Vistaria Has Fallen (The Vistaria Affair/Vistaria Has Fallen #1)(31)

Duardo’s feet still dangled thirty-five feet above the ground.

She drew another slow breath, filling her lungs, then shouted as clearly as she could. “Nick! Nicolás! Over here!”

She kept up the shouting. It would take time for her to be heard because she competed against the drama playing out above. She conserved her strength, breathed deeply and kept shouting, while her shoulders burned and her fingers cramped.

“Nicolás!”

“I’m here.” His voice was behind her. Steady and quiet. Movement on the tree made it creak and shudder beneath her.

“Be careful!” she warned. “Only, hurry. I don’t know how long I can hold on.”

“You can hold on for as long as you need to.” He sounded confident and much closer. The tree bounced and stirred.

“My fingers are going numb.”

“It doesn’t matter. Your muscles are far stronger than you think. It’s your mind that makes them weak. It’s your mind that decides to let go. You should know this. Karate, right?”

“Yeah. A century ago, seems like.”

Tremors through the branch against her chest. He chuckled. “You know I’m right.” His voice sounded close, now. “As long as you decide you will hang on, you can outride any pain, any desire to let go. You release the pain and you hold on.”

She tried to nod. Her cheek scraped on the branch. “Okay.”

“Minnie, we’ll get you in a minute. You must hold on, too.”

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Minnie muttered.

Small movements. A pause. “I’m going to shout,” Nick warned. He did shout, a stream of Spanish.

Voices lifted in response. Steps sounded on the tiles. “Se?or?”

The crunching on the tiles reminded her of her perilous crossing. “Tell them to be careful, there’s no support for the tiles.”

“I have,” Nick assured her. He spoke more and from the cadence, the clipped sentences, she guessed he was giving orders. Scurrying, murmured conversations. More movement on the tree.

“It won’t support many more.”

“It will last long enough,” Nick said from right behind and above her. A touch on her back. “That’s me,” he told her. “I’m right above. I have to—”

From the corner of her eye, she saw his boot land on a smaller branch to her left, behind and lower than her body. Weight and warmth settled on either side of her hips. He straddled her.

“Okay?” he asked.

A giggle rose. She tried to squash it. “You only had to ask. You didn’t have to arrange all this to get me in this position.”

“And chance you turning me down?” He tapped her belt. “Is this leather?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to take it off. Can you lift one hip so I can get at the buckle? I’ll keep you balanced.”

She lifted her hip. His hand slid beneath. “Higher,” he said. She pushed with her knee and lifted higher. The end of the belt slipped out of the buckle, the buckle loosened and the belt slid around her hips and pulled away. With deep relief, she lowered herself back to the branch, her hip flexors and thigh trembling with the effort to maintain balance in that awkward position.

Nick moved above her, the tree shaking with his actions.

“What happened up there?” she asked.

“Explosion. From the kitchen. We’ll find out later.”

“Is everyone all right?”

“Later, Calli.”

Everyone was not all right.

He leaned out and reached for a branch below her. It was thinner than the branch she lay on, yet still sturdy. He lowered himself in a slow, controlled roll. The athletic move spoke of muscle power beyond her own. Hanging by both hands meant his legs brushed against the unconscious Duardo. Nick rolled himself up and hooked his legs over the branch he hung from, reminding her of a similar movement made by trapeze artists at the circus. He had to pull himself up with his arms to bring his legs high enough to do it. He let go of the branch and rolled back down again. Now he hung upside down, right next to Duardo.

The movements on the tree grew closer. Quiet murmurs. Hands on her calves, holding her steady.

Nick reached into the ragged remains of his shirt and pulled out two belts, one of them Calli’s. Putting the other between his teeth, he looped Calli’s belt around Duardo’s abused wrist, below her fingers. He slid the buckle tight like an emergency tourniquet. He laid the other end of her belt against the free end of his own, then threaded both through the buckle of his belt. The tongue of the buckle slid through the holes of both belts. It created a secure loop in his belt. Nick pushed the loop over his arm, high over the elbow, and took a grip on the leather down by Duardo’s wrist and tested it.

He looked up at Calli. “Do you know what I’m doing?”

“You’re going to take his weight.”

“Yes. Then I need you to climb down his body and hang onto his legs, because we will swing you.”

“What?”

“Yes, like a pendulum. That will bring you over to the high ground there, right in front of Minnie.”

“Wait!” she called and frowned, thinking it through. “I get to the ground, hang on to Duardo, then what?”

“You’ll see. Take care of that for now. Climb down, hang on.”