Leo nodded, jerking his gaze back before taking a long drink and tucking his canteen into his pack. “Yeah.”
“We’re still going down, but we’ll take the easier way. I think you’re a little too tired to rappel.” She folded up the map.
“I’m not tired,” he lied.
She ignored this. “Step in my steps,” she reminded him. “And don’t stand on the edge of the rocks.”
Unfortunately, Leo didn’t have Lily’s balance, and it took his hands and his feet to navigate part of the descent.
“This is the easy way?” he asked.
“Not if you’re gonna bitch about it the whole way down.”
He opened his mouth to say something sarcastic, but when a lizard darted out across his hand, he jerked back in surprise, his foot slipping. One second he was there, and then he was gone, free-falling, and wondering if this was what Terry felt.
The ground disappeared, gravity sending him down a speckled slide of shale and gravel in under a second, Lily’s scream already seeming impossibly far away. He reached for whatever he could find—plants, branches, rocks—his fingers clawing at the dirt as the world flipped upside down and then right again over and over. His stomach rolled around inside him; his legs felt disconnected from his body. Something cut into his palm, scraped against his face. The wind was knocked from his lungs when he finally landed on his pack at the bottom of… somewhere.
His ears rang; dirt and grit burned his eyes and clouded his vision. He wasn’t sure where he was until Lily was there, out of breath and passing frantic hands over his chest, his legs, his face.
“Leo—” Her voice cut off abruptly as she pushed his pack off his shoulders, feeling down his arms, squeezing, pressing her fingers to his neck to feel his pulse. “I thought you died.”
He tried to sit up, but everything hurt. Especially his ass. “I might wish I had,” he said, groaning.
“Does anything feel broken?”
He looked at his hand; he’d cut it on something but not too bad. She traced what he imagined was a scrape on his cheekbone and frowned. He tested everything else: elbows, wrists, knees, feet. It all seemed to move. “I don’t think so.”
She sank to the ground, pulling him to her. “I really thought you died,” she said again, voice suspiciously thick. Lily held his head to her shoulder, pressing his face to her neck, and the sweaty heat of her skin made him dizzy all over again.
“Lil, I’m okay.” He tried to pull back, but she tightened her hold on him, and his suspicions deepened. “Hey,” he murmured, wrapping his arms around her, slowly rubbing her back. “Look at me. I’m okay.”
Finally, she allowed him to tip her chin back and look at her face. His heart took a sharp, delicious nose dive in his chest. This steely, wary woman was crying. Over him.
He reached up, running his thumb over her wet cheek, and she reluctantly turned her watery eyes up to his. Leo would voluntarily fall down that hill a dozen more times if it meant she’d look at him like that every time. “See? Not dead. Not missing any teeth, am I?” He smiled.
She scowled at this, not ready to joke yet. “You’re really okay?”
His smile widened into a grin despite the pain. “I’m really okay.”
“Okay.” She took a shuddering breath and nodded, eyes searching his features to reassure herself. “Leo?” she said softly.
He gazed up at her lips, leaning forward. “Yeah?”
She lightly cuffed the top of his head. “I told you to watch your step.”
Chapter Nineteen
IT TOOK A good twenty minutes for Lily’s adrenaline to sort itself out, and when it did, the powerful roar of the river reminded her that the hike down into the Maze was supposed to be the easy part. She could hear Duke’s gravelly voice: This is Canyoneering 101, pal. Don’t tell me you’re not prepared for this.
Leo came to a limping stop behind her, voicing her thoughts: “Whoa. That’s more water than I expected.”
Looking out at the river, Lily felt her stomach sink. Whitecaps jutted up, crashing down on each other, tangling. Small eddies whirled in graceful spirals; fat, glossy pillows of water pushed up against unknown obstacles. And from the way the water ran flat right in the middle, Lily knew it was deep.
No, Duke, I am absolutely not prepared for this.
No river crossing is worth your life, her father drawled in response. Did you pack your stuff watertight?
She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. Their packs were water-resistant, at best, but she’d expected calm water to her shins. It was part of the reason she’d planned the descent where she did, to cross here. Putting aside the possibility of ruined maps and waterlogged sat phones, if their things got wet and they were unable to start a fire, unable to change into dry clothes…