“The rock,” was all he said.
“What about the rock?”
“It didn’t land in a great place.”
“Can we quit with the clues and give me the freaking answer already?”
“It’s on the flaked rope.”
His statement ricocheted in her ears with increasing volume that she believed it would burst her eardrums. Either that or her slamming pulse would finish the job.
She wasn’t stuck. She couldn’t be. She was twenty-some-odd stories off the freaking ground. At least fifty feet from the ledge Zac belayed from. Was there not enough to lower her?
"And . . ." Zac trailed off.
"And? What?" Tabitha barked, shocked by the vibrations of her own words in her chest.
"The—um—rock knocked my pack off the ledge."
A throb developed in her face from pinching her eyes shut so forcefully and clenching her jaw. It all had to be a joke. Some cruel prank to fuck with her. But no. There was no way Zac would be that childish.
The rope was stuck and his pack long gone.
She had to focus on one thing at a time.
“Can you move the boulder?” Asked.
Zac’s dry chuckle bounced up the rock face. “I love that you think I’m that strong, tab-tab, but no. I can’t move it. Even if I did, no doubt the rope’s damaged underneath.”
“So . . . what now?” She tried to swallow the hysteria, really, she did. Zac needed to think and her panicking would do fuck all to help the situation. But having kept her emotions in check for so long was quickly causing them to boil up and spill over. Tears welled in her eyes. This time she refused to chastise herself for feeling a certain way. The situation was scary, damn it.
So she let the fear sink in, allowing the terror to consume her in the bone-chilling realization that she may not survive the day. Let it gnaw and gnash at the composure she always fought to maintain. Tears trailed down her checks, wicking away the accumulated sunscreen and dust from the day that had been going so well. She could have screamed. Thrown something. She entertained the idea to dissolve from the fear—right then and there—into a useless puddle.
And then she cast it out.
Because she refused to die on this rock.
Tabitha wiped her eyes and scanned the section she had just fallen from. While challenging, she was certain she could unclip the top bolt and downclimb to the next. If she did that at least three times she’d be much closer to the ground. Well within a survivable fall distance. Escaping with a broken leg was better than dying up there.
“I have a plan,” she called down to Zac.
“I’m all ears because my plans are shit.”
“I’m going to get up to the last quickdraw to unclip and downclimb to the next one and then the next and the next. Easy as a picnic on a Sunday morning.”
“Tabitha”—again with the formal name—“that’s . . . that’s not going to work. What if you fall?”
“You’re a skilled belayer. I know you can take up the slack to keep me safe enough.”
Safe enough.
The words hung heavily in the air for a while. He waited for her to agree with him. She waited for him to concede because she really needed his full buy-in to make the plan work.
“You feel confident? With the downclimbing?” he asked with all the trepidation.
Barely.“Absolutely.”
“Tabitha.” He was calling her bluff. But she wasn’t going to back down. Scared or not, it was the best plan—the only workable plan.
