Chapter 17 Float Easy, Fall Hard
float easy, fall hard
DUKE
The pace of the water picks up, and I catch Roxanne fiddling with her chin strap. Her knuckles are white.
“You good, Trouble?” I call.
No answer and she stiffens.
Not good.
Topper shoots me a look. He sees it too. We exchange glances silently agreeing to keep our eyes on her when we can.
We drift into a narrow stretch. The banks are lined with slick, half-submerged boulders, worn smooth by decades of river cutting through stone. The noise rises, a steady roar building in the background like a warning. I angle us left, dodging a jagged snag.
“Brace!” Topper shouts.
It all happens at once. Topper plants his paddle hard while Allie shifts instinctively to counterbalance. The river jerks harder than expected and the front left slams into a hidden boulder with a gut-punching crack.
The raft tips and my gut drops. A wall of water crashes over us, blurring my vision. I hear a splash and a cry.
“Roxanne!” I yell as I shake the water from my face just in time to see her go airborne. Her helmet strap flapping loose, arms flailing, and then she disappears into the churning river.
“Swimmer!” Topper shouts.
Allie’s in too, bobbing, coughing, but still visible above water. Her helmet’s on tight and she’s doing everything right, just as Georgia instructed her.
“Topper!” I bark.
“Got her!” Topper grabs the side of the raft, reaching down and hauling Allie up in one precise move. She’s gasping and holding her chest.
“Where is she?!” Allie shrieks, coughing, still soaked. “Where’s Roxanne?”
“I don’t see her!” Leo’s panicked voice pierces through the chaos.
I’m scanning everywhere, my pulse hammering in my ears. Then I see it—Roxanne’s helmet floating down the river.
The current keeps dragging us forward.
Where the hell is she?
No. Not her. Not now. Not like this.
Then, a flash of her blue button-down in the eddy near the bend. Her arms limp, hair floating around her face like a halo.
I dive before I can even think. The cold hits like a punch. My lungs seize, but I kick, push, and slice through the current. When I reach her, I lock my arm across her chest, twisting her around. Her skin is like ice.
“I’ve got you, Trouble. Hang on.”
I fight the river with everything I’ve got, her deadweight dragging me down. My legs burn. My shoulders scream, but I don’t let go.
If I lose her …
“Duke!” Georgia’s voice cuts through the rush of the water. I twist in time to see a coil of yellow rope flying toward me. The rope lands within reach. I grip it in one hand, Roxanne in the other.
“Got it!” I bellow.
With Topper still guiding, the raft veers clumsily toward the bank, bumping hard against a shelf of rocks. Once it’s steady, Topper jumps out and rushes to help with the rope.
Topper and Georgia pull. They drag us in, step by step, grit and adrenaline powering each strained heave.
I stumble on the rocks, knees slamming down hard, but I keep my grip on Roxanne though my arms are cramping. She coughs once, and relief floods me. We’re hauled to dry ground, and I collapse with Roxanne on the shore. Everyone’s around us, but I only see her.
“Give us some room to work,” Georgia says calmly, but with enough tension in her voice that Allie, Leo, and Rusty take a step back.
“C’mon, Allie, dear, let’s get these wet things off you too,” Rusty says.
Topper and I shed our vests and helmets, slipping into the rhythm of medics who’ve done this a hundred times.
“Stay with me, Trouble.” My voice breaks. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
Roxanne’s lips are blue, her shivering violent. I gently brush her sopping wet hair out of her face. She weakly tries to push me away as I reach for her soaked shirt.
“Topper, grab me the foil blanket over there,” Georgia commands.
Topper says nothing, grabs it, and starts to shake it out.
“No.” Roxanne’s voice is faint, fractured.
“Roxanne, we have to get you warm,” Georgia says.
“Stop,” Roxanne insists, her eyes slamming shut.
“Roxanne?” Allie calls to her. She and Leo are standing to the side watching with expressions of fear held tight on their faces.
“Roxanne, we have to get this wet shirt off you,” Georgia says in a stern voice.
She stops fighting, her arms going limp as the shaking intensifies.
Georgia pulls out a pair of trauma shears and looks at me for approval.
“Do it,” I say, voice raw.
The shirt falls away in ragged, soaking pieces.
Georgia, Topper, and I, all trained to keep moving, go still. What I’m looking at now, I’ve only seen in photos of victims and survivors.
“Holy shit,” Topper says.
“Is … what is that?” Georgia asks.
My eyes trace the jagged lines that start at the base of Roxanne’s neck and stretch out like the creeping roots of an oak tree down her right arm.
“It’s a scar,” I say.
I can barely get the words out. Now everything starts to come into focus. This woman … she’s lived through the kind of storm that can kill a person.
And she still got in that raft.
“What causes a scar like that?” Topper asks.
I gulp. “Lightning.”