Page 17 of Mountain Struggle

“What’s wrong with your arm?” she asked.

“It’s my shoulder. I must have hit it against a rock on the way down and pulled it out of its socket,” he said matter-of-factly. “Not the worst thing that could have happened to us.”

She looked back at the waterfall.

“Did we really do that?”

“We did,” he said, smiling. “Flew right over.”

“Not something I want to try again.”

“No, me neither,” he agreed. “Shit, this hurts. Can you help me take off my backpack?”

She reached over clumsily, her frozen fingers hesitating on the shoulder strap as she watched him pale.

“Keep going,” he said through gritted teeth. “Please.”

Once the backpack was on the floor, he opened the side zipper and fished out a Mylar blanket, wrapping her awkwardly inside it with just one hand.

“How did that stay dry?”

Damien clutched his shoulder. His nostrils quaked as he worked on breathing through the pain.

“It’s a waterproof backpack. Makes it a bit cumbersome, but it means all the stuff inside is nice and dry.”

“Impressive,” she said.

A noise behind them had her quaking in fear.

We need to get out of here.

She felt so comfortable with him, she’d almost forgotten the threat.

“We need to go,” she said.

“Go? We’re not going anywhere. I’ll build a fire, and we’ll get you warm and dry. Drake and Hiro will send someone for us.”

“No. We have to get going. He could be here any minute,” she begged.

“He?” Damien’s expression hardened. “What happened, Tess?”

“We’d just reached the falls a man showed up. This was yesterday afternoon.”

It feels like a million years ago.

“He threw my phone into the water, pointed a gun at us and forced us to follow him, all the way to a small hut up the mountain. He locked us in one room and left us there. He threatened—”

Damien’s expression had gone hard.

Despite herself, tears started rolling down Tess’s cheeks.

“Did he hurt Jamie?” he asked softly. “Did he hurt you?”

“No. He didn’t touch Jamie. He slapped me once, when I wouldn’t do what he wanted, but he mostly… he left us alone. I heard him leave the hut in the middle of the night. That’s when I broke a window, and we started running.”

Her eyes went to the bruised knuckles on her right hand. Damien picked up her hand and held it in his own, much larger palm—as if she were precious.

“Jamie’s not safe until we get him off the mountain. We need to call your teammates,” she insisted.