Chapter 14 #3
Something in her wrist screamed. Eden cried out.
Over Kyle’s shoulder, a shadow emerged from the rocks just before a large branch cracked over his head.
His grip released as he staggered. The gun stayed in his hand, but his focus scattered. Eden stumbled forward, cradling her wrist against her chest.
Marcus stood behind him.
Blood streamed down Marcus’s face from a vicious head wound—Kyle must have hit him earlier, left him for dead. But he’d managed to swing hard enough to drop Kyle to his knees.
Marcus swayed, the branch slipping from his fingers. His eyes were glassy—pupils uneven, that dangerous sign of serious concussion. He’d burned through whatever reserves had gotten him here.
“Run.” His voice was barely a rasp. “Eden—”
Then his knees buckled, and he crumpled to the stone floor.
Then Teague was there.
He’d dropped his pack and disconnected the rope, but he still wore the harness when he hit Kyle like a linebacker, driving him back across the stone.
A steady rain hit Eden’s face as the storm broke.
Thunder cracked overhead. Then the sky opened up. Rain came down in sheets, in walls, soaking her to the bone in seconds.
She couldn’t see them clearly through the downpour. Just shapes struggling on the limestone—dark against darker, rain turning everything to chaos.
Teague and Kyle fought for position. For the gun. For their lives.
“Eden!” Teague’s voice, sharp with warning.
Kyle broke free, the gun no longer in his hand. He lunged back toward Teague, his face twisted with rage.
The two men crashed together again.
One of Kyle’s hands found Teague’s throat while the other closed on the gun. Teague drove his knee up hard into Kyle’s stomach. A grunt. A curse.
Kyle stood and staggered back as he lifted the gun and pointed it at Teague’s chest.
But his feet slipped on the rain-slicked stone.
For one suspended moment, he teetered. Arms windmilling. Eyes wide—not with fear, but with confusion. As if he still couldn’t understand why this was happening. Why she’d chosen wrong. Why the world refused to match the story he’d written in his head.
Then he slid.
The gun was still clutched in his hand as he scrambled for purchase. His fingers found nothing but slick limestone. He got one shot off, but it landed in the rocks to their left. The scream lasted maybe two seconds—
Then it cut off.
Eden couldn’t move.
Rain poured down her face, mixing with tears she didn’t remember starting. Her wrist throbbed. Her legs shook.
“Overhang!” Marcus’s voice was barely audible over the storm. He pointed toward a depression in the cliff face. “Get to—” He swayed. His eyes rolled back.
Teague caught him before he hit the ground. “Eden! Help me!”
She moved on autopilot. Got under Marcus’s other arm despite the pain in her wrist. Together they half carried, half dragged him toward the shelter.
It was barely big enough for three people. More of a shallow overhang than a cave. But it kept the rain off.
They got Marcus settled against the back wall. In the dim light, Eden could see the extent of his head wound—a gash along his temple still bleeding, the blood mixing with rain and running down his face.
“Marcus.” Teague checked the injury. “Can you hear me? Tell me your name. Where you are.”
“Marcus…Roosevelt.” The words were slurred. “In the Grand—” He turned his head and vomited.
Concussion. Bad one.
Eden pulled out the first aid kit with her good hand.
Teague reached for her injured wrist.
“Don’t.”
“Let me see—”
“Don’t touch me.” The words came out sharper than she intended. “This is my fault. All of it.”
“Eden—”
“I brought Kyle here. I vouched for him. I told you to trust my judgment when my judgment—” She couldn’t finish.
When my judgment was what got Landon killed.
“I called you reckless.” She looked at her hands—both shaking, no doubt from cold and shock, one swelling. “Lectured you about trusting God. But I was the reckless one. Depending on my own judgment. My own strength.” Her voice cracked. “And I was wrong. About everything.”
“Kyle’s choices aren’t your responsibility.”
“I’m the one who read his obsession as kindness. Who turned politeness into proof of friendship. He said he killed Landon for me.” She cradled her wrist. “I can’t forgive myself for this.”
Teague was quiet for a long moment. Rain drummed against the stone outside their shelter.
“We need to get him out.” Eden pressed gauze against Marcus’s wound with her good hand. “Get him to a hospital.”
“In this?” Teague gestured at the storm. “We’d never make it.”
“The radio.” Eden’s eyes went to where Kyle’s belongings lay on the slope. “It might be in his bag.”
Teague followed her gaze. The pack sat on stone that was now a waterfall, dangerously close to where Kyle had fallen.
“Too dangerous. We wait out the storm. The rescue team will find us.”
“That might be too late.”
“I’m not losing anyone else trying to get that pack.”
Marcus stirred. “Gold. We found it.”
“We did.” Teague’s voice gentled. “And your grandfather left something else. A key. I think your dad was right about the safety deposit box.”
Marcus’s face transformed despite the pain, a smile breaking through. “Before he died. He said he wanted me…to find it. Not my father. Me.”
“That’s right.” Teague pressed fresh gauze against the wound. “You were the one he trusted in the end.”
The storm showed no signs of letting up. Lightning struck somewhere close—the thunder instantaneous, shaking the stone beneath them. Marcus drifted in and out of consciousness.
Finally—after what seemed like hours—the rain began to ease. Not stopping but lightening to a drizzle.
“I’m going for the pack.” Teague was already moving.
“Wait—”
But he was already out. Moving carefully across the wet stone.
He’d covered maybe half the distance when the gunshot cracked through the canyon.
Rock exploded near Teague’s feet.
He dove back toward the overhang as another shot rang out—ricocheting off the canyon walls, echoing until it sounded like an army was firing.
Kyle.
Kyle was alive.
Eden’s blood ran cold. The fall should have killed him. Should have at least knocked him unconscious.
The man who’d murdered her fiancé was still alive. Still armed. Still between them and any hope of escape.
“He’s down there.” Teague pressed against the wall beside her. “About thirty feet below. Can’t see him clearly, but he’s got the gun and a clear shot at anyone who tries to leave.”
Another shot ricocheted off the rock above their heads. Fragments of limestone rained down.
They were trapped.
No radio. No way out. And Kyle between them and escape.
Marcus groaned from where he lay against the wall, his condition deteriorating.
“We’re pinned down.” Eden’s voice was hollow.
She looked at her injured wrist. At Marcus’s pale face. At Teague beside her with nowhere to go.
All because of her judgment.
Her choices.
Her failure to see what was right in front of her.
And now there was nothing she could do to fix it.