This Fallen Prey (Rockton #3)(62)

The triceps is quaking now, and my right hand slips. I grip tighter. The rock edge digs into my forearms. Blood drips down my arm.

I look left and then right. Maybe that’s the way to go. Perpendicular. Get to a safer spot and then slide. I can see one possibility, maybe ten feet to my left. Between here and there, though, the rock is smooth, and I’m not sure I could find hand grips.

Well, you’re going to have to try, aren’t you?

My left hand has a good hold on this rocky nub. I release my right a little and begin inching it left. It’s slow going. Millimeter by millimeter it seems, excruciatingly slow as my dog howls above.

I’m almost there. Get my right hand wrapped around that nub and then—

My right hits rock. Solid, slick rock. My fingers slide. I try to dig in, but there’s nothing to grasp, and my nails scrape rock and there’s a jolt, excruciating pain shooting through my left arm and . . .





33





I’m dangling by one arm. My left hand still clutches that jutting rock, but that’s the only thing keeping me on the rock face, and the pain, holy shit, the pain.

I grit my teeth and focus on the fact that I’m still holding on. Not how barely I’m holding, or how much that jolt hurt. I’m still okay.

Well, relatively speaking.

I make a noise at that. It’s supposed to be a chuckle, but it sounds like a whimper.

Still hanging on. Still alive.

I need to find purchase. Whether it’s my right hand or right foot or left foot . . . Just find purchase somewhere. Being slightly lower means I have fresh places to check.

Optimism. Awesome.

I start with my right hand. Reach up and . . .

All I can do from this angle is scratch the edge of that rock ledge, and my nails are already torn. I reach down instead. There’s a rock there, a nub that I can at least grip to brace myself and take some of the pressure off my left arm. I do that, and then I try with my legs, but of course, that would be too much to hope for.

I’m still hanging off a ledge, my dangling legs nowhere near the cliffside.

I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay.

Two fingers on my right hand twitch. I’m holding them in an awkward position trying to keep some semblance of a grip, and they have had enough. Two fingers twitch. Then a third joins in.

No, no—

My right hand slips. That jolt again, my left shoulder screaming as my right hand clamps tighter and—

“Casey? Casey!”

I am hearing that, right? Not hallucinating?

Fresh pain stabs through my arm.

“Casey!”

The voice comes from right above me, and I peer up to see Dalton on his hands and knees, looking over the side, his face stark white. He pulls back, and I want to scream, No, don’t leave me.

I remember my nightmares after finding Nicole in the cave, nightmares where I’m in the hole and everyone leaves me, and Dalton stays the longest but eventually he, too, gives up on me.

I’m hallucinating. He’s not really here. It’s the pain and the shock and that memory finding a fresh variation to torture me with.

Even Storm has gone silent above.

Pebbles fall, pelting my face. “Are you crazy, boy?” a voice bellows. “Get your ass back . . .”

The words trail off, and I see a foot over the edge. A boot. Dalton’s boot. Vanishing as Cypher hauls him up.

“You want to knock her down into that gorge?”

Dalton reappears, looking over the edge. “Casey? Can you hear me?”

“Course she can,” Cypher says. “The whole damned mountain can. Now stop panicking and get back from that edge. Your girl is fine.”

Dalton snarls something at him. Cypher’s bearded face appears over the edge.

“Hey, kitten,” he says. “How are you doing?”

He gets a string of obscenities from Dalton for that, but I say, “I’ve been better,” and Cypher laughs.

“Okay,” he says. “I’m going to ask you to try something for me. Take your right hand and bring it up on the other side of your left. You need to reach maybe four inches to the left of it.”

I do that, and I find a crevice in the rock, one I can dig my fingers into. It’s an even better grip than I have with my left, and I ease a little of my weight that way.

“Don’t get too comfortable, kitten. I’m going to make you switch hands. Which will be tricky, but a whole lot easier to maintain. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He guides me through it, and a few minutes later, I’m still hanging, but in a far more secure position.

“I’m going down—” Dalton begins.

“No, Eric, you aren’t,” Cypher says. “I’m not rescuing both of you today. How about you help me figure out how Casey can rescue herself?”

“I’d rather—”

“I know you would. But if you try, I’ll throw you down there with that poor drowned woman and save the trouble of having to rescue you.”

As he says “poor drowned woman,” I turn to see Val’s body, directly below. Her one arm is stretched over her head, the current catching it in a macabre wave.

“Yeah, she’s still there,” Cypher says. “Still dead. Like she was when you apparently decided you had to go after her.”