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“Breathe,” he rasped. “Rapidsahead.”
Oh,shit.
* * *
Tanner
I drove down the abandoned road like a bat out of hell. The truck was coming apart around me. The bumper fell off. I didn’t care. I mowed over the overgrown vegetation, rattling and leaping from one gigantic pothole to the next. There. Just ahead. The oldbridge.
I maneuvered the pickup until it faced upriver, turned on the high beams and the hunting lights, and grabbed my crutches. I jumped out, slid down the bank and made my way over to a massive boulder that jutted into the river. The falls thundered downriver from the rusting bridge. They were not a survivableelement.
I scoured the river, taking in the rapids, the water leaping over the rocks in a permanent, devastating wave. Fuck this. No signs of Nina or Aiden.Please, don’t let them die. I hadn’t bothered with God since the day we’d been abandoned on that Syrian ridge. Now I needed to believe that someone, somewhere, was listening to myprayers.
* * *
Aiden
We crested the rapid and plunged down, one, two, three thunderous drops. I held onto Nina with one arm. I used my other arm to navigate a tortuous route as best I could, bouncing off the rocks. As we came over the last rapid before the bridge, I looked for my exit strategy. My coms had been ripped off my ear, but the glare of white lights caught my attention.Good thinking, Tanner. Bobbing in and out of the water, I searched theriverbank.
There. Tanner stood on a rock, holding his crutches crossed in the air in an X that marked the spot, coming up at my ten o’clock. Just as I saw him, the canyon narrowed and the current accelerated. We were caught in a powerful chute.Shit. He was coming up too fast. I tightened my hold around Nina. “Hangon,baby.”
I kicked my legs and made my way to the edge of the current, angling up toward Tanner. The old bridge was less than ten feet behind him. I could hear the falls roaring beyond it. We were firmly caught in thecurrent.
“Over here!” Tanner’s voice was barely audible over theracket.
I kicked some more. Nina was kicking too, my brave woman. But we were still not lining up with Tanner, until he dropped on the ground, stretched out his body and flung out hiscrutch.
The crutch glimmered under the moonlight. Drifting downriver, I reached out and grappled for it, knowing it was our last chance. My grip held. Engaged in a tug of war with the current, Tanner braced on his knees and pulled. As he did, I kicked. The current tugged as the river tried to swallow us. Tanner heaved and I swam with all I had, until my feet found purchase on a rock, and then another. Somehow, we made it onto theriverbank.
I lay there on my back, still clutching Nina, gasping for breath. My heart ached from the effort. I’d done lots of hard swims in my life, but this one? This one toppedthemall.
Tanner pried my arm from around Nina’s waist. “Are you all right,sweetheart?”
“Zar?” Nina heaved, coughing and wrenching at the same time. “Where’sZar?”
Zar, yes, we had to go back for him. I sat up and managed to get to my feet. Tired. So tired. Battered. Bruised. Cold too.Shivering.
Tanner cut off Nina’s plastic cuffs with his utility knife and helped her up, but her lips were blue and her body shook so violently that her legs wouldn’tholdher.
“To the truck,” Tanner said, helpingNinaup.
The three of us stumbled up the bank. Nina had lost her shoes in the river and was having trouble coordinating her steps. Moving helped me warm up, so I scooped her up and carried her the last of the way. We piled up on the truck’sfrontseat.
“Get her dry.” Tanner got the engine going and began driving down the road, blasting the heat, which miraculously, stillworked.
“I’m fine,” Nina mumbled through her chattering teeth, even though bruises were beginning to show on her arms and legs. “Tanner?” She tapped on her ear. “Can youhearZar?”
Tanner’s lips compressed into a white line. I didn’t like the look he gave me as he sped down the crumbling old road. What the fuck had he heard overthecoms?
I helped Nina take off her wet dress, not easy because the truck rattled and bounced, and my hands weren’t exactly steady. But between the two of us, we managed. I grabbed my tux jacket from the back seat and wrapped her up in it. When I buttoned it up, the thick black wool covered her entirely from chintoknee.
“You,” she said, going for mybuttons.
Good. If she was able to boss me around she wasn’t gonna die from hypothermia. I slipped out of my wetshirt.
“I’ve got a fleece under the seat,” Tanner said, eyes ontheroad.
It was short on me but my body was self-regulating and the heat was returning to my limbs. I zipped the thing on just as we arrived at the bridge. It was bathed in a sea of red and blue lights. As soon as Tanner parked, Nina climbed over me and bolted out of the truck. Tanner and I took offafterher.
