Veronica looked around again to make sure no one had seen her, then slid the pager into a front pocket of her jeans.
L
auren shaded her eyes with her hand and looked to where Juan was pointing. Her heart gave a thump of excitement.
“Hell
yes
I see ‘em,” she said. “You think we can swim it?”
Juan shook his head. “No. It’d be like climbing inside a washing machine filled with sharp rocks.”
“Chicken?” she sneered. “I thought you were some kind of bad-ass scuba diver.”
A wave exploded against the jagged rocks below them, throwing spray into the air and sprinkling her arms with droplets.
“Look at the rip current pouring through this channel down here,” he said. “It’ll beat us to pieces, then sweep us out into the strait before we’re a quarter of the way there.”
At the island’s northernmost edge, the ocean foamed white over a tumble of broken rocks extending from land’s end. The rocks disappeared and reappeared as green waves crashed over them with unrestrained violence and spiraled outward in eddies of white foam.
Lauren shifted restlessly from leg to leg, probing the roof of her parched mouth with her tongue, feeling peeling sandpaper.
“Well, shit, cowboy,” she said. “What bright ideas do
you
have?”
A loose trail of rocks and boulders curved away from the island like a giant question mark. Breaking waves slammed against them, sending eruptions of spray shooting skyward. The last boulder, three hundred feet out from the island, was the size of a house. It rose several feet above the spray, and on its dry, flat top stood a dozen or more white plastic gallon jugs.
Water—it had to be drinking water.
“There has to be a way,” she said. “I mean, Julian wouldn’t make it
totally
impossible…”—her abdominals tightened—”…would he?”
Juan didn’t answer at first. He stood very still, arms crossed, dark eyes staring at the faraway jugs. Lauren could see salt crusted on his jaw—from dried sweat or seawater. He had shaved, she noticed, and changed his shirt, too, although this one was also black. She liked the way he smelled: sweaty but not rank. Her gaze traced the corner of his jaw, his cheekbone, his small ear, his face in profile.
“Neither of us can get that water on our own,” he finally said.
• • •
“We don’t know for sure what that is.” Mason grinned. “Those jugs might turn out to be full of sea water. Or paint thinner.”
Camilla grimaced. “Oh,
shut up
, Mason. It’s drinking water.”
Fabulous,
Lauren thought.
Nice going, Juan.
These fucking yuppies were going to be a huge help, she could see. Time to call in her own reinforcements. She turned and yelled across the island.
“Yo, JT! Get your ass over here!”
“Anyone thirsty?” Camilla spread the top of the backpack she held. “Here’s how we go get those.”
Seeing the rope and climbing gear, Lauren took an excited breath
.
“That was supposed to be for me,” she said.
“I’ll let you borrow it,” Camilla said. “But we all share the water.”
“You’ll get yours.” Lauren turned away from her to meet Juan’s eyes. He seemed more energized now. She joined him at the water’s edge.
He pointed to the nearest rock. And then another one, twenty feet up-current.
She nodded. “Belay point.” She pointed to a jagged four-foot fang of black rock just as it disappeared in a detonation of surf. “Tough transition there.”
“Not only that.” He pointed. “We can’t grab hold anywhere. Sea urchins.”
Lauren could see the holes now, dotting the rocks every few inches, purple-black balls of spikes nestled inside. Involuntarily, she pulled her fingers to her chest. “Oh Christ.”
JT slid down the short slope to join them. “I’ll let you use these.” He held out a pair of thick leather gloves. “But it’ll cost you.”
“We need you to belay us from shore,” she said. “
Earn
your share.”
She turned to Juan. “You ready?”
He grinned. “Let’s do it.”
“Everybody shares that water,” Camilla said.
Lauren frowned, and stepped up to her, toe to toe. “Listen up, Dora the Explorer. This isn’t some staff meeting you’re running, where we vote on things.” Reaching back with both hands, she swept her hair into a ponytail and tied it with a piece of shoelace, matching Camilla’s angry glare with her own. “Your team killed us yesterday, so unless you feel like getting wet yourself right now, Juan and I go get those jugs. We can discuss who keeps what when we get back.”
Mason smiled, holding up the first aid kit. “Someone may need this before we’re done. Am I in or out?”
“Oh god, not you, too, now.” Camilla turned and grabbed the first-aid kit from him.
Lauren laughed.
Juan stepped forward. “Here’s the plan: Lauren and I rope up and go. JT and Mason belay us from shore. When we get back, they each get a jug, and so do you, Camilla. Lauren and I flip a coin for the points, and the two of us split the rest of the water.”
Silence followed.
“Anyone else want to go instead, then?” Juan asked.
Nobody said anything.
“That’s what I thought.”
• • •
Lauren crouched on the rock nearest shore, trying to keep her balance. A wave slapped her in the face, pushing her body sideways with irresistible force. It would have peeled her off, but the ropes held her in place. Blinking salt water out of her eyes, she raised her ungloved hand and gave a thumbs-up. JT paid out more rope as Juan pulled back on his, stabilizing her.
She looked at the next rock, about fifteen feet away, disappearing and reappearing in the surf, and felt her footing slip beneath her. Taking a deep breath, she relaxed her body and leaped forward, plunging into the churning water, trailing the two ropes behind her in a V. The surge grabbed her and dragged her under, yanking her hard and bringing both lines taut.
Kelp roiled in the surrounding foam—she didn’t want to get tangled up in that. She kicked and stroked hard for the next rock. A wave broke above her, pushing her under again. Tumbling over and over beneath the green-lit water, she clawed her way to the surface.
“Left,” JT shouted. “On your left!”
Her gloved fingers fought for a hold on the wet, slippery rock. The icy surge was stronger than she had expected, terrifying. It seized her like a giant hand and dragged her body sideways again, scraping her calf across something sharp. The injury stung—sea urchin, probably. Lauren gripped the rock one-handed and pulled her shoulders and head out of the water. Groping underwater with the ungloved hand, she located a gear loop on the waistband of her harness and unclipped a cam. She jammed it into a crevice in the rock, slotted a hex alongside it, and clipped into both.
Secured now, she leaned back to hangdog a quick rest, letting her arms and hair dangle loosely in the waves. Whitewater detonated against her, and the world disappeared in a chaos of foamy white, then reappeared. The two pieces of gear held her in place.
Joy washed through her body. She could feel her muscles pumping, her calm, deep heartbeats, her breaths coming free and easy and strong. Lifting herself higher on the rock, she looked back at the shore. The others were cheering for her. Lauren grinned. She hung from one arm and waved, giving another thumbs-up.
Juan was tying the rope around his waist and shoulders, watching her.
Tilting her head to the side, she pursed her lips and crooked a finger, beckoning him.
“Come on in, cowboy,” she shouted. “The water’s fine.”
A
half hour later, Juan’s ungloved fingers slipped off a sea urchin-free section of rock. He glanced up at Lauren, braced in position five feet above him, as the current pulled at his legs, prying him away from the boulder. Kelp swirled about his chest. Dragged by the surge, his toes slid across rock, and he tried to reset his feet, scrambling for a foothold. No luck.
He reached for the rock again with his free hand, but it was too far—the surge held his body away from it. Clinging with his remaining hand, he tilted farther and farther from safety. Waves exploded against the boulder, hauling at his chest, trying to tear him loose. His gloved hand was slipping, too. He had miscalculated—maybe even killed himself. Any moment now, he would be swept away and under. Juan took a deep breath, preparing to fight for his life.
A hand clamped around his wrist.
He looked up, surprised to see Lauren leaning down toward him. She was grinning. Blood streaked the side of her calf and stained her shoe, but her grip felt as strong as a vise. He relaxed.
She shifted her body, and the muscles in her shoulder and arm bunched as she lifted him out of the water and up onto the boulder’s slope. One-handed.
He leaned back against the rock next to her, his feet trailing into the water, and caught his breath. “Thanks.”
“De nada, amigo.”
She slapped his shoulder. “Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.”
Rolling over, he followed her up onto the boulder’s flat surface.
The jugs clustered around their feet. Lauren picked one up, and Juan did the same.
Unscrewing the cap, he sniffed. Then he tilted it up to his mouth. The water sluiced down his dry throat—clean, cool, delicious. He sighed involuntarily, stopping for a breath, and chugged again as Lauren did the same. She wiped a forearm across her mouth and smiled at him, her eyes dancing with delight. She seemed a completely different person out here: in her element now and happy. Juan could understand that. He stared down into the clear water, at the bright orange sea stars and green anemones beneath. Underwater, with a tank on his back and a regulator in his mouth, he was someone else, too—someone he liked better
.
Shouted questions drifted across the water, the words impossible to make out. He made an “okay” sign with his thumb and forefinger and raised it high. Beside him, Lauren waved her arm in broad sweeps and gave a thumbs-up. Cheers erupted in the distance, and the small figures on shore started jumping around, giving each other high-fives. It seemed that everyone else had gathered to watch—Juan did a quick count and came up with seven—
almost
everyone, then.
A purple bruise was forming on the side of Lauren’s forehead, and she was covered in abrasions and cuts. He was too. Blood from the cut on her calf spattered droplets onto the rock, but she didn’t seem to mind.
He lowered himself to sit at the edge of the boulder, water jug in hand, and dangled one leg. Lauren dropped to sit beside him. The sun sparkled on the waves. She put her hand on his knee.
“You realize that was insane, of course,” he said.
She laughed. “Not compared to some climbs I’ve done.”
Juan looked at the C-shaped trail of ropes that curved back to the island from boulder to boulder, anchored in seven or eight places to rocks poking above the roiling surface. Two more ropes stretched directly over the water, straight back to the island, hanging in taut arcs.
“What was the hairiest?” he asked.
Lauren’s face changed. “Trango Towers. Pakistan.” It was almost a whisper.
Juan waited.
“It didn’t end well.” Her smile was gone now, as if it had never existed. Drawing in a sharp little breath, she took her hand off his leg.
“I spent a couple days hanging upside down next to the wall—with cracked ribs, internal bleeding, a skull fracture, and a concussion. Three weeks in the hospital once I got back Stateside. And I was the lucky one…”
She stared at her hands, and her body seemed to curl in on itself. “I lived.”
An awkward silence hung in the air. Her eyes met his and widened, and the corners of her mouth turned down. She seemed to be probing his expression, looking for something there. Juan had no idea what.
Then her eyes hardened, as if shutters had suddenly slammed down behind them.
“Get up.” Lauren sprang to her feet. “We have a delivery to make.”
“Y
ou left the water out there.”
Camilla’s voice was a dry croak. She cleared her throat and stepped toward Juan, who was the first to come ashore. Her mouth was so dry it hurt. She could hear angry voices behind her, and she knew she should be angry, too, but the tightness in her throat wasn’t anger—it was disappointment. Betrayal. Her motorcycle hero wasn’t planning to share the water.
“We’re all so thirsty.” She didn’t like the way her own voice sounded: weak and whiny. She spoke with more force. “I saw you two tying a rope through the handles on the water jugs. We all did. But then you left them there. Why, Juan?”
Juan’s expression was neutral. He raised his hands in a placating gesture, and Camilla felt a little better. Maybe this wasn’t what she thought. Then he shrugged and pointed back at Lauren, climbing up out of the surf behind him.
Lauren shook the water out of her hair. She looked at the semicircle of angry, bewildered faces, smirked, and turned to Juan.
“Looks like no one else found any water,” she said. “Isn’t that a bummer?” Her smirk didn’t change as everyone tried to shout at her at once. Juan just looked bored.
Camilla turned away to avoid saying something she would regret. She couldn’t believe that Juan was going along with this. She tried to catch Mason’s eye, but he was grinning at the water jugs in the distance. Of course
he
would think it was funny, but she didn’t—not at all. She looked for Jordan but couldn’t see her. Weird. Everyone else was here…
“Hold on,” Brent’s voice commanded. He held up a hand, and the angry shouts quieted. “Lauren, dehydration is a serious health risk. These people need water. Don’t play childish games with this.”
“Relax,” Lauren said. Shouldering past him, she grabbed one of the two ropes that stretched over the water. And pulled.
Camilla’s eyes followed the rope to its other end, where a white train of water jugs was tumbling one by one off the edge of the distant rock, to hang suspended over the water. The jugs dangled from the second rope, which had been threaded through their handles. Lauren began hauling the rope in, hand over hand. The train of water jugs moved toward them, sliding along the second rope like laundry on a clothesline. JT stepped up next to Lauren to help pull.