I’ve done it. I didn’t feel the blow of his oars, the sharp metal of the knife on the back of my neck. And now, for better or worse, I’m in the whitewater, at the complete mercy of the river.
Euphoria and terror light me up while the river grabs on with its many hands, turning me over and tumbling me onward. He won’t be able to catch me for the next few minutes. I know that for sure. He’ll have to worry about navigating his raft unless he intends to flip.
Then I realize, to my horror, that I haven’t heard thethunkof the raft slamming into the waves behind me. I haven’t heard the slap of those oars.
He isn’t following me anymore.
I try to turn around, try to catch sight of him, but the force of the river smacks me against a boulder then sweeps me sideways into a deep wave, dipping my head under. I come up for air just in time to see the gear boat pointed the opposite direction, Leo leaning back hard on the guide oars.
No, no, follow me!I want to scream, but the next wave is already driving me underwater again, pulling me down into the chaos before I can open my mouth.
I’ve failed. At the last second, when it mattered most, I failed.
That final glimpse of Leo flashes inside my eyelids in the churning darkness—the tight line of his mouth, twisted into a smirk.
And then I belong fully to the rapid, trying desperately to keep my head above water for long enough to draw in gulps of air before the next surge sends me crashing into unseen debris that bashes and claws at my back, my sides, the skin on my legs.
I barely feel it. All I can think about is what’s going to happen over the next few minutes, when Leo reaches the people I’ve abandoned.
There’s nothing I could have done for them. If I’d stayed, I would have died, too. I know that. But that doesn’t ease my dread. I spin in the froth, sputtering and coughing, eyes darting across the canyon walls. The basalt glows with early light, shades of deep pink and orange.
I scan for any sort of narrow shoreline or shelving in those walls, anywhere I could get out of the water and try to make my way back to the others, but there’s simply no way. The “Impassable Canyon” was given that name for a reason. There’s no shoreline anywhere to be seen. And the sheer walls rising up from the waterline on both sides of the river might as well be skyscrapers for how steep they are. I’m willing to bet that even the mountain goats can’t navigate this section of the river.
The adrenaline that’s been fueling me is burning down to despair and exhaustion.
This plan wasn’t brave. It was stupid.
Leo is going to kill those women now. And then he’s going to come downriver and hunt me, too. I’m alone, without a raft, without any hope of rescue. He’ll find me sooner or later.
My arms and legs feel like lead weight, and I release the “Idaho Easy Chair” position, letting the current drag me along. There’s still nearly fifty miles of river between myself and civilization, if my ongoing estimate is correct. Unless I’m going to swim that far, I’m done for. I’m already so drained and freezing, I’m not sure I could make it another mile on my own, let alone fifty.
I close my eyes and turn my face toward the rising sun, wondering if maybe I should just unbuckle this life jacket and let myself sink. Get it over with, instead of spending whatever time I have left waiting for Leo Marsden to kill me.
Surely, that would be less painful.
The thought is dangerously familiar to the ones I’ve had over the past two years since Parker died, but this is the first time I’ve really considered what it would actually mean to end things. To let myself fall into the same dark nothingness I imagine that Parker has disappeared into.
I remember learning once in a swim class that it’s dangerous to try to save a drowning person. Because they’llpull you under, too, panicking and clawing in a desperate effort to get to safety. I’m certainly on the edge of drowning right now, but I’m doing the exact opposite—going dead weight and refusing to swim any longer.
I’ve made it past the worst of the rapid, but that doesn’t matter.
Unexpected tears blur my bleary, stinging eyes. “I’m sorry, Parker,” I cry, not sure what I’m apologizing for. “I’m sorry.” I cough out the words through a precious pocket of air, the same way my husband did the night he died, a tinny last gasp through the microphone.
There is no reply.
A wave of grief and doubt surges up inside me. He’s gone. Or maybe, more likely, he was never here at all. That voice in my head urging me to fight, to swim, to rally, to make the next move, was just my own will to survive.
And now, even that voice has disappeared.
There’s nothing left to do but give up. And the river is more than willing to assist me.
As I tip into a seemingly gentle curl of whitewater, it’s as if the surface abruptly drops out from under me—like a hidden door, a sudden vacuum. Then the current abruptly folds back on itself.
And then I’m falling.
Into another hole.
I find myself pinned in place, violently yanked back and forth by the pull of whatever is beneath me in the depths.
