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Kaio’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t respond verbally—and whatever he was thinking, he kept it clamped down enough that I couldn’t read it.
Instead, he turned away and led me back to my abandoned samples case.
I grabbed the handle of the case and picked my knife up from the ground, determined not to drop it ever again. “Fine. Let’s go.”
We set out through the encroaching jungle. Our progress was much slower than it had been on the path—even that small amount of cleared foliage had almost tripled our time. Now, though, Kaio had to hack away at least twice as many plants—and since I didn’t know what might or might not be poisonous, I was afraid to help. Instead, I kept my knife out, waving it threateningly toward any of the plants that looked like they might wiggle too close to me.
Earlier, the mist had kept the heat at bay, but now that the fog had cleared—even if the air was still poisonous, according to Kaio—a muggy damp settled in around us. Sweat rolled down from my hairline, and I stopped long enough to wrap my hair into a bun on the back of my head, tucking the ends under to try to hold it in place. As soon as the sweaty strands were off my neck, I picked my knife back up from where I had set it on top of my case and raced to catch up with Kaio again.
The closer we got to the cliff, the higher it loomed. I kept expecting us to pop out of the jungle undergrowth at some point, but I finally realized that the evil killer vines grew partway up the cliff.
By the time Kaio had cleared enough space for the two of us to stand at the bottom of the sheer wall, the sun had dropped low enough that it no longer shone into the valley. I was glad for the respite from the heat, but the thought of climbing to the top of the cliff in broad daylight was terrifying enough—much less facing the thought of trying to make my way up there in the pitch-dark of night.
Kaio finished slicing away the vines as high as he could reach, and I stepped up beside him, tilting my head straight back to stare at the top of the cliff.
“I can’t do that.” I hadn’t meant to say the thought out loud, but the words tumbled out of my mouth.
“Of course you can. You have to.” Kaio didn’t even look at me as he spoke.
I began babbling. “I’m terrified of heights. I don’t like to get too close to my office window. I’ve never even been on a ropes course. And that cliff’s got to be at least five stories high.”
Images of tumbling to my death as I lost my grip on some tiny piece of rock flashed through my mind.
A crease formed between Kaio’s eyebrows as he stared up at the cliff and then back at me.
“We will determine a way to tie ourselves together,” he finally said.
“So I can pull us both to our deaths? No, thank you.” Thoughts of plummeting to my death by myself were replaced with images of dragging him with me. Even if I survived the fall, I wouldn’t survive having him land on top of me when we hit the ground.
“You will not pull me away from the climb. Your weight is negligible.”
Wow. That was the first time anyone had ever told me my weight was negligible.
“My weight aside—and by the way, it’s very rude to mention a woman’s weight to her—if I slipped, it would certainly be enough to cause you to lose your balance.”
Kaio snorted. “My balance is exquisite. Impeccable. I have been climbing structures more difficult to scale than this since I was a mere cabain—a child.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then stopped. After all, what were my other options? If I stayed here, I’d die, either from the killer vines or from the poisonous air.
At least tumbling down the cliff face would be a quick death.
Assuming I don’t break every bone in my body and still live.
“Your negative thoughts are not helping,” Kaio announced. “We need to find something to rope ourselves together.”
Okay. Fine. I could do this.
And if I couldn’t?
Then at least I would die knowing I had tried.
