He flips over and slides an arm over my waist. “The other night, when you were pretending to be Amelia, you shouted for Aaron.”
Apparently my subconscious has loose lips. It’s a damn good thing I live alone. I hope Sebastian can’t feel my galloping heart. “Really? I shouted for Aaron?”
“You did. Is he someone special to you?”
I struggle to devise a good explanation. “I can’t believe I did that. That’s warped. But I guess it all goes together. Aaron is not my boyfriend; he’s Amelia Robertson’s baby brother. Aren’t dreams weird?”
“Yeah, they usually are.”
“I guess you could say Emilio’s my boyfriend. Emilio Santos, the guy I’ve been videochatting with. He’s in the army now, though, so it’s not like we’re really together.”
I’m talking too much.
“So is Emilio the guy whose life you want to save?”
“No. If Emilio’s life needs saving, the army damn well better do it.”
“Bailey?”
“What? Did I scream Bailey’s name in my sleep, too?”
He chuckles softly. “You were talking about Bailey to your friend at the zoo.”
“Bailey’s another friend of mine. He’s a nice guy, most of the time. I think you’d like him.”
“Does Bailey have cancer or something?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Most people wouldn’t understand my relationship with Bailey.
“Why do you need to save his life?”
I think about whether it’s safe to tell him. “Bash, does anyone in your family hunt?”
“Wow,” he says, “Way to change the conversation.”
“Just answer the question. Have you ever killed anything with a rifle?”
“I’ve gone turkey hunting with my uncles a couple of times. And my Dad goes bear hunting every year.”
That answers my question about whether it’s smart to confide in my partner. “Roll over, Sebastian.”
His arm tightens around my waist. “Because I’ve hunted?”
“Because I’m tired of answering questions. I want to sleep. We have a hell of a long way to run tomorrow and I’m sore and tired. Good night.”
Sebastian rolls over and presses his back against mine. His breathing deepens until he starts to snore lightly. I feel the fireflies pulsing on my shoulder as I finally sink into sleep.
We start off the next morning with no other teams in sight. The race crew dismantles tents around us as Sebastian and I warm up, making us feel like guests slow to take the hint that the party’s over.
The wind and clouds are gone. The sun is brilliant at this altitude, glancing off the ice crystals that crust the steep flank of the volcano. We are forced to don our sunglasses. The tracks of our competitors zigzag down the slope in cautious switchbacks, the safest and sanest strategy to use for a steep descent in snow. However, since we are in last place and this is the last day of the race, we can’t afford to choose sanity over any chance to pass the others. So we elect to descend in as straight a line as possible, slip-sliding in the snow on our heels, careening down the mountainside as quickly as we can.
It’s a struggle to keep our balance, but we’ve agreed to go all out today, and I’m not about to slow down and stamp through the snow more carefully. Every muscle in my body is tense and I scan the area below for obstacles as I heel-ski downward. My ankle aches but it’s still in the elastic wrap and seems to be working fine. In the beginning, our descent through the soft new snow is actually sort of fun, except for the icy slush that accumulates in my socks.
As we alternately glide and stumble lower, the icy crust gets harder. In the Cascades near Bellingham, this is similar to spring gravel snow, which scratches the finish off your skis and can erase your epidermis on contact. As we get lower, we find the snow field is scalloped from the sun, which makes it much harder to slide at all. Sebastian and I are forced to do a weird dance to step over some of the higher ridges without tripping, watching all the while for another treacherous crevasse.
Then, on the steepest, iciest slope, both feet slip out from beneath me. I don’t even have time to scream before I start sliding on my backside, way too fast. My pack is beneath me, jabbing its lumpy load of energy gel and water, rope and first aid gear into my back.
I hear Sebastian shout “Tana!” And for a second I’m glad he finally used my chosen name, but then his voice is lost as I zoom past. The crust of ice crystals scours the skin from my bare legs and arms. Ice slithers into my undies and my hair as I bump along the surface. I feel each scallop as I bounce through them, up, down, up, down. It all hurts like hell and I’d give anything to stand on my feet again, but I’m careening out of control at breath-taking speed. If there’s a crevasse yawning below, I’m a goner.
I try to jam in my heels and spread-eagle my arms and legs in an attempt to slow down. These efforts cause me to spin into a head-down position. Great, now I am going to shatter my skull or break my neck before I even see what I am going to collide with. I try to dig my fingers into the snow, but it’s too slick and crusty to get a good hold. I manage to dig in a couple of fingers on my left hand, and my arm nearly rips off as I spin again and return to my head-down position.
This might just be the end. Will I soon see Mom and Dad again? Does Heaven really exist? If it does, then maybe Bailey can join us there, too.
I careen through a hundred more scallops, flopping over the ridges like a rag doll, smacking my head and limbs into the hard crust. Ice slides down my neck. The only thing I can do to help myself at all is clench my jaw so I won’t bite my tongue in half.
Then my body abruptly hurtles off a small rise. I am airborne, zipping through space.
Chapter 14
My flight is far too short; after only a second or two I’m slammed to the ground with a full-body whack. My head smacks into the dirt. Stars dance across my vision. I slide a few inches across a field of mud and gravel until friction overcomes momentum and the world stops moving.
Sweet God-If-There-Is-One, I hope that was amusing for you, because it was certainly not fun for me. Am I a quadriplegic now? For what seems like an hour, I cannot breathe. I cannot move. Somewhere along my tumbleweed journey my sunglasses deserted me. I shut my eyes against the cruel brilliance above.
Then the air rushes into my desperate lungs, and all I can do is moan. I despise whiners but if anyone has a right to complain, it’s me right now. I lie there for a second trying to decide if any of my parts still work and wondering if the world will watch me skid-flopping down a mountain on the race vid tonight.
I can hear the newsquacker now: “And with that unfortunate stumble by Zany Grey, Team Seven drops out of the Verde Island race.”
Ice crystals shower down into my face, interrupting my internal newscast. When I open my eyes, I see Sebastian perched at the top of a snow ledge about five feet above me.
“Way to fall off the glacier, Tarzan,” he says. He leaps down beside me. “Are you mobile?”
“Uhhnnn.”
He bends and holds out his hand. I’m sort of surprised when my arm actually obeys my command to lift from the ground. My fingers curl around his. He yanks me to my feet. Surprisingly, I can still stand, although I’m not exactly steady. Ice pellets shower out of my shorts and the back of my shirt. I take a couple of tentative steps, rake ice and dirt out of my hair with my raw fingertips. The backs of my arms and legs are bleeding, and my clothes are soaked.
Sebastian’s legs are also red and raw.
“Did you fall, too?” I ask.
“I sat down.” He shrugs. “You started it. I had to keep up.”
He thrusts a leg backward and peers over his shoulder at the back of his calves, which look like they’ve been scraped across a cheese grater. “I can’t say that I’d recommend this method, though. I know they say no pain, no gain, but this is a lot more pain than I was expecting.”
“I don’t know.” I try to ignore the sting of my own body parts and match hi
s sardonic humor. “I was really getting into the human sled routine. Until the very end, that is.”
“I must admit, it was fast.” He grins.
It’s a miracle that we didn’t kill ourselves. The blood and ice water on our bodies and clothes will dry in the tropical sunshine that we’ll be running in to the end of the race, but we need to get moving before our scrapes start to scab over. I rub the back of my head for a second to ease the ache there from my body slam. We both do a quick stretch that we probably shouldn’t have, because stretching our snow-grated skin proves to be a form of self-torture, causing our skin to bleed more. But soon we’re off again, trotting gingerly, picking our way through the field of lava rubble that separates volcano and glaciers from thick jungle.
To distract myself from the burn of my shredded skin and the ache in my head, I envision what my life is going to be like after I get the million dollar prize money.
In desperate times, a girl needs to lose herself in fantasy.
Less than a mile onward, we confront a river coming off Mount Everett. The roiling water is the color of chocolate milk. It’s glacial melt, full of dirt and minerals, impossible to see through, and achingly cold.
The stream is running thigh-high as the snow and ice of the volcano melt in the tropical sun. I’ve spent plenty of time exploring the Cascades and the glaciers near my home town, so I know the volume of water will rise throughout the day.
There’s no bridge, nor is there anything to make one from. There’s no choice except to ford this frigid obstacle on foot. We plunge in. My ice-shock headache begins immediately, adding to the throbbing I’m already experiencing from bashing my skull against the ground.
The river bottom is all sharp tumbling rocks. I am careful to feel for each foothold before leaning my weight into the next. I am already black and blue and scraped all over and my strained foot still aches from yesterday; I don’t need any more injuries.
Watching the water ripple past around me in the bright sun makes me feel dizzy and sick to my stomach, but if I shut my eyes, I’ll fall down. I hope I don’t have a concussion. Or if I do, I hope I make it to the finish line before I am unconscious.
When we are halfway across the stream, Sebastian stops me by throwing a hand out in front of my face.
“Look!” He points.
About fifty yards downstream, Team Eight flounders in the water. At first my aching brain can’t make sense of what’s going on. Tober Collins stands immobile while his partner, Gabriella Taylor, gyrates around his lower half. Some sort of weird mating dance?
But then I clue in. Tober has managed to get his foot wedged between rocks while wading the river. Gabriella is struggling to free him, diving headfirst into the river over and over again.
“I c-can’t,” I hear her wail when she comes up. “It won’t b-b-budge.”
She is moving in slow motion. Even from here I can see that they are both quaking so hard they can barely stand upright. Small wonder; this water is bone-chilling. Team Eight started nearly two hours ahead of us. Who knows how long they have been stuck here?
I reach the other side of the stream right behind Sebastian, and grab at his arm. “We have to help.”
He glances at Team Eight, and then back at me. “I thought you wanted to win.”
I grimace, because that’s what I want most in life right now, and he’s right, stopping will cost us precious time. “But we have to help.”
“The race crew will rescue them,” he argues.
“Like they rescued us from the crevasse?”
His laser gaze burns into mine.
“I couldn’t live with myself if Tober dies,” I tell him. “Could you?”
He stares at me for another second, then we both grit our teeth and slog back into the stream toward Team Eight.
Tober’s teeth are chattering so loudly that it seems like his jaw might crack. His lips are blue and hang loosely, and his face is already taking on the vacant expression of hypothermia. It’s amazing he’s still able to stand up in the rushing water. Gabriella isn’t in much better shape, but she still has enough life in her to sob.
“Right side first,” Sebastian says to me. “Together. One, two, three.”
We both bend, dunking our heads and arms under the silt-laden water. My face and head spasm in that instant freeze-pain again. I run my hand down Tober’s leg. There, his running shoe is wedged between two slippery rocks. I feel Sebastian’s fingers curled around the sharp edges of the rock on the right, so I jam mine in beside his, and we both pull.
The rock does not budge, even though I plant my feet and lean back and tug with everything I’ve got. I suspect Sebastian is doing the same.
Out of air, I erupt out of the water, gasping and chafing my arms and swearing. I thought the glacier was cold, but sliding down the flank of the volcano was nothing compared to being immersed in this ice flow. “Dios mío! Cold cold cold!”
Another second and Sebastian is up, too, and making similar sounds. The only consolation is that I can no longer feel my shredded skin.
Both Tober and Gabriella stare glumly at us, shivering. Another half hour, or maybe less, and they will be as dead as Maddie Hatt.
Take care of salt and pepper, my brain chants idiotically.
We all have to get out of this river.
“Left,” I say to Sebastian. “Now.”
We stagger into position and then dive back under and grope our way down Tober’s leg again. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but the rock on that side seems a little smaller. We wedge our fingers between leg and stone and yank. The rock tilts slightly, then breaks from its mooring and slides sideways a couple of inches. Seems like it should be enough, but Tober’s foot doesn’t shift position. My head is splitting with pain and I can’t hold my breath much longer. It occurs to me that this guy probably can’t even feel his lower extremities any longer. He might not know his foot is free. I can’t let go of the rock or it will tumble back, so I head-butt his thigh. As Tober falls backward, his running shoe slips out of the trap.
When Sebastian and I fling ourselves up out of the ice bath, Tober’s floating in the water, his face barely above the ripples. We drag both runners to the edge of the river and leave Tober and Gabriella shivering on the shore. At this point, neither of them can even crawl, but surely the tropical sun will warm them enough to walk. Team Eight will survive, but they are clearly out of the competition.
Our teeth are chattering, too, but Sebastian and I are still mobile and will thaw soon in the steamy heat. We wring out our clothes as best we can and then stagger toward the thick forest, at first moving like Frankenstein’s monster, and then easing into a lope as our muscles warm up. It’s a relief for my eyes to rest on greens and browns instead of squinting at diamond-bright sunshine bouncing off crystalline snow.
It’s the last day of the race. I feel like we are nearing the end of a list of challenges we are supposed to endure today. Glacier test, check. Rescue competitor from river, check.
Now there are only two teams ahead of us, and who knows how many other obstacles like that river. Maybe the other racers will have similar accidents in the remaining eighteen miles.
My brain flashes on the tiger and the crocodile, and then on the land mines. I amend my wish for the others to have non-life-threatening accidents.
My head still aches and the skin on the back of my arms and legs feels tight and on fire. But my legs feel strong and maybe the ice bath even did some good for my sore foot. Now that we’re lower in elevation, I’m breathing at my normal running rate. We’re in the jungle again, back on reasonably level ground.
I begin to think that maybe it’s possible, maybe we will be the first to reach the finish line and I can save Bailey after all.
And then the unthinkable happens.
Chapter 15
Sebastian and I are jogging along at a comfortable pace. He runs a little behind me and off to one side, crashing through the brush or leaping over a bush or a fallen log. That’s ho
w I keep track of him, by all the noise he makes.
I hear him make a strange little “huh” sound, and then there’s a loud plop like a heavy branch falling to the ground.
An alarm goes off in my brain: Tiger! Tiger!
“Bash?”
I stop and turn in place, scrutinizing the vegetation. We’re in a small clearing, out of the trees but surrounded by giant ferns whose fronds reach my shoulders. It’s the perfect hunting ground for a tiger. I search through the arching fronds for orange fur or burning yellow eyes or any sign of my partner. I’m pretty sure he was to my left and about twenty yards behind.
“Bash?” I shout. “Bash!”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, I hear a parrot screech an alarm call.
My heart leaps into my throat. Out of the corner of my eye I spy a flash of movement among the trees.
Face her down; tigers are scared of eyes. I take a step in that direction. Then there’s a sharp blow to my shoulder, just below my neck. I pitch forward and trip over a vine to complete a faceplant in the duff between all the ferns. As soon as I hit the dirt, I roll, looking for the tiger that took me down. But there’s only me in the midst of the arching green fronds.
My shoulder hurts. I feel dizzy. I pull my backpack strap off over my shoulder and it scratches me all the way down my arm. There’s a dart embedded in the strap; that’s the claw digging a gouge in my arm. I yank the dart out of the strap; it leaves behind a wet greasy-looking stain. Then I hear voices.
Men.
My first thought is that the ninjas who killed my parents have finally found me.
They’re speaking some kind of harsh, guttural language. One of those Middle Eastern or African languages. They all sound the same to me. But most worrisome, I don’t hear Sebastian at all.
My heart switches into overdrive and my brain switches tracks. Oh God-If-There-Is-One, this has to be The Threat the suits kept hinting at. Kidnapping The President’s Son could be very lucrative, or at least make a big media splash for a group of terrorists. They have darted Bash. It explains the weird noises I heard. My dart deployed its venom on impact with my backpack strap. His must have hit the target they were aiming for.
Race with Danger (Run for Your Life Book 1) Page 13