This Fallen Prey (Rockton #3)(61)

The second time I met Dalton, he called me a train wreck, hell-bent on my own destruction. I corrected him—that implied I was a runaway train, not a wreck. I didn’t argue with the principle, though. After killing Blaine, I never contemplated suicide. I never tried to die; I just didn’t try to live, either. Didn’t try to stay alive or enjoy that life while I had it. I felt as if I’d surrendered my future when I stole Blaine’s from him.

Now, seeing Val’s body below, I feel as if I have pulled that trigger again. If anything, this is worse, because I didn’t act out of hate and rage and pain. It was negligence. Carelessness. But when I think that, I hear Dalton’s voice again, telling me not to be stupid. Yeah, he understands the impulse—fuck, yes, he understands it—but we aren’t shepherds with our herd of not-terribly-bright sheep. Mistakes were made. Mistakes will always be made. But I didn’t throw Val to this wolf. I tried everything I could to keep Brady from taking her into that forest.

I still accept responsibility for Val’s death. Yet I have to take responsibility for my life, too, for not doing something stupid because I feel guilty. That leaves Rockton without a detective and Dalton without a partner. I have made compacts here, implicit ones, with the town, with Dalton, even with Storm, and those say that I won’t do something monumentally risky and stupid, or I will hurt them, and they do not deserve that.

I dig my fingers into the soil, and I test the sapling I’m holding. It’s sturdy enough. I brace and then pull myself—

My hand slides on the sapling. It’s only a small slip, but my other hand digs in for traction and doesn’t find it and . . . And I’m not sure what happens next, it’s so fast. Maybe when the one hand loses traction, the other loosens just enough to slide off the sapling. All I know is that I slip. I really slip, both hands hitting the ravine side with a thump, fingers digging in, dirt flying up, hands sliding, feet scrabbling for that rock just below. One foot finds it. The other does not. And the one that does slides off, and I fall.

I fall.

Except it’s not a clean drop. It’s a scrabble, hands and feet feeling dirt and rock and grabbing wildly, my brain trapped between I’m falling! and No, you’re just sliding, relax.

The latter is false hope, though. It’s that part of my brain that feels earth under my hands and says I must be fine. I’m not fine. I’m falling, sliding too fast to do more than notice rock under my hands and then it’s gone, and I try to stay calm, to say yes, just slide down to the bottom, just keep—

I hit a rock. A huge one. My hands manage to grab something and my feet try, but they’re dangling, nothing beneath them, kicking wildly, and why can’t I feel anything beneath them?

I’ve stopped. Both hands clutch rock—a shelf with just enough accumulated dirt for my fingers to dig in and find purchase. There. I’m fine.

No, you’re not. Where are your legs?

I’m fine.

Look down.

I don’t want to. I know what’s happened, and I’ve decided to pretend I don’t.

See, I stopped falling. No problem. I’ve totally got this.

I look down. And I see exactly what I feared. I am holding on to a ledge. Dangling from a rock thirty feet over the water. No, over a thin stream and more rock.

The wind is howling, and I think, That’s just want I need. But the air is still, and I realize I’m hearing Storm.

Newfoundlands have an odd howl, one that makes them sound like a cross between a dinosaur and Chewbacca. It’s a mournful, haunting sound that has scared the crap out of every Rockton resident. It’s been known to wake me with a start when she begins howling with the wolves.

“I’m okay!” I call up to her. “Storm? I’m fine.”

Even if she understood me, she’d call bullshit, and rightly so. I am not fine. I’m dangling by my fingertips over a rocky gorge.

I flex my arms, as if I might be able to vault back onto that ledge. My fingertips slide, and my heart stops, and I freeze, completely freeze. My left hand finds a rocky nub on the ledge. I grip that and dig in the fingers of my right hand until they touch rock below the dirt.

Then I breathe. Just breathe.

I glance over my shoulder. Even that movement is enough for my brain to scream for me to stop, don’t take the chance, stay still. But I do look, as much as I can without loosening my grip.

It’s a drop. There is no denying that, no chance I could just slide down. I will fall. At best, I will break both legs, and even as I think that, I know that is extreme optimism. Death or paralysis are the real options here.

I’m going to die.

If I don’t die, if I’m only paralyzed, I won’t be able to stay in Rockton, and when I think that, it feels the same as death. I want to tell myself I’m being overdramatic, but I know I’m not. Leaving this place would be death for me, returning to that state of suspended animation. I don’t think I could ever return to that. I’ve had better. So much better. If I can’t stay here . . .

I squeeze my eyes shut.

Breathe. Just breathe.

My arms are starting to ache. One triceps quivers. I strained it last week in the weight room with Anders, twisting mid-extension as he made a joke. Now it’s quivering when it should be fine.

It is fine. It will be fine.

Breathe.

I don’t breathe. I can’t. That quivering triceps becomes a voice, whispering that even holding on is foolish. I can’t hold on forever, and there’s no other way to go but down.