“Thank you, thank you,” Imani keeps repeating, her voice broken by her chattering teeth.
I make myself look at her, not Bryan.
I can’t tell if the droplets rolling down her cheeks are tears or river water. Her skin—a rich, dark umber, the last time I saw her—looks ashen and pale in the moonlight. Pam has tucked her between the inflated benches in the middle of the raft, and her body is shaking violently. There’s no question she’s in shock. It’s impossible to know how much blood she’s already lost from that arm. A pool of dark liquid is starting to form around where she huddles, mixing with river water.
We have to get that injury bandaged properly—but there isn’t time right now.
Surviving this next rapid is our priority.
Its mouth is now directly in front of us. A few more seconds, and we’ll be committed to whatever path we choose to ride.
“Which way?” I hiss, desperately trying to see past the looming, initial waves. Where are the hidden boulders? Which line of current will flip us, or snare us in a whirlpool or eddy? Which will bring us safely through the whitewater and out the other side?
“I don’t know!” Allie replies, flustered. She tilts her head to the right. “That side looks a little calmer—at the start, anyway? Should we try to angle that direction?”
I hesitate. The right side of the riverdoeslook a little less violent, but that doesn’t mean shit. There were plenty of times the guides chose what looked like a terrifying initial line through a set of whitewater, only to reveal the calmer line was packed with rocks like icebergs that would have high-centered the raft or worse.
Then again, if we stay left, where we’re currently pointed—and take the first enormous wave head on—we could be putting ourselves at risk for a fast flip, unless we hit it perfectly. The water is rolling like a bottled tsunami. Can we manage to keep the raft straight with only four of us rowing, and no powerful guide oars? And what if there’s ahole—one of the whirlpools Gracie told us about—directly beneath that huge wave?
“Where do we go? Has anybody been down the Middle Fork?” Deborah demands.
None of us reply. Of course we haven’t been down this section of river before. Getting a spot in a raft to run this isolated stretch of water is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Without a guide who knows these rapids like the back of their hand, it’s a gamble. A gamble with our lives.
My head swims as the hopelessness of our situation hits me again.
If we choose wrong, we’ll flip. And if that doesn’t kill us, Bryan will swoop in to pick off the survivors.
He’s closing the distance aggressively now, cruising fast along the left side of the river directly behind us, forcing us to make our choice.
Panic closes in, shutting down my instincts. It’s a falling feeling, like we’ve already capsized. Like there’s no hope.
“Look behind you. Look at him,”Parker’s steady voice insists.
21
The brilliance of what Parker—or maybe my own brain—has just whispered hits me like a jolt of electricity, sending my panic scattering.
Bryan can’t afford to choose the wrong line down the next big rapid either.
Because the river doesn’t care whether you’re a murderer or a random middle-aged woman. If you hit a boulder, it’ll send your raft into a tailspin or a hole, regardless.
Bryan made it down Anvil Falls by himself. That might be luck, but I don’t think so. I’m starting to suspect he’s a far better guide than he’s been pretending. Which means that if we can force him to gofirst, in front of our raft, we’ll have the upper hand. We can follow the same line he takes.
The trick will probably only work once. He’ll realize what we’re doing—and he won’t let it happen again. Not to mention that once we get to the end of the rapid, he’ll likely be waiting for us. We’ll have to deal with the consequences of trying to maneuver past him. Will he try to take that camouflage-patterned knife to the rubber sides of our raft? Try to board us, then stab in a frenzy? Can we fend him off with only our plastic paddles?
Those are problems for a few minutes from now.
Right now, the only thing we can really do is try to survive the river’s next challenge.
“Let’s veer to the right, take the easier path,” I whisper, digging my paddle into the water and nodding to where the first waves churn three feet high instead of six.
Across from me, Deborah hesitates then digs in her paddle as well. “Are you sure? It looks …”
I lower my voice even more, trying to make certain Bryan can’t hear me over the rush of the river. “Just be ready to row hard, okay? We might need to change course at the last minute. But no matter what happens, we’re going to get our raftbehindBryan’s. We’re going to follow his line through this rapid. So get ready to spin this boat around, fast, when I say go. Pam and Allie, you row backward. Deborah and I will row forward until we’ve turned. Then row all together like hell until we’re behind him.”
Pam draws in a sharp breath. “That sounds way too risky. Shouldn’t we stay infrontof him instead? If we try to get behind him, we’ll have to get so close to his raft.”
Imani whimpers where she sits wedged against the center bench, trying to shield her lopped-off arm as blood trickles into the pool at our feet.