Before I can even scream, we’re upside down.
I hit the water hard—or maybe the edge of a boulder. For a few seconds, I can’t breathe, even when my life jacket pops me briefly to the surface before my head is dragged back underwater.
Then there’s only blackness, and water in my eyes, and the river spinning me like a rag doll in a washing machine.
I thought I was scared when I was thrown from the raft yesterday, swallowed up by the sun-warmed greenish water. But back then, I’d known that the second I surfaced and managed to grab hold of the catch rope, there would be hands waiting to help me, to pull me back to safety.
This time, the water is black and cold. I’m completely spent. Nobody is waiting to help.
And the only person hurrying toward me has a knife.
“Do not tap out,”comes Parker’s voice again.
When my lungs unseize and my head breaks the surface, I swallow water, coughing hard and fighting to get my legs in front of me. Just in time, I manage to push off a boulder. The current swings me sideways and downriver past a sharp bend, still moving at a steady clip. I can already hear the growl of the next rapid, growing louder with each passing second.
I look wildly around for our raft, for the others. But the canyon has squeezed in so tightly, its rock walls block my view ahead. I bite back the urge to scream out, because as terrified as I am that the next rapid will swallow me whole, I’m even more terrified of what is coming down the river behind us.
There’s no raft anywhere in sight. No sign of the others.
The river pushes me faster through the slotted canyon and down a mini waterfall, where my head goes back underwater.
When I come up again, the canyon has widened to a straightaway of choppy, dark water—maybe a hundred yards—before the next true rapid. Above me, the sky has turned a paler shade of gray. It’s nearly dawn.
I wipe the water from my eyes and catch a glimpse of something orange bobbing in the water ahead of me—someone’s life jacket?—but in the next instant, it vanishesbehind a wall of water. The current picks me up and shoves me sideways into a patch of jagged boulders. I try to protect my head and neck as it sweeps me across fallen tree limbs and branches, praying I escape with scrapes and don’t get snagged like Imani.
As I break free of the scattered rocks and the current sends me surging upward, I finally catch sight of our raft, flipped upside down in an eddy on the right side of the river, where yet another minefield of small boulders forms a maze along the canyon wall. In the split second before the river slaps another face full of water at me, I try to observe everything I can.
There’s Deborah. I can see her shocks of short gray hair above the lapels of her life jacket. She’s in the water, holding onto the side of the flipped raft.
Another flash of orange draws my eye—another life jacket. It’s Pam, trying to swim across the current to reach the raft before the next rapid, strands of red hair plastered to her face.
There’s no sign of Imani or Allie.
Choppy current sends another slap of water directly into my eyes, just as I hear a sound that nearly makes me release all the precious air from my lungs in a scream.
A low, resonant whistle.
And the faint, now-familiar thud of rubber bumping against rock.
27
I spin around. It’s light enough now—the sky the color of dirty laundry water as the sun ascends toward the towering canyon rim—that I can see Leo clearly.
As our eyes lock for the briefest moment, I see a flash of satisfaction in his expression. And then he tears his gaze away as his gear raft narrowly misses a rock.
My pulse roars in my ears. I give up the “Idaho Easy Chair” and flip onto my belly, swimming hard, angling myself doggedly in the direction of my overturned raft. I don’t have the energy to move this quickly, but that brief glance from Leo has spiked my adrenaline hard enough to propel me through the heavy waves.
I’m going to make it.
But he’ll be on us in less than a minute.
I swim harder than I thought possible, arms burning, blurry eyes darting across the choppy water as I cough up river water.
I cry out, “Imani, Pam, Deborah, Allie!” There’s no point trying to keep quiet anymore. He knows exactly where we are.
We’re sitting ducks, now that we’re out of the raft. Because unless we can get it righted, get back in, and start rowing …
As I kick out, my shin thunks against something solid but smooth. I whirl around to see a paddle as it bobs out of reach.Shit.The paddles and life jackets tipped into the water when the raft flipped, along with us. Without them, we’re going nowhere, even if we can get the raft righted.
