by Aidy Award
I ignored it all concentrating on finding and following the path. The monsoon had downgraded to a drizzle falling on leaves and the wall of foliage closing in around me blocked out all other sounds soon enough.
Mud covered everything and streams of water carved a dozen paths down the hill. Even if I couldn’t find the right way, one of these would get me the hell away from Grant and his lies.
Yeah. That’s exactly what he’d done. Lied to me, for years. What the fuck? He was in love with me? That was such bullshit.
I had always counted him as one of my most trusted friends precisely because I could trust him. We’d gotten past the girl boy thing and become something more. That was goddamn important to me and he’d ruined everything.
Were we ever even friends at all? Had he been manipulating our relationship all along, just biding his time, waiting to make a move on me?
A branch smacked me in the face, and then another, and another, but I didn’t stop. The faster I could get down the hill the sooner I could get on a plane and far away from here, and far, far away from Grant and his devious plans.
How could he? For that matter how could I have given into it. I had sex with the man. Fantastic, brilliant, amazing, vanilla sex. He had me questioning whether BDSM was even important to me anymore. Of course it was. Being in control, making sure my subs got off meant damn sure disasters like this didn’t happen.
Well, it would never happen to me again because this relationship was over. That’s what I get for being friends with a man. Harry had told Sally men and women can’t be friends because one always wants to sleep with the other. More than a movie cliché.
Another branch came at me, but enough was enough and I grabbed it and broke it in half. I was getting to the bottom of this mountain if it killed me or the mountain. Everywhere from my knees down were splattered in mud. These clothes were ruined, not to mention Grant’s shoes. Ha.
I reached for another branch using it to support myself to step over a larger rock in the middle of the path. The branch fell right out of the tree and I fell smack on my ass. The camera bag fell and flopped onto the ground beside me.
Ouch.
No, really. Ouch. Pain radiated up from my ass and into the hollow place behind my heart filling it up with shards of rock and broken trust.
I would not cry. Would. Not. Not because my butt was going to turn fourteen shades of bruised, not because I was soaked in cold mud, and certainly not because Grant was the biggest asshole on the planet.
I would pick myself up and pull it together. Like I always do.
I grabbed the camera bag and slung it over my shoulder and across my body. One more gulp of air and a grit of my teeth and I pushed myself into a half standing position. Dammit, where was my other shoe, or rather Grant’s other shoe?
I hobbled forward looking in the bushes for any sign of the formally black leather. The shoe was nowhere to be found. Stupid fucking shoes. I pulled the other one off and threw it. Good riddance. The ground was slimy and slippery and I would have to be very careful not to biff it again.
I had to be at least halfway down by now. A quick rest wouldn’t hurt. Except the rain started falling in earnest and the wind picked up. Dammit.
I yelled at the sky. “Come on, Cameron. Give me a fucking break.”
Water rushed over the ground around my feet and I sank farther into the mud. The mud gave way and there was suddenly nothing under me.
I screamed and fell onto my ass for a second time, sliding like the scariest of water park rides. The branches and rocks gave way all around me. There was nothing to hold onto. I pedaled my feet and grabbed at the mud trying to slow myself down, but the farther I went the steeper the hill. Water, mud, branches, rocks and my body barreled downward.
Just ahead a wooden post with a rope stuck out of the ground askew. Maybe I could grab onto it. Oh, god. It was the remnants of the rope handrail where the trail met the cliff.
I was going to die. They would never find my mangled corpse in twenty tons of mud and debris buried at the bottom of the ravine.
Please, no. I might not be a virgin, but I was sure I hadn’t really lived yet.
I rolled onto my stomach scratching and clawing at anything I could. My skin shredded leaving a stream of blood in the water and mud. I couldn’t stop.
My feet and legs went over the edge, then my waist, and then my shoulders and head. Instead of free falling, nothing but air under me the flashflood continued on a steep slope.
I jerked to a stop, the air knocked out of me. The strap of the camera bag held me tight against the rock like a seat belt. My feet dangling and muddy water rushed over and around me.
I twisted slightly and saw the trunk of a tree mangled and stripped of most of its bark sticking out the side of the cliff. The camera bag was stuck in a giant tear in the wood.
Adrenaline buzzed through my veins. I coughed and struggled to breath, pushing the air in and out of my lungs.
Alive. Holy shitbuckets.
Dangling by the hair of my chinny-chin-camera strap. I wasn’t dead, but I was far from safe.
The flow of the mudslide lessened so I wasn’t being showered anymore and soon became a trickle. Above me there was only the tree and the side of the cliff. Below me a small ledge then a drop off into the darkness of more jungle, stomach-churning dark.
If I wanted to stay alive I couldn’t continue to hang here. It didn’t look like either the wood or the strap would continue to hold me for very long.
Could I climb up? The edge of the cliff was only about three feet above the crag in the tree, but there didn’t look like there were any foot or hand holds. Everything was covered in brown slime. I might be able to pull myself up to the tree, but that risked pulling my only safety net down. No way.
Below me the ledge poked out and looked big enough to stand on, but could I get down to it without falling? I didn’t see any other alternatives.
Maybe first I could try calling for help. “Hello?”
There wasn’t much oomph behind my voice. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Hello? Anybody? Help.”
No way anyone was up here. Why would they be. People weren’t so stupid to go hiking in a hurricane, or to leave a perfectly nice shelter or strand the only person within miles by stealing their shoes to run down a treacherous mountain.
I tried again anyway. “Help. Help help help help help.”
Nothin’.
“Help. Heeeeeeeeeeeelp.”
Nada.
Shit.
Back to plan A then. I reached for the ledge with my toes, stretching beyond my limits to touch solid ground. Even then it was still out of reach. I’d have to wriggle out of the camera bag strap to get down. That thought sent a whole new rush of adrenaline laced spikes into my stomach.
If I fell…
No. I wouldn’t think that way.
A vibration skittered through the bag and then a phone rang. Oh my god. Our phones. They were in the camera bag.
I moved one shoulder and the tree above me creaked and slipped down a few inches. Two fast breaths and I pulled my arm out of the strap and held on with my other hand. Yipes. The cuts in my hands stung like a son of a bitch.
I had to get to that phone. Please don’t hang up. Please don’t hang up.
Another move and I was almost free. The tree shook falling a half a foot more. Shit shit. It was coming down.
I pressed my body against the mud and rock sliding a few more inches to the ledge never letting go of the camera bag. I hit the solid but slimy ground exactly as the tree groaned and fell. It tried to steal the camera but I pulled freeing the bag just in time. The tree and more of the hill rushed by me. I covered my head with my arms and closed my eyes praying the ledge wouldn’t give way under me.
Cliffhanger (Literally)
Debris pelted me and I heard the crashing and crunching of the wood breaking and falling on its way down. That could have been me. It could have been my bones crunching, my body crashing.
/> If I got out of this alive I was never going on a tropical vacation ever again.
As soon as the crashing stopped, I opened the bag. The phone had stopped ringing, but if someone called that meant I could call somebody.
I pulled my phone out first and punched in my code. Two percent battery… and no fucking signal. I reached up in the time-tested method of praying to the cell phone gods for a signal. One bar flicked and then disappeared.
Damn damn damn.
Up on my toes, arm and fingers stretched to the max and the bar flicked on again. But, now I couldn’t reach to dial. I pressed the home button hoping that two percent would be enough.
“Siri, call 9-1-1.”
“Calling nine one one.” Oh, Siri. How I loved her reassuring tone. Everything would be okay.
Beep beep beep beep. “Sorry, Danica. I could not complete your request at this time. Try again in a little while.”
I pushed the button again. “You’re a dirty fucking whore, Siri.”
“You’re making me blush,” she replied.
Ha. Siri had a kinky streak. So did I and neither of our skills were getting us off the side of the mountain.
All right, if Siri couldn’t call for help I was back to doing it myself. “Help. Heeeee-eeeelp.”
I repeated my cry twenty more times before my voice cracked the first time and another twelve before it really started to go. If there was anyone within hearing distance, they would have responded.
I rested my head against the cliff side. A long flight, a long night, and a hurricane had worn me out. I honestly didn’t know how much longer I could stand here. But, what choice did I have?
The ledge I stood on seemed stable enough. I scraped at the dirt with my foot moving some mud and debris away. If I could dig out enough the ledge would be big enough to sit on.
I moved dirt and smaller rocks until I ran into deep thick roots. They were probably the only reason this whole section of the hill hadn’t washed away. When I cleared away as much as I could, I used the exposed roots as hand holds and lowered myself into a sitting position. Sideways I just fit. If I turned my legs would dangle. I wasn’t totally sure I could get back up.
The strap on the camera bag had already saved my life once, so I used it again to help keep me alive. It unbuckled on one side, so I extended the strap as far as it would go, looped the end through the sturdiest of roots, across my body like a seat belt and buckled it again, placing the bag on the ground at my hip.
Now to sit here and either wait for help to come or slowly succumb to death by exposure. Screw that. Someone had to come up the trail eventually. Or Grant would come down.
In reality, I was a maiden in distress.
I certainly didn’t want to give him the chance to be my knight in shining armor. I didn’t want anything else from him. Ever.
My heart ached at the thought. Grant had been the only stable man in my life for years. Maybe that was why revealing his feelings had been so damn –
He was changing everything.
I wanted to know he would always be there for me, and if we were in a romantic relationship it would end, eventually. Then there would be no more Grant for me.
I couldn’t have that.
But maybe I already did. What more did we have left after I stormed out…into the storm.
I already told him I didn’t want him in my life. But that wasn’t true. I’d lied to both of us. Just like he had.
Stupid man. Stupid men. Can’t live with them, can’t trust them.
Maybe I’d turn lesbian.
I contemplated that until the phone rang. Holy crapballs. A phone was ringing. It wasn’t mine. It was coming from the camera bag. I flipped the bag open and rummaged until I found Grant’s phone. Just as I picked it up it stopped ringing.
Who the fuck cared. Two bars showed on the signal. But, who to call? I tried nine one one again. Same busy beeping.
I didn’t know anyone else on the island and there was only two percent on the battery. When I got home I was investing in one of those little battery packs for charging phones on the go.
I dialed a number. It rang, two times, three and went to voicemail.
“Hi, you’ve reached Vanessa Stein. Please leave a message.”
I ended the call. No use leaving a message. What would I say. That I was calling from the side of a cliff on an island in Costa Rica and needed her to call the National Guard from four-thousand miles away? That wouldn’t scare the shit out of her or anything.
I couldn’t think of any other numbers to call. I didn’t know anyone’s number, they were all just in my phone.
The only other number that came to mind was for Devils and Angels. Would anyone even be there? Hopefully Angelina would be doing the books or something.
I sucked in a big breath and dialed again.
“Angels, this is Jim.”
It was the sweetest voice in all the world, all gruff and gravelly. “Jim. Thank God you’re there.”
“Dani? Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?”
Yeah. Some fucking vacation. “Supposed to is the key word there. Listen, the battery is about to die and I need your help.”
“Name it.”
I hadn’t actually thought about what I was going to say. “So, umm, I’m stuck… on the side of a cliff.”
“What the fuck? Where are you?”
I heard someone in the background. “It’s Dani. She’s on a cliff somewhere.” More muffled voices and then Jim came back on. “I’m putting you on speaker, Angelina’s here.”
“Danica, what’s happening?”
“Long ass story, but I’m on Tortuga Island off Costa Rica.”
“Holy shit. Hurricane Cameron just hit Nicaragua and Honduras yesterday…,” Jim said.
Hurricane free zone. Shah. “Yeah. I got stuck out in the middle of it and now I can’t get a hold of emergency services.”
“You’re alone?” Angelina asked.
I looked at my friend the ledge and the dark pit of trees and mud. “Sort of.”
“Are you safe.” Her tone was rising with each question.
I clung to the roots and shivered. “Not exactly, but I think I’ve got the situation under control.”
Angelina made a scoffing sound.
“What can we do to help?” Jim’s voice was full into take command and fix it mode. Hard to do from thousands of miles away.
“Can you try calling someone?” Like who? “Try calling the hotel, uh the Marriott. That’s where we’re staying and tell them I’m halfway up the Crystal Falls trail, near the rope bridge.”
“You got it.” Jim said and they clicked off.
Phew. At least someone in the world knew where I was. I powered off the screen to save battery.
Maybe I wasn’t going to die today. That day could wait until I got back home and had to face Grant again. There would be no avoiding him. Granted Media’s headquarters were blocks from my apartment. Downtown had never been so unappealing.
Well, maybe it was time to move. Something in my life needed to change.
The phone rang again a few minutes later. “Hello?”
Angelina’s voice came on the line, cool and calming. “Jim talked to the hotel and they are organizing with a military search and rescue team.”
I looked up at the sky, thanking the universe. “Thank goodness.”
“But,” she took a deep breath, “they are overwhelmed right now and say it will be hours before they can get up there.”
“Shit.” There went my rescue.
“Jim is currently threatening life and limb to get you moved up in priority,” Angelina said.
If anyone could be intimidating it was Jim. Even if they couldn’t see his bald head and tattoos his motorcycle club king persona came through enough to scare most people into doing what he told them too.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” she asked?
I was far from okay. “I’ve got myself strapped to some tree roots and the ground seems to
be stable for now.”
“Good. Now, mija, how did you end up all alone out there? Where’s Grant?”
“How do you know about Grant?” The fizzies were starting up in my brain again.
“He should be there to take care of you.” It almost sounded like she was angry with him.
How the hell did she even know Grant? They definitely did not run in the same circles. Which wasn’t the point right now. “I don’t need anyone to take care of me, especially not him.”
“Look around you, Danica.” She paused actually waiting for me to look around. “If ever there was a time in your life you needed someone, it’s now.”
Oh. Shit. “Being stuck on the side of a cliff is extenuating circumstances. Besides, the National Guard or whoever is on their way, I just have to wait a bit.”
“Don’t be obtuse, mija. You know what you want and need, much better than I ever did. I waited too long and look where it’s gotten me.” The anger from before was still there, but a sadness I’d didn’t realize she was capable of was threaded through her statement.
Why did it feel like that could be me? “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you think you’ve pushed enough men around and out of your life? Isn’t it time you let one in?”
Before I could even think of what to say the phone went dead.
Well, what the fuck was that all about? I’m literally hanging off the side of a cliff and Angelina is trying to give me relationship advice?
I snuggled farther into the cubby hole I’d carved into the side of the hill and folded my arms. Who the hell did she think she was? Sounded like she wasn’t happy with her own situation and was projecting it onto me. While I was in mortal danger.
Okay, so not mortal at the moment. I had said I was safe for the time being. But she sure picked a hell of a time to tell me off. Like I needed to be thinking about my relationships right now.
Or my lack of them.
Because really, who did I call when I needed actual help? A sex club. Where I was a VIP member.
What the hell was wrong with my life?
I had friends. There was Nessie, a string of less than satisfying sub boys. And Grant.