Aidan #4
“Too late,” I said and ran before he could decide it was worth letting Mika up, hoping the two of them could stop me. I needed to be quick if I was going to follow through on my terrible plan.
A few spots of the beaver dam and the makeshift braces we’d made with the sandbags were left, but they weren’t going to hold for long. Hell, they probably wouldn’t hold my weight, but it was the only path across the river. A stupid, suicidal path, but a path all the same.
“Just like a game,” I muttered, as if that was supposed to make me feel bolder when all I felt was the fraying, jagged edges of terror stabbing at me.
Someone shouted my name, but I barely heard it as I drove forward, knowing if I didn’t do it now, I was never going to talk myself into action.
Reno wasn’t going to last much longer; Xander was trying to do what he could for Jake if there was anything that could be done, Mika was blinded by fear, and Colin had him.
The rest…weren’t there. I was the only one who could do something stupid and, well…
even if I was going to lose all of them after today, that didn’t mean they had to lose each other.
I went, my foot sinking into the sandbag near me; it ripped under my boot and the sand washed away, pulling water toward it.
I lurched forward as the water tried to pull me with the sand and brought my other foot down on the dam, which crunched and gave way as well.
Another heave yanked my first foot out of the water, and the second snapped through a layer of wood and mud down to the ankle.
With a gasp, I lunged forward, my knee slamming into a rock as I yanked myself onto the part of the dam that hadn’t broken and was on the other side of the river.
Pain exploded from my knee, and I heaved out a breath as I pulled myself to safety.
The dam was giving under my weight, and I prayed it didn’t break as I scrambled, using my unhurt leg to shove at the rock I’d smashed onto and rolled onto the bank on my back to catch a breath and push the pain away.
“Not like a game,” I gasped as water pooled in my eyes and around my mouth.
I rolled onto my front and pushed upright, testing my injured leg and, yeah, it hurt like a bitch, but I could move it.
Not ideal, but being able to move was better than breaking something important, so I got up, grunting as my knee radiated agony.
“Not…a game at all. Fuck me. Should stick to games.”
It was a little late for that; and I had something I was supposed to be doing.
I spared a glance at the other bank and saw Colin still fighting Mika; he had something in his hand that he was clutching to his face.
I realized he was on the radio, and I couldn’t hear him.
In a panic, I slapped my hand to my work belt.
The rope and hook were still there, but I had lost the multi-tool and the radio.
“Guess Xander can take that out on my hide as well,” I snorted as I hurried downriver, ignoring the calls from Colin that sounded a lot like ‘stupid motherfucker’ and probably a few other choice words I couldn’t make out.
I made it to where Reno was still struggling, but the river was pulling at the mud and dirt at its edges, and I didn’t dare go for him immediately.
Instead, I went to the nearest good size tree and wrapped the rope around it, fumbling as my fingers shook from the cold and my frayed nerves.
Eventually, I got it through the hook and snapped that onto my belt, hoping it and the harness we had to put on would keep me from going downriver.
Not from drowning as I bobbed along like a human lure, but at least I wouldn’t get smacked around for miles until my shattered body was found—
“Nope, we ain’t doin’ that,” I said, apparently channeling Jake…God, I hope he made it.
I focused on the job at the edge of the water, trying to figure out how to get to Reno and bring him back without losing my balance. It would have been easier if I had someone to help, but it was just me and a half-conscious Reno.
The earth, however, made up my mind before I could, and gave way under my feet as I feared it would.
I tipped back, trying to get my balance, steadied and knew I didn’t have long.
I saw Reno bobbing, his fingers slipping along what I could see now were the roots of a tree, maybe even the roots of the tree I had wrapped my rope around.
And with a silent curse, I tipped forward and into the river toward him.
If I had thought the water was cold before, it was nothing like being submerged in it.
I dimly remembered that a lot of the water came from the Great White north and it certainly showed as it sucked the heat from my body and the air from my lungs.
I surfaced with a gasp and, in a haze, realized I had clung to Reno without thinking.
Reno’s eyes were wide even as they fluttered against the water, and I wrapped my arm around him tightly.
The pull of the water and its icy grip made every motion feel as if it was done in sludge, but I held onto him, shocked he had lasted that long when I was already questioning how long it would be until I lost my grip.
Time was running out, and my mind was a whirl of panic and a haze of desperation.
My fingers stung as they slammed into something hard on his waist, and I realized he had a hook and rope of his own. I didn’t care about the rope, but if I could just…undo it and not lose it, that was step one. Start with step one and keep your shit together, Aidan.
There, it was digging into the skin of my hand, which was quickly losing feeling, which meant losing use of it, but I had it.
“No,” Reno gargled around the water.
My head was higher, and I grunted. “Got you. I got you, just—”
That was the tricky part. The hardest part, especially as I was losing the use of my fingers.
I needed to bring it around to the loop on both of our belts so I could tie us together.
The entire trip and fighting against the river’s pull, the cold, and our bodies bumping together was going to make it nearly impossible to—
Holy shit, first try!
It was all I could do for the moment, and I realized I was completely out of options or plans.
Reno’s grip loosened on the tree root, and I clung tight to him as we slipped further down the river.
I swore I heard a heart-wrenching scream of fear and panic that shouldn’t have been possible, but if it was, it was drowned out by the cold water rushing over my face as we were slammed down.
Pain exploded in my side; a line of fire opened up on the side of my face; my ankle bellowed in agony and my knee gave me a whole new reason to cry out, even though I was submerged.
And then we were jerked up, and I held tight to Reno, who groaned in my ear.
He was still out of it, and even with the hook tying us together, our lifeline, I hung onto him.
It was getting hard to think clearly; I felt more cold and pain than I felt human.
Got you. I kept repeating to myself as I stared into the face of a man who shared it with the man I loved. I got you.
Oh God, I loved Mika.
I got you, Reno; I got you.
Fuck, we were going to die. In front of Colin and Mika, stranded on the other side, who could do nothing but watch us die a slow death.
I love you, Mika.
I got you, Reno.
I couldn’t breathe; it was being ripped out of me, and I knew the rope or the hook had given up, and we were doomed to be sent cascading down the river. God, what a fucked-up present we would make for someone to find, the two of us bound together even in death.
I hoped it wasn’t Mika who—
Pain.
Holy shit, so much fucking pain it was like—
Water was dropping into my eyes, filling them, and I was covered in ice; I had to be. The river wasn’t as cold as it had been, and it was harder than it should have been.
A face, Mika’s? Reno’s? I couldn’t tell. Maybe Reno was dead, and he was coming to get me, to take me with him because I had been wrong about gods and afterlives. That there was a place that was a lot warmer and softer than the river I had drowned—
“Don’t you dare!” I heard someone command.
“Too late,” I thought I said.
Maybe I didn’t.
But the darkness came all the same.
I love you…I got you…I’m sorry.