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“Wait—not that!” he cried.
He lunged for her and succeeded in hooking a wrist around her waist—but Ellie’s arms were still free.
She chucked the rock over the side.
The water swallowed it.
Bates stared after it with an expression of blank horror.
Ellie pushed her way free of his hold and jabbed her finger at him.
“I willnotbe manipulated into reinforcing your own unjustified insecurities—”
“You threw my rock,” Bates blurted, his eyes still on the water.
Ellie suppressed a growl of frustration.
“I am trying to explain—”
“This is bad,” he continued numbly. “This is very, very bad.”
“Would you leave off about the bloody rock already?” she burst out.
A thud sounded from above them, followed by a grinding roar. The texture of the spray abruptly changed, arcing much further out from the falls. The wash of it immediately drenched both of them, soaking Ellie to the bone.
She spluttered as she raised her head to look at the source of the water—and found herself staring up at the jagged, battered end of an enormous log.
It wavered at the brink of the cliff. The end of it tipped ever so slightly downward. The current sprayed up around it in misty rainbows.
Bates lurched for the controls. Ellie heard the engine fire back up. The deck shuddered under her boots as the screw whirled back into forward gear.
Above her, the angle of the log shifted… and Ellie realized what was coming next.
“Too late,” she breathed—and sprinted for Bates.
She caught him around the waist, using the force of her momentum to shove them both to the deck beside the boiler.
She landed hard. Her shoulder slammed into the boards. Bates’s weight pinned her arm—and then theMary Leeleapt beneath her, jolting upwards as an impact like a thunder crack sounded behind them.
Bates instinctively clamped his arms around her shoulders. The deck plummeted, slamming back down into the water with another impact that bounced Ellie’s skull against the wood.
“Are you all right?” Bates shouted against her ear.
“Yes!” she called back.
He hauled her upright and turned back to assess the damage. Ellie grasped the pole of the canopy, using it to steady herself as the boat spun, still rocking, away from the waterfall.
The wall at the stern had been crushed into splinters. Near the impact site, the boards of the deck were jolted and uneven.
Bates dropped to his stomach, scooting out over the edge and feeling down beneath it.
The impact of the log had snapped Ellie’s anger and frustration. She was left with only a shivering, queasy unease as she watched him assess the damage.
“How bad is it?” she called over to him.
“Well, I don’t think we’re going to sink,” he said. “Hull feels intact. Can’t say the same about the propeller.”
“What do you mean?” Ellie stumbled over to drop to her knees beside him. “What’s happened to it?”
