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She stays perfectly silent even after I take the other boot off and bathe that foot too. It’s not as bad as the other foot, but it’s still pretty nasty.
When I’m done, I collect Steph’s boots. “Let me carry you,” I command as she shakily gets to her feet.
“No way,” she pouts. “I’ll walk back barefoot.”
“No, absolutely not. Let me at least give you a piggyback. You’re so light and tiny that I probably wouldn’t even feel you there.”
She rolls her eyes at me, but there’s a flash of displeasure too. Like pointing out that she’s light was an insult though it wasn’t. She might be slight, but Steph is also womanly. People come in all shapes and sizes, and just because she isn’t overly curvy and doesn’t have a huge butt or big boobs doesn’t mean she’s not a freaking ten.
Wait! What?!
Did I really think she’s a ten? Did I just notice her like that? Again? For real? Not just in the scheme of the schemy scheme of things?
Steph ignores me completely. She lets out a huff and starts walking back in the direction we just came from. The thing about Steph is even if she’s angry or insulted or doesn’t like someone, I’ve never heard her say anything bad about them. Her calling my ex-wife a butt crack is about as bad as it gets. And that might just be pointing out a fact, at least in her mind.
I’m not sure what’s going through her head, but she whirls around on the narrow trail, which kind of scares me, because we’re pretty high up, and it’s a pretty sharp drop off the edge onto some boulders and trees below. Her mouth is open and intent on giving me a piece of whatever is hitting her brain at the moment, but then she stops. Her mouth twists open in horror, and her eyes become extra wide.
“There’s a snake!” Her hand shoots out, and she points. To a spot. Right. In. Front. Of. Me.
I slowly look down as if I might startle it. And yup, sure enough. There’s a snake there, and no, it’s not my snake but an honest to god snake. It’s small and black with a sort of yellow stripe down its back. Its tongue flicks out as it coils itself into a serpentine shape, and I can tell it’s tasting the air. Most likely tasting to see if it can maybe get a taste of me. Jesus Christ, why did I ever bring us out here?
“I have bare feet,” Steph states flatly though her voice shakes a little. “It could come at me. It could bite me. It could kill me.”
“It looks small,” I point out. “It’s probably not even venomous, and it doesn’t have a rattle on the tail. That’s a good thing.”
“How the freak would you know?”
Right. So, of course, I wouldn’t know. I mean, I know it’s not a rattlesnake, but I don’t know for sure that it’s not venomous. I don’t know what to do. The snake isn’t moving. Should I just jump over it? Back up? Step over it? No, I definitely shouldn’t step over it. It could very well strike up my pant
leg, past my boots, and into my leg. Or bite me right through my pant leg.
Fuck. This is squirrely. Or rather, snaky.
“Go around it,” Steph hisses. She points to the edge of the trail. It’s basically the edge of the cliff, considering how high up we are, although it’s not high enough to kill you if you fell. It’ll probably just bruise you badly or maybe produce a couple of broken bones.
“Okay.” I grip her boots tightly in my hand. Is this a bad time to admit that I’m afraid of heights?
I skirt towards the edge and stare the snake down. It still doesn’t move. It’s all good. Everything’s good. Until the edge gives way under my boots, and I feel the dirt crumble, that is. I launch myself forward as everything literally gets rocky beneath my feet, but I’m no match for nature or gravity—hell, maybe it’s karma—or whatever forces are at work. I flail my arms wildly, trying to rock forward, but of course, that only throws me back faster.
The last thing I see before I topple over is Steph’s face contorted in a scream, and the blasted snake launching itself in the air, coiling gracefully and sailing—like a goddamn bird or a superhero in disguise—straight over the edge after me.
CHAPTER 5
Stephanie
Well, holy freaking shit.
That really just happened. Adam seriously just fell over the side of the trail, and the snake went after him. I scramble over to the edge and peer over, afraid I’ll see Adam’s broken body at the bottom of some gorge, but it’s only about a two feet drop down to the rocky part below. Thank goodness he fell there because there’s an even sharper drop after that flatter part. It’s not like we’re hundreds of feet up or anything, but the bottom below us—where the grass, trees, and more rocks are—is probably a good twenty feet. But not straight down. If you rolled, the big trees would probably break your fall, or maybe break you.
Adam’s slowly sitting up, which is a good sign. He missed a huge tree and didn’t get taken out by that, but he did obviously hit his head on one of the rocks sticking out the side or maybe even out of the forested area where he landed. This whole area is rock. Rock and moss. Rock and dirt. Rock and trees. Rocks which are grey and sharp looking in some spots, flat in others. Some have veins of different colors running through it, and it’s pretty, whatever it is, just like the trees. They’re pretty too, even if I’m not entirely sure what kind they are either.
The snake is gone. I’m sure it was non-venomous, but I’ll have to look it up when we get back to the main part of the campground, and I have some cell service again.
“Jesus,” I say as I loom over the edge, staring down at Adam. He lifts a hand to his forehead and grimaces when he realizes he’s bleeding—a lot.
The cut could be deceptively small as I’ve heard head wounds bleed a lot, which is what his wound is doing. Bleeding. All over the place. It’s trickling down his eyebrows, his nose, and over his lips. It’s right above his left brow, close to the bridge of his nose. The carnage going on is pretty amazing—amazingly gross. I hate blood. I can practically smell the sharp metallic tang from up here. Barf-o-la. My stomach agrees, sloshing around like I’m riding a roller coaster. For some reason, roller coasters always make me super sick. I found out the hard way twice, and after that, I opted not to ride one ever again.
“You kind of took a leap of faith there.” It’s all I can think to say to distract him from the massive amount of blood still dripping from his wound. God. There’s. So. Much. Blood.
