like a lifeline. I locked eyes with her, her hands holding on to the rope and a plea on her lips. “Easton, don’t let me fall!”
“You won’t! Just hang on!” Straining with everything in me, I yanked on the rope and inched backward, using my hips and core as well as pulling with my arms, one thing pushing me past the pain—not Rain. Not Rain.
I repeated the chant with each step, each tug, and as I worked to pull her over the ledge, I didn’t see the mountain before me but a dark, endless cave, and the man I hadn’t been strong enough to save.
Not Rain. God, not her!
One final, agonizing yank, and Rain’s arms flung over the ledge. Once she’d secured the upper half of her body, I ran to her and pulled her up the rest of the way. We fell backward, hitting the hard ground beneath us, her locked in my arms.
Our breaths were hurried, and the only sound outside of the rushing of blood in my ears. My palms were slick with blood from the burn of the rope, but I didn’t hesitate to grab her wrists and search every portion of her skin for a bite.
“Did it connect?” I asked, sitting us both up and continuing my panicked search.
“No.” She sighed, her hands trembling in my own. “I moved a second before it did.”
I closed my eyes and pulled her against my chest, needing her body as close to mine as possible. Too close. One bite would’ve had me watching her die over the course of a few hours, and being powerless to stop it. And if I hadn’t tied us . . . she would’ve . . .
Too close. Rain’s fall. Harrison’s. I couldn’t take it.
“God, Rain. I almost lost you, too.”
She clung to me, her fingers digging into my back, and for a moment, we didn’t live in the confusing, painful gray area I’d forced us to. We simply held each other like our lives depended on it, and after her death had been inches away, I realized I was tied to her with much more than a rope. If anything happened to
her—because of the position I’d put her in for this fucking show—I wouldn’t survive it. And more so, I wouldn’t want to.
Rain
THE MUSCLES IN my arms and legs were coiled tighter than the snake that had nearly killed me in two different ways. Sharp, shifting pains stung each nerve ending as I latched on to Easton, clinging to him like the lifeline he’d been, he was, on top of this godforsaken mountain.
I’d had close calls on shoots before—one particularly terrifying moment with a tiger in India who didn’t appreciate my interest in his cubs, stuck out the most. The incident had left me in the hospital with a set of stiches across my inner thigh from where his claws had caught hold of my flesh just as I’d made it to the safety of my Jeep. I had other scars, and I didn’t begrudge the animals who’d left them on me. I was the one encroaching upon their lives, their homes, all the while uninvited, but this one had been different. I hadn’t seen it coming, hadn’t been able to prepare for the best ways to avoid danger or to calculate exit strategies.
I’d faced either being bitten and slowly dying, or falling to a quick death among the jagged rocks a couple hundred feet below. And, yet, here I was, rapidly inhaling Easton’s earthy scent, breathing it deep into my lungs to calm the panic that had my limbs trembling.
He’d saved me, and the way he did it . . . with such pure, undiluted fear in his eyes, had me reeling. When I’d looked up at him as I hung from the ledge by the rope that connected us, wanting to lock on to those gorgeous brown eyes one last time before I fell, I’d seen something in them. Something dark. It was as if Easton wasn’t only panicking over my situation but reliving some past trauma, and I had a feeling it was the same something that had hemorrhaged enough over the years to make him the hard, closed-off man of today.
Not in this moment, though. Here, as he held me encased in his strong arms, stroking my hair and matching his breaths to mine, he was mine. The Easton I remembered. The one who never shut me out, who didn’t have a stone-cold wall around his heart. My Compass.
And sensing that man so close, the perfect combination of the boy I loved and the man I knew he was now, my heart backflipped like a cheerleader at a home game. I didn’t slap her down, either. I reveled in the sensation, knowing the near-death experience fueled the ache in my chest. The raw edge of hunger that called out to my other half.
Easton.
It didn’t matter how deep I’d buried him, or how much venom I’d spilled over his name.
He was ingrained within me, a brand on my soul.
And after the way he’d saved me, and desperately held me now, I knew he felt it, too. The only thing I didn’t know was if he would allow himself to let me in, or revert to whatever survival mode had forced him to build a wall between us.
I gently pushed away and stood up, brushing off the ashy powder the mountain had shed on my clothes. The grooves in my palms stuck out against the fine grain, and blood made the white powder pink. I spared a glance over the edge that nearly swallowed me, then across the distance to where that damned snake still rested, coiled up now so much it looked like a fucking rock. Asshole.
Turning back to Easton, who had set his elbows on his knees, I smirked. “That was a close one.”
His eyes widened, and he shook his head, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands. Finally, he chuckled.
I laughed, too, the exhilaration of being alive rushing through my blood and turning the cold fear into hot, ready adrenaline.
“Maybe too close?” Easton asked through his laughter.
“Maybe.” I offered my hand to him, helping him to his feet. “Thank God the gear is okay. And”—I tapped the camera on my head, then his—“all on camera! Be one hell of a moment for your show. Spike those ratings right up!”
Easton shook his head. “You’re insane.”
I scrunched my eyebrows at him as I readjusted my pack and untied the rope that dug into my hip bones. “No I’m not. Out of all the shots I’ve captured over the years, you know which ones sell the fastest?”
He raised his eyebrows. “All of them.”
I smiled at his attempt to compliment me. “Nope. The ones where I’m in danger, or where the animal is in its natural hunting path. Teeth, claws, and the shots where you can almost hear the roar of the animal.” I snapped my fingers. “They sell that quick.” I smacked his shoulder a couple times. “You’ll get your show in line. And then you wring them for a new contract where ratings only have a certain percentage of power over the life of the show.”
He opened his mouth a couple times but shut it. He grabbed me by the shoulders and claimed my lips with his.
I gasped, the shock of his kiss in broad daylight, with all our senses about us, hit me like a cold bucket of ice water. After a second, all sensation turned to hot, sparking flames of need that licked my skin as his tongue slipped into my mouth. I clutched the back of his neck, my fingertips threading the hair at the base of his skull. His lips were cracked, his tongue dry, but he kissed me like I was the drink he thirsted for. Like I was what he needed to survive.
He tucked his hands around my ass, lifting me up to his eye level, my feet hanging above the ground. His hard chest pressed against my soft breasts, and I suddenly wanted nothing between us. I wanted him like I used to have him—free, open, and all mine.
Another swipe of the tip of my tongue across his bottom lip, and I slowly pulled away, catching his eyes. His pupils were dilated, and not in the sexy way where he wanted me but in an over-dehydrated, red flag way. He wobbled on his feet and set me down gently.
“We have to find water. Now,” I said, grabbing his hand. He flinched, and I dug in my pack for the small first-aid kit I kept handy. I swiped both our palms with alcohol wipes before bandaging the bigger cuts as best I could. Retaking his hand, I tugged on his arm.
“Think, Easton. Do you remember a water source from when you were last around here?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes. It’s one of the reasons I brought us this way.” Pointing to the left, he squinted in that direction. “Maybe two miles?”
Of course it couldn’t be a hundred yards away. I thought about arguing him into taking one of the bottles from my pack, but I knew it would be a waste of energy. Plus, we didn’t have time for it. Corrine’s team had to be catching up after our setback, and I honestly didn’t think a little ledge climb across a couple hundred foot drop would stop her at all.
“Let’s move,” I said, pushing him into motion. His movements weren’t as sharp and confident as usual. There was a jerkiness to his limbs, like he couldn’t get them to work quite right. He’d pass out on me soon if we didn’t find water, and that would put us in one hell of a difficult situation, with me not being strong enough to carry his massive frame and all.
“Tell me about the last time you were here,” I said, hoping distraction while we made the trek would help him forget he was severely dehydrated. I shook my head at the absurdity, wishing I knew where it was so I could jog ahead and bring some back, but then again, that would be cheating on the show’s mission to keep survival as authentic as possible.
“A few years ago. I came back thinking I might be able to make it to Harrison’s cave this time around, but I never did. I found this batch of caves on this side of the mountain, and by the time I finished excavating them, I’d lost my nerve.”
I swallowed hard. “And this time it’s different.”
“This time I don’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice.”
“Not in my world. Things happen, terrible things, and you’re powerless to stop them. This time, I’m exercising what little control I have in my life and getting my show back. It’s the only thing that has kept me alive after what happened.”
He stopped talking abruptly, shaking his head like he could rid himself of the dizziness most likely causing him to walk like he’d had half a bottle of whiskey.
“Did you find anything worthwhile?” I asked, electing to avoid the heart-
wrenching discussion I knew I wanted to have. He clearly didn’t want to open up about it, and I wouldn’t push him unless I felt it would help him. I’d always assumed he’d seen, at least in part, what had happened to my father, and I was dying to know exactly what caused his death, but seeing something like that had to wage a war on Easton’s psyche. One I wasn’t sure I could ever save him from, but I sure as hell wanted to.
Before he’d found me in South Africa, I thought I was fine with never seeing him again. Never knowing what really happened to him, or what occurred on that day. But now that he was back in my life I couldn’t imagine not at least trying to connect with him like we used to.
“Proof of ancient life . . . vases with traces of scented oils, jars with crystalized honey remains, that sort of thing. Nothing worthy enough to put on the show, so I kept it to myself. I’d always planned to keep Israel off the show’s radar, something about this place . . .” Easton’s too big eyes scanned the mountainside around us, the trees packed so tightly together we had to constantly maneuver around them. “It’s always felt like his. And I never wanted to take anything from him.”
I grabbed the trunk of the tree in my path, the rough bark stinging my bandaged palm, and stepped around it. “You can let him go, you know.”
He halted dead in his tracks, and I froze, surveying his stance in case he was about to pass out.
“Easton?” I asked after he hadn’t spoken in several long breaths. He just stood there, his hand on his chest, and the other leaning him up against a thick tree trunk. “Does your chest hurt?”
“How could you say that?” His voice was barely a whisper. I took a step closer to him, the entire area filled with the scent of dirt, tree sap, and the fresh, crisp air.
I took his hand. “Because it’s true. He wouldn’t want you living your life the way you are . . . closed off, angry, and fighting demons in your sleep. I don’t know what happened to you, but I know enough that my father would want you to live. Not just survive.”