On Edge

by Raelyn Drake

  Copyright © 2019 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

  Darby Creek

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

  For reading levels and more information, look up this title at www.lernerbooks.com.

  Cover and interior images: Ensuper/Shutterstock.com (texture); crazymedia/Shutterstock.com (climbers).

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std.

  Typeface provided by Adobe Systems.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Drake, Raelyn, author.

  Title: On edge / Raelyn Drake.

  Description: Minneapolis : Darby Creek, [2019] | Series: To the limit | Summary: When friends Micah and Trevor skip school to go geocaching and rock climbing in the desert, they face real danger as one sustains a broken arm and the other, a snakebite.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018029286 (print) | LCCN 2018035957 (ebook) | ISBN 9781541542013 (eb pdf) | ISBN 9781541540385 (lb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781541545540 (pb : alk. paper)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Rock climbing—Fiction. | Geocaching (Game)—Fiction. | Survival—Fiction. | Deserts—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.D74 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.1.D74 On 2019 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018029286

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1-45243-36625-9/19/2018

  For every one of my wonderful grandparents

  CHAPTER ONE

  TREVOR

  “It’s got to be around here somewhere,” Trevor Reyes said. He brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes as he bent down to look under a rock overhang.

  His friend Micah Lam stood up from where he was searching in the bushes nearby. “Then where is it, Trev? We’ve looked everywhere down here,” Micah said, gesturing to the surrounding bushes and rocks and the canyon walls that towered above them on both sides.

  Micah and Trevor had gotten to the state park early for a day of geocaching and rock climbing. They’d spent the cool hours of the morning hiking a couple of miles through the surrounding desert to reach Gold Shadow Canyon. They’d used the GPS on Micah’s phone to search for the small boxes that previous hikers had hidden around the park. The treasure hunt aspect of trying to locate the boxes was half the fun, but it was also cool to see what items people had left. With geocaching, you could take any of the loot you found in the box, but you had to leave behind something of your own so that it was a fair trade.

  The climb in through the north end of the canyon had been easy but had taken several hours. The stunning rock formations and cave pools had totally been worth it, and they had found four of the five geocaches they had hunted for.

  There was still no sign of the fifth, but Trevor was reluctant to give up looking for it.

  “Remember the one we almost missed last month?” he said. “It was a hollowed-out brick that you had to pull out of the wall. Or that one we found on vacation last year that looked like a seashell? Some people are really good at hiding these things.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Micah said, “but the other four we found this morning were all just normal geocache boxes, nothing fancy.” He checked the geocache app on his phone. “According to the spot marked on the map, it should be right around here. The comments all say that no one has seen this cache for months. Someone probably stole it.”

  “You’re probably right,” Trevor said with a sigh. “And I am excited to try that climbing route.”

  Micah checked his watch. “We should be good on time. It’s eleven now. I just need to make it back before my parents get home so I can change out of my climbing gear and back into school clothes. Otherwise they’ll figure out pretty quick that I wasn’t at school today.”

  Trevor laughed. “Dude, you’re the one who convinced me to skip class in the first place.”

  “Doesn’t mean my parents are cool with it,” Micah said. “And you’re the one who was stressed out about today’s chemistry quiz, or I wouldn’t have suggested this outing.”

  “Fair enough,” Trevor chuckled, grabbing his backpack.

  “C’mon,” Micah said as he walked backward toward the canyon wall, “the climbing route is over this way.”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” Trevor said. Then he noticed an odd-shaped rock near his foot that seemed out of place. On the off-chance that it might be concealing the missing geocache, he kicked it over—

  Trevor jumped back with a startled shout as something darted out from under the rock. Half a second later, he realized that it was just a tiny lizard.

  Micah was practically doubled-over laughing at Trevor’s overreaction to the small desert animal. And once Trevor got over his initial scare, he couldn’t help but join in.

  * * *

  Trevor busied himself with the final safety checks before they started their climb. Micah would go up the cliff first, securing the rope as he climbed. Trevor would be below, standing at the bottom of the canyon holding the other end of the climbing rope. The rope was fed through a metal braking device, so that if Micah fell, Trevor could stop him from falling all the way down.

  Meanwhile, Micah adjusted his helmet and made sure his harness was correctly attached to the rope. He began his climb, and for the first couple minutes they were both quiet.

  Suddenly Micah cleared his throat. “Once we get home,” he said with what sounded like forced casualness, “I think I’m going to ask Peyton to the homecoming dance.”

  Trevor looked up at Micah with an amused half smile, wondering what had brought about this sudden confession. “For real?”

  “Or is that a terrible idea?” Micah asked. “Do you think she’ll say yes? Am I kidding myself?”

  Trevor snorted. “You and Peyton have been madly in love since freshman year. It’s about time one of you made a move.”

  He could see by the red creeping up the back of Micah’s neck that he was blushing. “I’m not ‘in love’ with her,” he grumbled. “She’s just, ya know, nice.”

  “The fact that she’s cute and smart and likes climbing doesn’t hurt either,” Trevor pointed out.

  Micah seemed to have no argument there, and Trevor smiled to himself as he fed more of the rope through the line. He couldn’t resist teasing his friend, especially when Micah blushed so easily.

  Peyton really was a great girl, and Trevor honestly hoped she and Micah started dating. At least it would be better than the two of them pretending they didn’t have crushes on each other.

  Micah paused and looked over his shoulder at Trevor. “You’ve got to swear you won’t tell anyone though, okay? I’m serious, man.”

  Trevor tried to suppress a grin. “Don’t worry, I’ll take this secret to my grave,” he said with mock seriousness. “Scout’s honor.”

  He was pretty sure the entire school knew that Micah and Peyton liked each other. Trevor, however, was one of the select few who knew that Peyton already planned to ask Micah to homecoming.

  He wasn’t going to share that information with Micah, though. That would make it too easy on the poor guy.

  Besides, he wanted to see which one of them got up the nerve first. If it got too close to homecoming and neither of them had made a move, then Trevor supposed he would have to stage an intervention. But there was still time.

  CHAPTER TWO

  micah


  The desert sun beat hot overhead, and Micah could feel the sweat beading on his forehead. He looked for another handhold on the rock face. His hands were growing slippery from the sweat too.

  He reached back into the chalk bag attached to his rock climbing harness and coated his hands in the white powder. The chalk soaked up the extra moisture and gave him a better grip on the narrow rock ledges. Sure, there was the rope tying him to the side of the cliff, but he always figured it was better to not lose your grip in the first place.

  Micah eyed the next bolt that had been drilled into the rock face to form the climbing route. Most of the climbing routes in this park were pretty old. Years ago, someone had free-climbed to place each bolt along the route. This allowed other climbers to use their own gear without worrying about securing themselves with a brand-new bolt into the rock wall each time.

  Micah yelled down to Trevor that he was going to clip his rope into the metal loop and secure it, and Micah gave a little more slack in the rope. The two of them had climbed together often enough that their roles in the climb were like second nature.

  This part of the climb was getting a bit tricky. “Watch me!” Micah called down to Trevor.

  “I’ve got your back!” Trevor called back.

  Micah smiled to himself as he looked for the next bolt in the route. He and Trevor made a good geocaching team and a good rock climbing team. They could have hiked back through the northern end of the canyon, but where was the fun in going out the same way you came in?

  The park had a climbing route here for that very reason. Once Micah reached the top, he would help with the rope from above and Trevor would begin his climb, unclipping the rope as he went. That way, once both of them were at the top they could pull the rope up after them and start hiking back to the park entrance. Climbing out this way was a challenge, but it wasn’t impossible, especially since Micah and Trevor had brought all their specialized gear.

  Ever since they’d learned how to rock climb at summer camp after freshman year, they’d been obsessed with the sport. The parks always encouraged minors to have an adult with them, so Micah and Trevor had spent a lot of weekends begging their parents to take them climbing. But now that they were eighteen and seniors in high school, they could go whenever they wanted. Usually they still went on weekends, but both had decided to play hooky today and had signed themselves out of school in the morning.

  “I still think you should have invited Peyton to come with us!” Trevor called.

  Micah’s stomach flip-flopped at the mention of Peyton. His face felt hot from more than just the sun, and he hoped he wasn’t visibly blushing. He was glad Trevor couldn’t see from the ground.

  He made sure his annoyed sigh was loud enough that Trevor could hear it. “I don’t think this is her scene,” he called down. “She climbs, yeah, but I’ve only ever seen her at the gym’s indoor wall. I don’t think she does outdoor climbing like this.”

  “Are you kidding? Indoor and outdoor climbing really aren’t that different. You’re just worried that she’s a better climber than you,” Trevor said, laughing.

  “She would never have agreed to skip class with us.”

  “Eh, maybe,” Trevor admitted. “Honestly, I’m still surprised I even let you talk me into it.”

  “Technically, it’s an excused absence,” Micah pointed out.

  “Yeah, but we said we were going to a job fair. Somehow I don’t think this is what they had in mind.”

  Micah chuckled but decided to wait awhile to think up a comeback. Right now he had to concentrate on his next move. He clung to the rock with his chalked-up fingertips while he searched for a better place to position his feet. When he looked down, he saw that the climbing rope was dragging across a stone ridge. That wasn’t ideal. If the rock was sharp, it would put a lot of strain on the climbing rope.

  Just as he was thinking about trying to pull the rope free, or at least point it out to Trevor, Micah heard a cracking noise that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

  He looked up at the metal bolt that he had just clipped the climbing rope into and saw that it was much looser than it had seemed a moment ago. The rock around it had worn away. Now the rock was crumbling, and the bolt was close to falling out of the wall entirely.

  Micah tried desperately to think of what he should do, but it was already too late. The bolt pulled free from the wall with a ping of metal. The rope shifted, throwing Micah off balance. He lost his grip, and a split second later, he was falling.

  In theory, Micah knew that he was supposed to yell a signal to his climbing partner, but the words seemed to get stuck in his throat. Luckily, he heard Trevor shout that he was pulling the brake rope.

  Muscle memory kicked in, and Micah allowed himself to slide down the rock wall. He would drop a short distance, but the bolt below him was still secure. Better to let the climbing rope catch you than hurt yourself trying to grab hold of the rock.

  After a brief but stomach-turning plunge, Micah jerked to a stop as Trevor braked hard on the rope.

  Micah dangled there for a moment, letting the rope support him while he caught his breath. Like most rock climbers, Micah and Trevor had practiced falling, but it was still alarming when it happened in real life.

  “That was a close one!” Trevor called up.

  “You’re telling me!” Micah shouted back, smiling even though his voice shook slightly. “I don’t know what we’re going to do without that bolt, though. Hopefully the next one up isn’t too far.”

  “Maybe we should just hike back through the north end of the canyon,” Trevor suggested, jerking his head back the way they had come while keeping both his hands on the rope.

  “Ugh, I guess,” Micah groaned. “We should report this to the park rangers so they can fix that bolt before anyone else gets hurt—”

  With a loud ripping noise, the climbing rope snapped.

  This time Micah screamed as he fell.

  CHAPTER THREE

  TREVOR

  Trevor saw the rope snap a split second before Micah fell, but it hadn’t been enough time to yell a warning to his climbing partner. On instinct, Trevor pulled the brake line, but of course that wouldn’t help when the rope itself was broken.

  Instead, Trevor had to watch helplessly as Micah tumbled down the cliff. After his first fall, Micah had been about twenty feet up, but that meant it was still quite a drop to the floor of the canyon below. Trevor saw him flail, apparently panicking so much that he forgot his training and tried to grab onto any sort of handhold on the rock face. All that did was slow his fall as he scraped against the rock.

  Micah hit the ground with a sickening thud, and for a heart-stopping moment Trevor thought the fall might have killed him.

  But then Micah moved, groaning, and Trevor ran over to his friend.

  “How bad is it?” Trevor asked, already scanning to see if there were any obvious injuries. That was when he realized Micah’s arm was bent at an odd angle.

  “It’s not great,” Micah said through teeth gritted against the pain. “Does it look broken?”

  Trevor knew that Micah meant his arm. “Uh, yeah, I’m not gonna lie. It looks super broken.”

  “Cool,” Micah said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “Wonderful.”

  Trevor was already digging in his backpack for the first aid kit they always carried with them. Mostly it was stocked with items like climbing tape to wrap around hands that were raw or chapped from climbing. Now that Trevor looked past Micah’s broken arm, he could see that his friend was also covered with cuts and gashes where he had collided with the rock face.

  Micah sat up gingerly so that he could lean his back against the side of the canyon. “At least I didn’t hit my head or hurt my spine,” he said, grimacing. He unclipped his helmet with his uninjured hand and tossed it to the side. “Other than all the parts that are bleeding, I think my stupid arm is the worst of it.”

  “That’s a comforting thought,” Trevor teased, grabbing one of the
water bottles from his backpack and using it to clean rock dust and sand out of Micah’s cuts before bandaging them. None of the cuts were as bad as they had looked at first. But Micah’s broken arm was exactly as bad as it seemed, Trevor saw when he examined it. “We should call for the park medics,” he said. “There’s no way you’re climbing out of here.”

  Micah scrunched his eyes shut but he nodded. “My phone’s in that side pocket of my harness.”

  Trevor dug out the phone. His stomach sank when he saw it. The screen had shattered, and a spider web of cracks spread across the glass. The edges were scuffed and scratched like the phone had been put through the dryer.

  He tried pushing the power button.

  Nothing.

  “Um, I don’t think we’re going to be using this phone to call anyone,” Trevor said.

  “What?” Micah said sharply, his eyes snapping open. His eyes widened when he saw the busted phone. “What about yours?”

  Trevor shook his head slowly. “I left it in the car. I didn’t think I would need it since you had your phone.”

  “Well, that changes things,” Micah groaned.

  “I guess we’ll have to come up with a different plan.”

  “It’s not like we have a whole lot of options down here,” Trevor said, his thoughts racing as he tried to come to terms with the fact that they had absolutely no way to call for help. “The only alternative is to sit here and wait for someone to wander close enough to hear us shouting.”

  “That could take hours,” Micah said. “Especially in the middle of a weekday.”

  Trevor thought of their hike to the canyon that morning and how the desert landscape had stretched to the horizon on all sides, with nothing but squat shrubs, cacti, and dry rocky soil for miles. There had been a few people closer to the park entrance, but they hadn’t seen anyone since then. They had felt lucky to have the park practically to themselves. Now it seemed like a disaster situation.