Page 123 of My Sister is Going to Kill Me

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Fiona asked again. “You don’t look—”

Liv nodded. She could feel her chin bobbing like one of those plastic birds that drank from a cup.

“I think you need to cool down,” Fiona said. She held out her water bottle.

The doctor was right. Liv glanced at Fiona’s glass bottle, but it was too sparkly. Too small. She closed her eyes.

“You need to cool down now,” the voice said.

Yes. She needed water. She could smell it. She could hear it. It was calling to her.

Liv rose to her feet, ran to the edge of the supply boat, and dove into the pitch-black river.

Chapter Fifty-Two

The sky was black, the water darker. Twenty hours of caffeinated energy bars had left Mandy exhausted and wired at the same time. At sunset, they’d called in their theory to the park police. While the voice on the other side of the radio sounded skeptical, they were convinced to send a helicopter to the stranded group at Deer Creek Falls. If that beach was empty, they’d keep flying downriver to Bloody Ledges.

As night descended, the canyon reverberated with strange movements. A parade of bats emerged from a crevasse near the water’s surface, crisscrossing the river in a fluttery jumble. There were hoots and scratches. Yips and howls. A scream, high and sudden, rattling down the walls before drowning in the Colorado.

Mandy clutched her water bottle a little tighter.

She sat on the lowest set of sandstone slabs, using two life vests as cushions against the crumbly rock. Her bare feet kissed the river, and she let the cool air and colder water keep her just on the functional side of conscious.

Behind her, Guy and Charlie talked in low voices, their conversation unraveling in clumsy circles as the night went on. Farther down the beach, Thor was still whittling coyote willow, a steady shuck-shuck rustling the air.

“Got any CareFree?” Guy asked Charlie.

“Sorry. Didn’t think to pack it when we were running for our lives this morning.”

If Guy took offense at Charlie’s tone, he didn’t let it show. “I was just thinking it would hit the spot right now.”

“Maybe that’ll be our new marketing campaign. CareFree: for when you’re stranded in the middle of the earth escaping a murderer.”

“Niche market,” Guy said.

There was a long silence, and a splash. Mandy craned her head upriver, where something—a hunting bird? a fish?—was scrabbling in the water. Then her father’s voice rose again.

“Just between us,” Guy said. “Is it addictive?”

“It’s legal,” Charlie replied.

“Not what I asked.”

There was another splash.

“The line between attraction and addiction is hard to measure,” Charlie said. “Take lip balm. There’s no ingredient in it you can become dependent on, like nicotine. But it’s habit forming. Some people fall in love with the feeling of it. And then they can’t stop buying it.”

The splashing was closer now, cut through with sharp cries, like a dying bird.

“The better something works, the more you want it,” Guy said.

“Shh,” Mandy said. “Listen.”

Two voices, people, shouting something. She stood up. A boat was coming toward them, illuminating the river with a reedy beam of light from a headlamp a few feet above the water.

“Hey!” Mandy shouted. She didn’t care if it was the police, a pleasure cruise, or another group of knife-wielding weirdos. She was done. “Over here! We need help!”

“Swimmer!” the voices called back. “In the water! Help!”