“Five minutes. Ten at most.”
Quickly, with a strange calm, they put their things together and got them on their backs. Elias made his way to the door they’d taken this morning, instead of the one leading back the way they’d arrived the night before.
“Wait.” She stayed in place. “You said there’s only one way out.”
“Only one wayin. There’s another way out. Up past the overlook from this morning. It’s dangerous.”
“I’d be disappointed if it weren’t.”
With a gruff chuckle, he leaned down and gave her a quick peck on the lips. “And that’s one of the things I love so much about you.” Another peck. “Because I do.” His voice went lower, rougher—half-whisper, half-tearing out his insides. “I fucking love you so hard, Leo Eddowes.”
Emotion ballooned inside her, but she wouldnotfreaking cry today. And then, because she’d already shown him her soft underbelly ten times over at least, and, frankly, nothing had felt better in her life, she let herself say it. Let herself feel how real it was. “I love you too, Elias Thorne.”
“Let’s go, then.” He smiled—damn, he was gorgeous—and led the way, jogging back up the steep steps, through the thick undergrowth lining the valley. They hit the peak, breathing harder than the last time they’d done this. She turned to take it in again—just a glance at the orange-washed, snow-covered peaks, the lake, the deceptively smooth-looking slopes, so much beauty, so much danger—and memorized the sight for another day, another time.
They worked their way down, their feet crunching in slippery patches of snow. She lost her footing, caught herself on a boulder, and almost lost her mind when Elias went down on a slick spot. “Never tried this after a big rain,” he muttered with a smirk as he fought his way back to standing. “Snowmelt.”
“Your side okay?”
“Yes,” he said, grabbing her hand and kissing her hard before forging straight back down the narrow, sheer path.
Finally, Leo’s shoulders loosened as the ground flattened out. The tree cover thickened. The sound of rushing water overwhelmed the heavy rasping of her breath. Spine tingling, she glanced over her shoulder, her pulse still going hard after the climb and the descent and the threat of close pursuit. Bo raced ahead and came running back, dancing like she’d found something familiar.
Her footsteps followed Elias’s, bringing them so close to the river that her own sounds were entirely drowned out. He stopped a few feet from the bank. She stared, her brain not comprehending for a few seconds.
The river was narrow here, but wild and high and brown, topped with foamy whitecaps and littered with glacier runoff debris. A tree had fallen across it, creating a natural bridge.
“Uh. No.” She stepped away from the edge, afraid of heights for the first time in her life.
It wasn’t the fifteen-foot drop that scared her. It was the rapids, frothing and roiling, racing around boulders on their way into the valley. Leo took risks all the time, but they were calculated. She liked adrenaline, not actual death.
“I don’t—” She bit back a gasp as Bo traipsed over the log spanning the waterway. It was so perfectly placed she wondered if it had been dropped there by humans. She glanced at Elias. Had he somehow put it there?
Back to Bo, whose tiny dog feet couldn’t keep from slipping over the slick surface. She slowed toward the end, looking less confident as she reached the thinner part of the log.
“You got it, girl. Go on. Jump.”
For possibly the first time in her life, Leo shut her eyes from fear. By the time she opened them again, Bo was safe on the other side and Leo went weak in the knees. Was she having a heart attack? Oh crap, she couldn’t watch Elias cross. She couldn’t take it. “Look, maybe…is there another…”
“This is it, Leo. We do this, and we’re golden.” He shook his head and threw her a side-eye. “Ish. Okay?”
“I’m not…”
“Will you trust me on this? I’ll get you over. But you’ve got to trust me.”
“I trust you, Elias.” She couldn’t control the sob welling up inside her. “I just cannot...”Lose you.“I can’t take it if you fall in.”
“I won’t. I won’t, sweetheart. I’ve done this a million times.” He grabbed her hand. “Come on.” The closer they got to the very edge, the louder the river roared until it overwhelmed her with sound and motion, the wind whipping her hair, the meltwater spraying up to lash them.
“Remember the ice cave?” he whispered in her ear. “Remember sitting there laughing? You were so cute. I hadn’t laughed in years.” She tried to turn back, but he faced her forward again. “Sit down and scoot across. It’s that easy. Scoot and you’ll be fine.”
“You’ll scoot too? No standing up?”
“I’ll scoot.” His eyes did a quick circuit of their surroundings. “Got to do this now.”
She knew he was right. She didn’t have to be a daredevil here. So, she sat and pulled herself forward a few inches at a time. At one point, she turned back and he waved, his big hand so steady, his teeth flashing in a confident smile. She moved forward again just as Elias got down to slide on.
Then everything blew apart.
