Parker,I think at first.
Instead, to my relief, I see Allie’s dripping pale face and wide eyes.
She reaches me a few seconds later, one hand finding my shoulder and gripping tight for a moment. We cling to the rock together, both of us shaking, wedged into a merciful eddy where the water can’t send us hurling over the edge.
“Holy shit, we didn’t go over,” she whispers through chattering teeth, although it sounds more like a question than a statement.
Before I can reply, a noise from above us lodges the words in my throat.
Clattering rock—from overhead.
My eyes snap up to the outcropping that juts out above us, and fresh dread washes over me. Allie and I are directly beneath the lookout point where Leo has been watching the raft.
He’s standing maybe fifteen feet above where Allie and I cower against the canyon wall, trying to make ourselves as small as possible beneath the slim ledge.
I shake my head and clamp my mouth shut, but there’s no need to warn Allie. Both of us have gone rigid.
I see a flash of green out of the corner of my eye.
Our raft hovers at the very edge of the falls now. And at first glance, even I’m drawn in by how lifelike those hastily constructed decoys look in the long shadows. They shudder violently as the nose of the raft rams into a boulder near the ledge, looking just like real rafters in peril.
Almost.
But the raft is too light, spinning sideways as it hits a wave, ricocheting against a boulder at the precipice. From Leo’s angle above us on the outcropping, he’ll be getting a much clearer view now, too.
I press myself flush against the canyon wall, not daring to breathe, not even daring to look up at the silhouette overhead in case he so much asfeelsmy eyes on him.
But I can hear him—the barely audible scrape of his Chacos on the rock as he moves closer to the ledge. And maybe I’m imagining it, but I swear I hear that eerie whistle rising above the growl of the falls.
Just then, one of Pam’s decoys collapses against the front of the raft, revealing nothing but a life jacket draped over a paddle, knocking into Macy’s dummy and sprawling across the guide oars.
I wince. With every second that passes, the illusion is crumbling into half-formed, badly made skeletons.
The whistling stops.
“The fuck …” Leo’s voice comes from above us, barely audible over the roar of the falls.
He doesn’t sound angry, though.
He sounds puzzled. Has he realized our trick? Or is he shocked that we’re actually going over the falls instead of facing him?
He laughs, and something scrapes against the rock above our heads.
I hang off the rock wall just far enough to risk another look at him. He’s leaning over the edge of the outcropping now, and in the faint light I can see that he’s holding something.
The long, thin object is only half-visible and in view for maybe a second before he moves back out of view on the ledge.
My heart stops, dread rushing through me before my brain can make sense of what I’ve just seen.
Long and angular, but not a rifle. The shape is wrong for that.
An arc, attached end-to-end with a thin line.
A hunter’s bow, I realize. He is holding up a bow, and a nocked arrow. This is his failsafe to finish us off one by one at the portage.
Oh god.
The tuneless whistle reaches my ears just as something zings through the air above our heads, arcing toward the raft, all of it happening so fast I barely have time to register the madness.
