For a moment, River stares over the steering wheel, as if he can’t believe what just happened, but then he immediately accelerates again.
No! Brake!My mind screams, but even if River could hear me, he wouldn’t stop. Definitely not. I glance back. The black car is still behind us. River has spotted him as well because he revs the engine, sending the Porsche flying down the next straightaway toward another invisible curve, still driving too fast. Out of nowhere, the back of a camper appears in front of us, as big and white as a wall.
“Dammit!” River jerks the wheel to the left and shoots past the side of the camper. At the last second, a tunnel opens in front of us, less than eight feet wide, and a red VW Bug approaching.
Stop! Please stop!
A tiny voice inside me reminds me that he’s probably on drugs and unable to control his reactions.
Everything is happening too quickly. The camper’s deep horn blares like bass in my ears. The VW Bug takes up my entire fieldof vision and automatically, I narrow my eyes, hold on tight, and hear the shrill squeal of brakes.
But there’s no crash. Oh God!When I open my eyes again, I see the VW Bug on the side of the road, and a millisecond later, River thunders into the tunnel. The engine’s roar echoes on all sides, and the smell of rubber fills the air.
He didn’t brake whatsoever!
He didn’t fucking brake! He’s suicidal!
Suddenly, he hits the steering wheel and shouts, “Fuck that fucking asshole!”
My heart is pounding hard in my chest. The tunnel is short, no more than sixty-five feet long. As if under anesthesia, I notice a few cars waiting at the other end of the tunnel.
River speeds by, glancing in the rearview mirror before accelerating again.
I continue to sit there in a daze, my hands shaking, still unable to get the wordsdying companionsout of my head.
After a while, he lights a cigarette and gives me a searching look through narrowed eyes. At the moment, he seems like the angel of death to me—dark but captivatingly beautiful, someone you willingly follow anywhere, even to the final frontier. “That was close!”
I’m still shaking. I don’t know what he means. The thing with the curve and the tunnel, or the Camaro he wanted to outrun. I merely nod, paralyzed.
Who’s chasing us if not Chester? Why would anyone even be following us? I’m still clinging to the door handle. My blouse sticks to my back, drenched with sweat. That could have gone so wrong. A collision with the VW Bug would have folded us like an accordion. And probably not just us.
Don’t worry, Tucks.We’re dying companions, I hear River whisper in my head. Whatever that means. However, here with him, on this journey to freedom, I no longer want to die.
Later, when he slacklines barefoot in Spearfish Canyon, my knees are still weak. Trembling, I watch as he runs nimbly from one end to the other. He looks as if running is something sacred to him.
The place also feels sacred somehow. All around us, pale limestone cliffs rise, and the dark pine forests stand with enchanted streams and hundreds of sparkling waterfalls between them. Apparently, River doesn’t seem afraid of being discovered here, even though he hid the Porsche along a forest path.
“Come up and take the strap out of the backpack!” he calls to me. “Then you can learn how to put it on!”
I look up at him. I want to know so many different things about him. Why is he being followed? I asked him about it earlier, but he didn’t reply to my message.
“Hey, come on!”
Too high, I try to convey with gestures as I point to the line, which is stretched six feet above the ground.
He grins. “I can’t believe it. Two days ago, you wanted to throw yourself off Old Sheriff, but this is too high for you?”
He’s right. It’s ridiculous. On the other hand, my body is still full of adrenaline. I feel like I have an overdose of it running through my system.
I hesitantly take the strap out of his backpack.
“By the way, the longest highline was almost a mile long,” River says from above. “And the highest was between two hot air balloons in the sky. But these records constantly change, so whatever.” He talks faster than usual and tells me everything about setting up a highline, mentioning anchor points, fixed points, and a second safety line, while I examine the harness, which looks like a climbing harness. I quickly slip into the leg loops and fasten it around my waist. Luckily, I don’t have any bruises there.
“You need a second Handana.” River climbs down toward me over a few overhanging branches. I look for a second Handana in my backpack and put it on while River kneels in front of me and tightens my belt in a few places. I feel his fingers brushing against my thighs and hold my breath because his proximity and his scent confuse me even more. Everything about him confuses me, and I think of the saying in my Beautiful Words book, ‘There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth,’ from Nietzsche, who also said, ‘God is dead.’
Why does River want to save me? He must have some reason. If there’s one thing I know about life, it’s that no one does anything without a reason—unless their impulse control fails; that’s from James. So, River has a reason, and he had it even when he didn’t even know me. When I was still a strange girl to him.
“Hey, dreamer!” River pretends to playfully punch my upper arm but actually does it so gently it almost seems like a caress. “What are you thinking about?”
