36
I give one last tug on the slick, nylon straps of my dummy’s life jacket and climb toward the back of the boat.
Without the life jacket and the extra clothing layer I sacrificed for stuffing, I feel naked.
The bite of the evening air is sharp now, but in mere minutes, I’ll be in that cold black water—trying to control this raft and maneuvering it directly toward Leo.
Beside me, Allie’s body is rigid, fists pressed into her thighs.
“Ready?” I ask her.
She doesn’t turn her head, just keeps staring out at the river like she’s trying to see through the canyon walls. “Yeah,” she says, so quietly I barely hear her.
Tiny waves slap the hull like impatient hands, urging us to get moving.
“Time to go,” comes Parker’s voice in my ear, along with the weight of a palm on the small of my back.
I rest for a moment in the safety of the sound, in the reassurance that he’s here with me, no matter what happens next.
The sensation lasts only for a moment, though. It’s time to move.
Our plan is completely insane. But at this point, staying on the raft is a death sentence for all of us.
The light is on our side, at least. The canyon has plunged into shades of deep gray, and the river still faintly mirrors the brilliant orange sunset. Ahead, the current bends left—toward the monster who isn’t satisfied that most of the twenty women who started this rafting trip are dead.
He wants all of us dead.
“Everybody into the water,” Macy says, still our fearless leader even as she steps away from the guide position.
When she stumbles toward the center of the raft, I wince at how her knees buckle, how weak she looks.
She gave everything she had to catch up with us, then again in an attempt to catch up with Leo.
Now it’s our turn to save her.
Deborah wears only a thin tank top and athletic pants now, her arms pale and stippled with gooseflesh as she reaches out to Imani. “Let’s do this. Come on, hon. I’ve got you. Give me your hand, okay?”
Imani tries to rise, but struggles, shaking. Deborah crouches down and loops an arm around the injured woman’s waist. “Lean on me, it’s okay.”
Pam is already tugging on Macy’s arm. “You stay by me. We’ll take the lead so you can show us where to get out at the portage trail.”
“We’ll be right behind you,” Deborah says, low and certain, even though she’s shaking too.
My heart thumps so hard in my chest that my vision blurs. Imani shuffles toward the raft’s edge with Deborah’s help, her shallow breaths sounding more like painful gasps.
Everything in the quiet canyon suddenly feels loud—the river slapping the raft, my heartbeat in my ears, Imani’s strained breaths, the creak of the inflated floor as the three women shift toward the edge.
They won’t have far to swim to the canyon wall, and the water isn’t rough here. Stealth is going to be the hard part.
Imani eases over the side of the raft with Deborah’s help, her good hand white-knuckled on the lifeline rope threaded through the D-rings. I cringe when her bleeding stump hits the water.
Deborah quickly slides into the water beside Imani, tucking the smaller woman against her chest. Then they hold onto the D-rings of the raft.
Macy and Pam slip over the side next, the water enveloping them with a wet slurp that makes my skin prickle.
Before the four women push off for shore, Macy points to the approaching bend in the canyon.
“Allie. Kaia.” Her voice is barely a whisper.
“Listen. The trailhead’s about a hundred yards downriver—past that bend, on the left.
You’ll have to stay tight to the right wall of the canyon.
If you drift left, toward the portage point where he’ll be watching …
” She swallows hard. “He’ll see the dummies too soon. He’ll know.”
A shudder crawls down my spine as I imagine his silhouette among the shadows in the canyon, waiting patiently for us.
“But you also can’t get too close to the edge of Splinter Ridge before you start to swim for the trailhead on the left …
” Her voice breaks, and for the first time I hear the faint rumble of the approaching falls vibrating through the canyon.
“If you wait too long to cross the river, the current will pull you over the falls,” Macy finishes.
“Start swimming for shore before you get into the first of the whitewater.”
“Okay,” Allie and I reply in unison, locking eyes and seeing the same desperate fatigue and fear.
Nobody’s hyping each other up anymore. We’re just trying to keep it together for one more second, one more minute. We’re trying, one last time, to stay alive.
At the back of the boat, Allie and I slip into the water, side by side.
For a second, I can’t breathe—can’t think. The river is much colder than it was earlier, or maybe my body no longer has the energy to regulate my internal temperature. Either way, the shock of it sends my pulse skyrocketing as I stifle a gasp and force my legs to kick.
“Go,” I manage to rasp to the others, my teeth already starting to chatter. “Now.”
Through the gathering darkness, I watch Macy push out and aim for the left wall of the canyon.
Pam is right beside her, one arm looped through Macy’s to keep her steady.
Behind them, Deborah has her arm wrapped around Imani’s waist, pulling her back against her chest as she swims sidestroke through the water.
For a few seconds, I can see them clearly—four dark shapes moving through the black water, aiming for the rocky wall along the left of the river. Then the shadows swallow them whole.
A few seconds later, I can’t hear splashing, can’t see their heads bobbing above the obsidian surface.
They’re gone.
That’s good, I tell myself, even as the panic in my throat expands, choking me. If I can’t see or hear them, maybe that means he won’t be able to, either.
And now Allie and I are alone, piloting a raft full of ghosts.
For a second it hurts so much to breathe I can’t move.
“Kaia?” Allie’s voice is tight, strained.
I blink, trying to focus. The raft is starting to drift sideways in the current.
I grab the rope threaded through the D-rings at the stern, wrapping the wet nylon around my wrist for good measure.
My fingers are already so numb, they barely feel the pressure.
Allie does the same, getting a firmer grip on her side of the stern, her face pale in the twilight.
“All we have to do is keep the raft straight as we go around the bend,” I hiss. “He should see it … and focus on it. Then we can slow down … buy the others some time.”
That’s as far as the plan goes, though. There are too many variables spinning away in all directions. What if one of the women stumbles in the scree on the portage trail, the clatter giving them away? What if Leo realizes too soon that the raft is filled with dummies? What if—
“Just keep going,” Parker insists, bringing me back to the task at hand.
“Should we kick backward?” Allie whispers in a panic. “I’m worried we’re moving too fast in the current.” We both know we aren’t a match for the river, no matter how strong we are in a lap pool.
“Yes,” Parker says, his voice sure and firm.
“Yes,” I repeat aloud. I shove my shoulder into the rear left of the raft to keep it moving straight, then kick hard against the current to slow us down.
I feel Allie nudge the raft right as it drifts, and I bite back a cry of pain as my foot slams into a boulder beneath the surface.
“Idaho Easy Chair,” Parker reminds me, and I whisper the words to Allie as soon as his voice fills my mind. We both tuck our legs flush against the raft’s bottom, still kicking hard.
It’s hard to tell how close we are to the bend, but I keep my eyes on the left wall of the canyon—where the others are making their escape—until I spot the craggy outcrop. The current gains momentum as it swings us around the bend toward the looming rock.
If Leo is watching from that cliff ledge, he’ll be able to see the raft now.
The thought makes me want to sink my head below the freezing surface and hide.
The dummies inside the boat sway above us as Allie and I cling to the bumper. One of them—the Macy dummy with the guide oars lashed to its center—slumps forward like it’s rowing. The others sit upright, life jackets stuffed, their contents spilling out the arm holes.
Up close, it’s hard to believe that the shadowy figures could pass as human. Even in the dark.
“Just keep swimming,” Parker murmurs, and I push the doubts away. They won’t help us now.
Instead, I let myself hope that maybe, just maybe, Leo will only see what he wants to see: Six desperate, cowed women sailing straight into his final, sick fantasy.