Page 72 of Wandering Wild
There’s a long beat of silence between us, the air charged, but then a branch snaps off a distant tree and crashes to the ground, reminding us of where we are—and where we need to be.
“We should probably go,” I say, with reluctance.
“Yeah.” Despite his agreement, Zander only shuffles his feet, before asking, “Is it weird that part of me doesn’t want to return home? That I’m nervous about going back to reality? It’s not just Titan—everything with Maddox is still so up in the air, and I...” He trails off, blowing out a weighty breath.
“Maddox will come back to you,” I tell him, full of reassurance. “He’s your Ember. That kind of friendship can never stay broken for long. He just needs?—”
“—time,” Zander finishes for me, sighing. “I know. You’re right.”
Eager to pull him from the darkness that has gripped him, I offer a jaunty grin and say, “I’m always right. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
His mouth tips upward and some of the heaviness leaves his shoulders. “Now who’s being a smug know-it-all?”
“I learned from the best,” I say, my grin still in place as I link my arm through his and drag him back into the forest. “For the record, I’ll be ready to say ‘I told you so’ once you’ve made up and your bromance is back on track.”
“Do people still say ‘bromance’?” Zander muses.
“Since I am people, and I just said it, the answer is yes,” I return.
And so we continue through the trees, conversing freely and living in the moment, while knowing that soon enough, everything will change. We steer clear of discussing what we’ll be to each other after today, or even if we’ll ever see each other again. It’s clear we’re both tiptoeing around it, wanting the other to say something first, but neither of us does, and then neither of uscan, because we soon realize how quickly the time is passing, with less than an hour to go now until we’re due at the extraction point—and still one obstacle left between us and rescue.
By mutual agreement, we stop talking and start jogging, then running, then sprinting through the forest, throwing caution to the wind and praying we don’t trip over anything. I’m concerned that the land seems to be on an incline instead of traveling downward to meet the river, but when I point this out to Zander around my heaving breaths, he checks his compass and confirms we’re still going in the right direction.
Up and up we run, skirting trees and boulders and shrubs, the slope continuing ever higher until finally we reach the top and the ground plateaus. I can hear a distant roaring over the sound of my rapid heartbeat, and a bolt of giddy anticipation hits me as I recognize it as fast-moving water.
“The river,” I pant to Zander. “We must be close.”
But aside from the trees beginning to thin, there’s nothing in sight.
It’s only when they clear entirely that Zander and I stumble to a shocked halt, my stomach turning to mush at the view before us.
In an instant, I’m pulled back to our final conversation with Hawke before we left him and Bentley, how he pointed to the squiggle on the map that made Zander ask,Is that a river?and Hawke respond,Sort of.
In hindsight, I should have questioned his cagey tone.
Because it’ssort ofa river all right, but it just happens to be raging far below us, at the bottom of a jagged, unscalable gorge. And in front of us?—
There’s a suspension bridge already in place,Hawke’s voice returns to me,but it’s old—reallyold.There’s no telling how long ago it was used.
“Sonofabitch,” I breathe as I stare at the dilapidated wooden bridge stretching from one side of the gorge to the other.
Fear slams into me, but then I remember how Hawke also said his team had already secured ropes for us, and I peer frantically around for them. I see nothing aside from the ancient, frayed ropes barely keeping the rotted planks aloft, so I ask Zander, “Can you see the safety ro?—”
I choke on my words, because I finally spot them.
It takes half a second for me to know we have a real problem.
Because they’re dangling uselessly down the opposite side of the gorge.
It takes me another half second to realize what that means:
If we want to make it to the extraction point, then we have to cross the decaying bridge without a safety net—and one wrong step will be the last we ever take.
Taking in the danger of the task before us, every swear word I’ve ever known screams across my mind. They only grow louder as I stare at the safety ropes hanging from the far side of the bridge, swaying in the breeze as if to taunt us.
“The rain must have unraveled them from this end,” I say, cursing yet more rotten luck.
Charlie glares at them. “So much for being secure.”
