Page 73 of Fallen Crown

“Not alone,” he reiterates.

An unnecessary waste of energy. It’s not as though there are any spots across the river where we could even snatch a single moment of time alone without the camera seeing us. Iris has been wielding that thing like a weapon. Still, I’m so cold and tired that I can’t bring myself to argue with him. Instead, I grab my pack in case of an emergency, and I sling it across my back.

As I wade through the water, Brice is a couple of steps behind me. It’s deeper than I thought in the middle, and the current is so strong that I have to be very deliberate about where I place my feet. We’re coming up the other side when a blast of water hits my knees, as though someone released a tiny dam right behind me. The sudden rush dislodges the grip my shoes have on the river floor.

“Oh!” I cry out as I go down, and a sharp pain slices into my upper thigh.

Rather than being propelled down the river like I expect, I’m brought up short and sharp, and there’s a grunt behind me.

“I’ve got you,” Brice says through gritted teeth. “Can you get your feet underneath you?”

My leg that isn’t throbbing with cold and pain is able to scramble for purchase and find some. When I ease myself into a standing position, Brice changes his grip from my backpack to my elbow.

“Jesus,” he says. “You fucking scared me.” He drags me against his chest, and we stand clutching each other on the edge of the river.

Truthfully, I thought I was going for a swim in the wrong direction, and if he hadn’t insisted on following me across, I would have. The current is faster and stronger on this side, or maybe the current is changing. It wasn’t that hard to swim against it a little while ago, but now looking at it, I’m not sure how we’ll navigate the last two kilometers to get the team out of the ravine.

He starts to lead us the last few feet to the shore, but I’m hobbling, and my uneven gait catches his attention.

“Tucker, are you hurt?”

“Sliced my leg on a rock, I think.” I’m not checking, but it definitely hurts. We just need to grab the talisman and get back to our teammates. We didn’t work this hard, deny ourselves rest and sleep, for me to go down in the last few days.

“Your pants are ripped,” Brice says.

I reach for the cliff face holding the talisman, and I grab the gold circle we need to prove we made it this far. We have our own personal videographer to document every second of our day, so the proof feels more of a formality than during a normal race. Brice slips it into my pack, and my leg pulses in pain. If I prod it or baby it, Brice will realize how much it hurts, and I don’t want him to know. But the ache is incredibly distracting.

“Maren! Brice!” Iris calls from across the river. “They’ve called time on the race. We’re paused.”

Iris carries a walkie-talkie to communicate with the producers and the race organizers. Overhead, a helicopter circles, and it makes hearing difficult for a moment.

“The river is flooding. You need to get to high ground.” Iris points to the cliff face behind us. “There’s a crew cabin up there.”

“We’ll stay here!” Riker yells and gestures behind him to the cliff we initially came down. “When the race resumes, we’ll meet at the talismans.”

“Ten-four,” Brice calls back.

Unable to resist anymore, I glance at my legs, and my pants are dark. Wet from the water, I’m sure. I run my hand along my thigh, and when I draw it back, my palm is bright red in the glow of my headlamp. Then my brain clicks on the sticky texture between my legs, and my vision blurs.

“Brice,” I murmur.

He glances down at me, and our gazes connect for a beat before his slides to my hand, which is framed in the spotlight of our headlamps. “You hurt yourself?” There’s an edge of panic in his tone.

“I don’t know,” I say, and my voice cracks. My brain is stepping back to the last time this happened—all the blood—what all the blood meant. “I don’t know.”

“I’ve got you,” Brice says, and he takes my pack off my back, slings it over his in one fluid movement, and then he picks me up. He scales the cliff with me in his arms, a testament to how much time we spent on the wall at his property that he can pick his way through the rocky face and find the logical places to climb without having to put me down. I curl myself into him, and I try not to think about what the blood means.

It can’t mean that. It can’t mean that. It’s not possible. It’s not. I’m fine. It’s nothing. A scratch. A scratch.

At the top of the cliff, he’s breathing heavy, but he doesn’t set me down. He seems to get his bearings, and he presses his lips to my temple before striding forward.

“As soon as I get you to the cabin, we’ll get you fixed up. A scrape, that’s all. You’re going to be okay.” There’s so much determination in his voice that the panic welling in my throat stops rising. He’ll look after me, and I believe that with every fiber of my being.

At the cabin door, Brice fumbles with the handle before swinging it wide and getting us inside. He sets me on the couch, and I curl into a ball, and it’s only then that I realize I’m sobbing. Heaving, gasping sobs. How long have I been crying this hard?

He appears crouched in front of me with a first aid kit in his hand. “Tucker, sweetheart, I can fix this, but I need to get your pants off to assess the damage.”

Any other time, I might laugh at him offering to take my pants off, but right now, I’m so caught up in whatever this is I can’t breathe. I cover my face with my hands, and I focus on getting my breathing and crying under control. My head throbs in time with my leg, and my chest is tight. So unbearably tight. My breath hitches, and I fumble with the waistband of my pants. I need them off. I want them off.