With precision and patience in total opposition to the river’s entropic chaos, she kicked and straightened out, looked ahead…and lost it.
Less than fifty yards ahead, the river just…disappeared.
Even through her struggles, she knew what that meant:waterfall.
Her body had already started a frantic scramble for the side when something punched the air from her belly and stopped her midstream. She grabbed on to it, expecting hard, wet bark, instead scraping canvas. Elias’s pack, floating, caught.
Working on pure animal instinct, Leo forced her head under and searched the impenetrable depths. Pointless. She got her head up, wound a strap around her wrist, gasped, and dove under again.
That was when she found him, snagged, as if in a net. Which had saved him, probably. Saved both of them. But now she had to get him out of the water and to safety, without letting the current drag them to the falls.
Her prayers ramped up, changing from a vague, frantic scream to a looped, never-endingno. No. No freaking way. She pulled hard at Elias’s arm. No response. She wouldn’t have it.Yank.Wouldn’t allow it.Tear.Wouldn’t even consider the possibility.
Quick as a flash, she changed tack, grasped the backpack, gulped more air, dove back for him. Better to go down the waterfall than leave him here to drown, trapped in the water, alone. Blinded by the churning water, she didn’t see the gun strap until it caught her around the throat, like a tentacle pulling her down.
On instinct, one hand reached for her knife, working hard not to struggle against the leather restraint and lose her air, finally got a hold of the handle, and nearly died of fright when something grasped her other wrist. Blade freed, she spun, ready to lash out—
Elias watched her, eyes blinking, straining to get out. Shit. Shit, she couldn’t hold her breath much longer. How was he surviving this?
She thrust her knife into his outstretched hand and kicked up for the surface, gasping when she got there, lungs on fire, head about to explode. Without hesitation, she shook off her boot and yanked at the knife strapped to her ankle. Breath in, back down to where he sawed at the leather, his movements slow and awkward.
Together, they sliced through the strap in seconds and exploded up, hands clasped. Gasping, sputtering.
The current pulled, harder than before, trying to separate them, sink them, drag them down and then out, straight into the abyss beyond.
“Waterfa—” Retching, gasping for air, she dug her hand into his arm, lost her hold, slid, too fast—
He caught her, twisted his fingers around hers, and held on.
“Tree!” Elias choked on water, spat, and tried again. “Your right!”
She kicked up as high as she could, caught sight of a dark blur, approaching way too fast. Beyond it was maybe twenty feet to the drop and then nothing but sky.
One hand in his, she reached out with the other.
Three… The water pulled her left and down.
Two… She kicked, hard.
One… Strained so hard she pictured popping vertebrae.
The tree skimmed fast, too quick and too far to grab.
With a roar to rival the rapids’, Elias dove in front of her, long body blocking her movement, shoving her to the right; her arm stretched, caught a branch…and held. She came to a brutal stop, thwacked into Elias, and waited for her body to break into pieces.
A second later, she opened her eyes to find him firmly lodged in the branches, eyes burning and fierce. Safe.
Okay, maybe not quite. With their combined weights, the tree could come loose from the bank and they’d be screwed, but they werehere, not out there, hurtling toward whatever lay at the bottom of the waterfall.
She got her head up, hacked out the water she’d swallowed, and kept going. Against the elements and all odds, she plowed on, Elias beside her. Kicking, pulling at brittle, wet pine that could crumble at any moment, struggling, until her bare toes bashed into solid stone. It would’ve hurt if she hadn’t been numb.
She found footing, slogged out, one slow step at a time, climbed up onto the ledge, with Elias right beside her, and finally crawled until she was free of the water’s pull. Sucking in a scorching breath, she flopped onto a flat, wide boulder, boneless.
She moved her toes, did the same with her fingers and found her left hand caught. Her eyes rolled to the side, where her fingers were still entwined with Elias’s, knotted like two ropes.
It would take more than a river to pry them apart. More than snowmelt and bullets. More than all of Alaska with its crumbling ice and raging waterfalls and fickle skies.
More than men with guns. More than bullets. More than death.
