I open my mouth but no sound comes out. Whatarewe going to do?
HEATHER
Iswivel my head back and forth between the mist-churning waterfall blocking our path and the nearby forest. I expect the mercenaries to burst forth at any second. Bullets are already whizzing through the air, cutting down branches and puncturing leaves.
Trent stares over the waterfall and nods his head. A fierce look of determination crosses his face as he turns back to me.
“Heather, listen.” His voice is deep with confidence, but I believe some of it to be feigned. “We’re going to have to jump.”
“Are you crazy? I can’t swim!”
“I’ll help you, I promise, but if we stay here, we’re dead for sure.”
As if to add emphasis to his point, a bullet ricochets off the rocky terrain some ten feet away. We’re out of options.
“Is that water deep enough for us to dive into?”
“Hopefully.”
“Hopefully?” I sputter for several seconds trying to speak.
“Listen, what you see in the movies is bullshit. Don’t dive in headfirst. Try and hit the water feet first, with your arms over your head. Cut through the water, you understand?”
Excited shouting reaches a fever pitch, and a green-clad mercenary explodes out of the tree line.
Trent grabs my hand and drags me toward the cliff. The thought of certain death behind spurs me to run off the cliff right beside him. We fall for what seems an impossibly long time. I know it’s probably only a few seconds, but it seems to take an eternity to hit the water. I’m in such a panic I can’t even remember what Trent said about hitting the water right.
My heels explode with the pain of impact as I hit the churning water. I can’t see anything for the furiously frothing bubbles. I do know I’ve plunged deep below the water because I can feel the weight of it pressing down on me.
I panic, unsure of which way is up anymore. My limbs flail about as my lungs begin to burn. I have to find my way out, I have to. I kick my legs like I’ve seen swimmers do on television, but it doesn’t seem to help.
A hand grips me out of the murk, grasping my forearm. I clutch at Trent’s hand and arm as he kicks madly for the surface, dragging me up along with him.
We break the surface and I gasp and sputter, sucking in air with ragged heaves only to cough it back out a moment later. We’re not far from the pounding waterfall’s edge of influence, and the current tugs insistently at us, trying to push us under.
Trent cradles me around the chest with one arm and side strokes toward the shore. Just when I begin to relax, thinking we’ve escaped certain death, gunfire rattles through the air. Gouts of water shoot up all around us. I look up at the cliff and see the men firing down at us.
“Determined bastards,” Trent mutters. We reach water shallow enough to wade through, and he tugs me into a standing position. The water seems to cling at my legs, working in concert with our would-be killers. We finally stumble free of its powerful grasp and run away on shaky legs toward the tree line.
Trent doesn’t stop our mad flight until the sounds of gunfire cease. He hastily checks a vine encrusted, waist-high boulder before seating us on it.
“I can’t believe we’re still alive,” I say between pants.
“I’ve been in worse scrapes,” Trent says, but without his usual bravado or enthusiasm. He’s clearly shaken up as well. “We’re just lucky they aren’t crazy enough to try jumping down after us.”
“How could they even see us well enough to shoot?” Heather shakes her head, damp hair snapping around to plaster against her shoulder. “I can barely see anything at all.”
“They probably used night-vision goggles. That means we can’t risk a fire. It will show up like a second sun on night vision.”
“Do you think there’s a way down here besides jumping off the waterfall?”
Trent’s brow furrows. “Probably. Most likely, they’ll have to go miles out of their way to find a path down into this valley. Still, we should probably put some distance between ourselves and the waterfall.”
“It’s pitch black, how are we supposed to see? And didn’t you tell me yesterday that at night we didn’t stand a chance?”
“I did,” he confesses. “But still, we have to try. In fact, I think we should cross over to the opposite bank, since they saw us come this way.”
We carefully pick our way through the dense undergrowth back to the river. Trent and I ford it at a shallow spot, though the current sucks at my ankles and threatens to topple me. I grasp Trent’s hand in an iron grip as we inch our way across.
