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Don’t fucking die on me. Don’t fucking die on me.
I grit back the pain and ascend until I’m right next to him. “Hey, hey!” I growl, loosening the straps of his helmet that dig into his windpipe.
Sully is ashen, and it’s not the helmet that cuts off his airway. He coughs. Blood spurts from his pale blue lips, staining them red.
“No,” I almost shout. “Nono.” I lift him quickly as he gags again, blood dripping down his chin.
He motions to his chest with a drooping hand. The last boulder crushed him, he’s telling me. Internal bleeding.
“Hey, hey,” I say in a softer tone. “I’m going to get you off this fucking rock, okay?”
He mumbles something, but I can’t understand, the fucking anguish in his eyes is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I concentrate on saving him. Because he’s going to fucking make it.
We’re both going to make it.
I finish rigging a tandem rappel for both of us, and his fingers, with whatever energy he has left, graze my shirt like they want to clench the fabric.
“…Ryke,” he chokes, tears slipping out of his eyes. “No.”
My knuckles whiten on the rope. “What do you fucking mean?” I know what he means.
“…leave…me,” he cries. He’s crying, his chin trembling.
My nose flares, my eyes clouding. I shake my fucking head. “I can’t.” I can’t leave him here, even if it’ll save my life. Without his dead weight, I can multi-pitch solo rappel, set anchors much more easily, and ensure that I have a safe decline.
With him attached to me, anything can happen on the descent.
If any of the anchors fail with our combined weight, we’re both dead.
If I miscalculate the rope length, we’re both dead.
If I make any mistake, we’re both dead.
He’s crying harder, his teeth stained with blood but he’s stopped choking, and I say strongly, “I’m not fucking leaving you here to die.”
“…I’m…scared.”
Hot tears and sweat burn my cheeks. “This is what’s going to happen.” I clutch his harness, positioning him on my lap for the tandem rappel. “If you fucking die, I’m dying with you. So wherever you’re going, I’m going to be there.”
He keeps crying.
“Just whatever you fucking do—don’t go to sleep on me.” I rub my face with my arm. I have over a thousand feet to rappel down.
A thousand chances to die.
He finally nods, and after a couple more minutes checking the rappel, we begin to lower. The route isn’t seamless to rappel. Calling it “roughly” vertical would be giving it more credit. I have to traverse to the left more than once—which would be difficult without his added weight on top of me. I reset anchors, but the longer I take, the more my adrenaline depletes—the more noticeable the pain in my leg becomes, my entire limb fucking vibrating.
My pulse is throbbing, the vein in my neck nearly fucking bursting. My heart is speeding.
Sul is a mess right in front of me, his breath short and slow.
I use an ATC rappel device, braking the rope slowly with my hand. I try to keep most pressure on my left side, but Sully’s bearing down on me too much to give my right leg a fucking rest. I’m beyond dizzy.
We reach the end of the rope, knotted to brace us. We’re still hundreds of feet above the ground. I have to build a new anchor.
“Come on,” I mutter to myself, sweat running into my eyes, combined with tears—I can hardly fucking see. “Fucking come on.” I blow out a controlled breath and set the next anchor. I glance at Sully, his eyelids sagging but they drift towards me, coherent for now.
I tie us into the new anchor and then swiftly pull one end of the rope until it runs down to us.
Again, I tell myself.
Again.
Again.
Again. Is he alive? Is he fucking breathing?
Again.
My heart is beating out of my fucking chest, blood all over Sully’s shirt, all over mine. He coughs again, spewing blood onto my shoulder. Onto my face. I work faster, yanking rope with determined speed, my clammy fingers hurrying over pieces, willing to be fucking careless if it shaves off time and means his survival.
“Stay with me—fucking stay with me; we’re almost there.” Two more rappels. I struggle with the next anchor, my hands practically convulsing and I drop—I drop the ATC. I scream in fucking frustration. Why? Why right now? I swallow the violent noise and breathe through my nose, thinking.
I need another rappel device. I just search Sully’s gear for his, my hand suddenly stained with blood as I reach into his sling of carabiners.
He doesn’t have time for your fucking mistakes.
I find his ATC and fix everything. I set a new anchor, my bloody hands tinting the rope red.
I can hardly breathe.
I move swiftly. Urgently. Carelessly.
To save his life. I forget about mine.
I rappel once more, but as I descend vertically down the rope, something feels different. His ATC seems off. We zip down much faster than normal, rope running through my brake hand. I can’t catch it, and I try to hold on to slow our descent, my muscles wailing.
Fucking stop, fucking stop. Fucking stop!! Rope burns my palms, and fear engulfs me in this single fucking moment. I watch the rope slip through the anchor too fast, the end of the line fucking close. If the knot doesn’t hold, we’re dead.
With the amount of weight on the rope, I think I’m going to come right off it and meet the ground. Falling a hundred feet.
Falling a hundred feet.
I scream, my hands scorching, trying to stop our fall. My muscles raging.
Tears and sweat scald my eyes.
In the last moments, I see her walking down the aisle. Her smile like the sun. Radiating. Radiating. All around me. Watching her. Light up the world.
Before it darkens.
DAISY MEADOWS
Five o’clock happy hour is less crowded in Lima than I predicted, the pub nearly empty. Price almost seems bored by the lack of activity, no swarms of paparazzi or crazed fans. He’s seated at a table by the door with Lo and Connor’s bodyguards, finally learning the great art of chilling.
I squeeze between a stool and Lo, who’s bent over the bar, ordering a thousand things from the menu.
I catch his words as he says, “…chips, cheese dip, your chicken tacos, the hot wings—extra spice…” he continues like he’s about to feed an army. In reality, we’ve dragged him shopping all day and forgot to stop for lunch.
Connor is on his other side, translating Lo’s order in Spanish for the bartender. Times like these remind me of Ryke, and I miss him. He’d be right beside me, ordering food, speaking fluent Spanish, and blending in with the locals.
Wherever he is on that rock, I know it’s where he’s meant to be. I imagine him happy and loving every inch that he ascends, and I begin to smile, more than happy too.
“Do you want a beer?” Lo asks me.
I raise my brows without making wild gestures to my belly, the bump hidden beneath a white loose fitting shirt that says proud to lick cake bowls in rainbow print.
His pinpointed amber eyes descend to my stomach. “Never mind.” He nods to the bartender. “That’s it.”
I’m not surprised he forgot I’m pregnant. Rose mostly did the shopping. I just bought a soft little, hand-crafted Peruvian doll in a red dress. Even if I have a boy, I’ll still give the doll to him.
Lily and Rose bailed before the pub, both returning to the hotel to put Jane and Moffy down for a nap. Willow and Garrison left for an internet café, itching to tap into wifi.
Lo’s hunger and Connor’s translation skills made our next pit stop. I tagged along for the chips and adventure.
“How is the camp coming?” Connor asks me as the bartender leaves for the kitchen, placing our orders.
“The mess hall was just built.” I scroll through my phone’s pictures an
d show them the finished result, the wooden structure brand new with a green-shingled roof.
“Are you on budget?” Lo actually is the one to ask me this, more concerned about my finances since Ryke has basically returned his hefty trust fund with a fuck you note attached.
I fully support his decision, by the way. “I’m twenty-five million dollars over budget. The sprinkled donut structure, made out of a trillion donuts, just melted. Can you believe that? I had to replace them all a hundred times, and then, you know, the bears came—”
“Alright,” Lo says, his glare pretty normal. “I get it.”
I nudge his arm with mine. “I’m under budget. I might not be taken seriously for a lot of things, but I do know how to manage money.” Especially money that’s been floating around in my bank account since I was fourteen, my modeling debut.
His brows knot. “You don’t think we take you seriously?”
“I joke around a lot, so I understand that when I do say something that has more meaning, people don’t listen as much.” I stare between them as they open their stances between me, towering above my height.
Connor wears that impassivity, calmness that contains a great deal of understanding, and Lo has more maturity than all the years I’ve known him.
Time has aged them, made them stronger and tougher and better people than they might have been. I wonder if, in their eyes, that holds true for me too.
Connor speaks first. “Those people either don’t know you well or they believe in static versions of people. Because when you want to be heard, we hear you, Daisy.”
“All of us do,” Lo chimes in.
I begin to smile. “Guess what?” I say to both of them, the guys who watched me flounder in Paris and find myself on a wild American road trip.
“What?” Lo asks.
