Outbreak (27 page)

“There’s a cave,” he calls in a loud whisper. “Hurry.”

Glancing down the tunnel for any sign of the approaching drifters, I reach for the first handhold Eli used and pull myself up. I find the first few protruding rocks easily with my feet, but halfway up, my brain falters.

“Up and to the right,” calls Eli.

Suddenly, I hear voices bouncing off the cliff again, and my heart speeds up.

Focus,
I tell myself.
Don’t think about them.

Careful not to shift my center of gravity, I crane my neck to search for the handhold Eli is referring to.

I can just make out a tiny hole in the rock. It’s barely big enough for three fingers, but it provides some stability as I shift my right foot awkwardly to the next rock jutting out about an inch from the cliff.

The voices in the tunnel are growing louder.

“Hurry!” Eli hisses.

“I’m trying,” I choke, floundering as I reach for the next crack with my left hand. Eli reached it easily during his climb, but he’s much taller; I can’t even brush it with my fingertips.

“Stretch!”

“I can’t reach,” I say in a shaky voice.

I’m starting to lose it. The adrenalin from the shootout, my tiring muscles, and the stress of being spotted are a bad combination. I’m quivering against the rock, completely frozen as I will a crack to appear.

Jayden’s words echo in my mind.
Being stuck out there with this one . . . 

It doesn’t matter what Eli says. No matter how pure his intentions were, there still must have been some small part of him that thought I was incompetent as a partner. And maybe I was, but I’m not going to be weak anymore.

The drifters’ individual voices are discernible now, echoing loudly in the tunnel. I don’t have much time.

Craning my neck, I finally spot another tiny imperfection in the rock — a gap just big enough to slide my hand through. I get a good grip, but when I place my right foot, it slips right off the tiny ledge.

My right cheek smashes into the rock as my downward momentum throws me against the cliff. The sharp handhold cuts into my left hand as all my weight shifts to my arms.

With every ounce of strength I have, I stretch my leg up to find the slippery bump again, but I’ve fallen too far and don’t have the strength to pull myself up.

I can hear the scuff of the drifters’ boots. They’re going to see me. I just know it.

I’m in the worst spot imaginable — too high to jump down and make a run for it, but too low to make the final ascent to the ledge.

A shout reverberates off the rock — just a few yards down the tunnel. 

Then a warm hand grabs my wrist and tugs.

twenty-two

Eli

With my body splayed across the narrow ledge, I’m just tall enough to reach down and grab Harper by the wrist. I’ve hooked my foot around a rock inside the cave, but my position isn’t good. If I slip even an inch, there’s nothing to stop me from sliding off the ledge and pulling Harper down with me.

The drifters are right around the bend, and she’s too short to reach the last good handhold.

“Harper, listen to me,” I pant. “I need you to pull yourself the rest of the way.”

When she finally responds, her voice sounds very small. “I don’t have anything to grab on to.”

I let out as big a breath as I dare and tighten my hold on her thin wrist. My grip definitely isn’t strong enough to support her full weight, and there isn’t room on the ledge to hoist her up and over.

“Listen,” I whisper, closing my eyes and trying to conjure up a mental picture of the cliff. “There’s a rock a couple inches above your right hand. I’m going to pull, and I need you to let go and grab it. Can you do that?”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

Harper’s arm trembles. She must be losing her grip.

“You have to try. It’s not that far. Then you can put your left foot on the rock by your hip and push yourself up to the ledge.”

How I plan to pull her up that far when I’m splayed on my stomach is beyond me, but our options are limited.

“Okay,” she chokes.

“One . . .” I squeeze her wrist.

“Two . . .” I clench every muscle in my core and brace my foot against the rock holding me to the ledge. 

“Three!”

In one motion, I yank Harper up as hard as I can. My knee screams in protest as I raise up awkwardly on my little rock shelf, but Harper doesn’t scream, and I don’t hear the telltale scuff of her boots floundering against the cliff.

Cautiously, I peer over the ledge. She reached the small, slippery rock, and her left foot has found purchase on another bump. She grits her teeth, and I pull. Sweet relief flares through me when I see her upper half clear the ledge.

We nearly bump heads as I half pull, half fall back toward the cave. She gets a knee on the ledge, and I immediately look down.

From our lofty position, I see the drifters round the bend. There are three men toting guns, moving down the tunnel to where we just were. 

“They aren’t here,” says the man leading the group.

“Well, they didn’t disappear.”

Don’t look up. Don’t look up. Don’t look up.

“I
said
. . . They. Aren’t. Here.”

“Well, we gotta keep lookin’, then, don’t we?”

I freeze on the ledge, afraid to pull Harper into the cave. There’s a layer of dust and small rocks covering our path, and one wrong move could make a noise that catches the drifters’ attention.

I hold my breath, watching them deliberate.

Finally, the men turn around and start heading back down the tunnel. I wait until they disappear around the cliff and the sounds of their voices fade into nothingness.

When they’re gone, I shift my grip to Harper’s upper arm. She’s frozen on the ledge like a bird on a wire, and I have to give her a gentle tug.

Once Harper starts inching toward me, I scoot back into the cave and pull her down to duck inside. She’s breathing hard and looks a little shaken, but other than that, she’s okay.

I can’t believe how quickly everything unraveled. Less than half an hour ago, we were cruising along in the rover. Now, thanks to me, we’re stranded in a cave with a good twenty miles of desert between us and the compound.

Looking around, I’m surprised to see that it isn’t completely dark. I’d thought the opening was just a hole in the cliff, but there’s light filtering through from the other side.

Crouching low to avoid scraping my head, I start climbing over the rock jutting out of the cave floor.

Finding another exit would be ideal. For one thing, it would help us avoid a possible ambush from the drifter search party down below. But more importantly, I don’t think we’ll be able to descend from the cave the same way we climbed up.

The sound of shifting rocks makes me jump, but it’s just Harper coming up behind me. We follow the light back about ten yards up a steep incline to a two-foot-wide opening that’s beckoning us to freedom. 

I climb through the hole and emerge on a flat slab of rock, grateful for the burst of fresh air against my cheek. I breathe deeply and try to take everything in, but the view is too magnificent to absorb all at once.

“Wow,” murmurs Harper.

That’s an understatement.

What I’d thought was a protrusion in the cliff from down below is actually another rock formation entirely. The one we’re standing on is taller, but the cliff closest to the road continues for another five hundred yards.

The winding ribbon of highway cuts through the rugged brown landscape, disappearing where the desert meets the breathtaking blue sky. There are about two miles of open land between us and the town, and I can just barely discern the shape of buildings on the horizon.

In another life, I’d be thinking about how beautiful the desert is. Maybe Harper and I would have climbed up here to admire the wide expanse of nothingness and gorgeous sandstone rock formations. We wouldn’t be thinking of the men down below who want to kill us or the minefield of danger surrounding the small town.

Harper is studying the cliffside with the same wary admiration. A few strands of hair have come loose from her ponytail, and when they blow back, I can see my own anxiety reflected in her luminous gray eyes.

Now that we’re out of immediate danger, I realize just how thirsty and exhausted I am. We have plenty of water right now, so I settle down on the cliff, pull out my water bag, and drink greedily. 

Harper follows suit, and for several minutes, we just sit there in silence.

“How are we going to get down?” she asks finally.

I glance over the edge. We’re about thirty feet up, with nothing but jagged rocks and rough brush below us. It’s possible we could climb down, but one slipup would be catastrophic. Shifting to my hands and knees, I crawl to the edge of the cliff and peer toward the ground.

On the other side, there are a couple tiers of rock leading down to the base of the cliff. This descent looks much less treacherous.

“We can make it down over here.”

Harper gives me a look that can only be described as pitiful, and I settle against the large rock I’ve been using as a backrest. “In a minute.”

She nods gratefully and continues to sip her water. I can tell she’s exhausted. She’s got a nasty skid mark across her right cheek from where she slammed into the cliff and dirt all over her hands and knees. Yet even in her bedraggled state, she still looks so pretty.

Watching her triggers a pang of regret in my gut. I can’t believe I almost left the compound without her. 

Who was I kidding anyway? I wouldn’t want anyone else for a partner. I just hate that she had to find out that I tried to trade her in for someone new.

After a while, she seems to return to her old self. I tighten the drawstring on my rucksack and move toward the edge of the rock formation.

Choosing my handholds carefully, I grip two rocks protruding from the ground and lower myself down to the first ledge. Harper follows, and I watch her closely to make sure she doesn’t slip.

The next two drops aren’t as easy. The surface of the ledge we’re standing on is smooth and flat, which makes getting a firm grip next to impossible. But Harper’s looking up at me with that heart-wrenching “What now?” expression, which forces me over the edge and gives me the last push to drop to the next rock.

The protrusion was narrower than I thought, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from stumbling right off the edge. I swear loudly and steady myself on the uneven surface, feet aching from the jump.

“Eli!”

Harper’s panicked face appears above me. 

“I’m all right,” I call, forcing myself to breathe normally. “It’s just a little narrow. You’re gonna have to dangle and let yourself drop. You’ll feel like you’re going over the edge when you land, but you won’t.”

“I don’t know . . .”

“You’ll be fine.”

“
You
barely made it.”

I sigh and drop my head, debating what I should tell her. It’s a dangerous jump — no doubt about it — but there’s no time to look for another possible descent point. We’ve already lost hours. Owen could be on the move right now, and every moment we waste is a moment we risk losing him for good.

“You’ll be okay,” I say, trying to sound more convinced than I feel. “I’ll catch you.”

“You can’t catch me.”

“Just jump.”

Harper sighs, and her face disappears from view. Then I see the bottoms of her boots and her legs as she lowers herself slowly over the rock. When it’s just her forearms holding her, she tries to find a footing on the edge of the cliff and slips.

“Harper!” I yell.

Dirt and rock rain down on me as she scrambles to get a better grip, but she’s sliding off the edge of the slab without even getting the right handholds. She’s dangling a good six feet over my head with no way to gauge distance or plan her landing.

“Easy!” I call. “Easy.”

Harper makes a strange noise that sounds like a gurgle, and my mind races to give her some kind of instructions.

The problem is that she can’t see where I am, and there’s barely enough room on the ledge for the both of us. 

I can’t catch her now. She’s just going to have to drop and regain her balance on her own.

“Harper?”

She makes another sound that isn’t a word, and fear hits me like a train.

“You just have to let yourself go,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm. “You’re only about six feet from the ledge. If you fall straight down and catch yourself, you’ll be fine. You’re going to land right in the middle of this big rock.”

I step into the shadow of her ledge and close my eyes to summon the strength to let her drop.

Harper can do this. This is what we train for . . . sort of.

“On the count of three,” I call.

Silence.

“Come on, Harper. One . . . two . . . three.”

Harper lets out a little yelp and falls. 

Suddenly she’s right in front of me. She grins in relief, but then she starts to stumble backward off the rock with no way to catch herself. She must have placed all her weight right on the outer edge, and now the rock is crumbling away.

Harper falls in slow motion, and I make a grab for her. Terror flashes through her eyes, but my hands close around her arms, and I yank her forward.

She slams into my chest, and we both tumble back against the cliff. Her heart is hammering frantically against my ribcage, and I disturb her hair as I let out a breath of intense relief. I squeeze her harder than I should, just to reassure myself that she’s safe.

“I thought I was going over,” she murmurs into my chest. “I thought . . .”

She pulls away and glances over the edge of the rock. I expect her to turn back with a haunted look in her eyes, but they’re wide with adrenaline and excitement.

She lets out a sharp laugh and breaks into a smile. I stare for a moment in disbelief, but her face is frozen in a grin so ridiculous that there’s nothing to do except smile back.

The next descent is much easier. There are a few sturdy rocks to use as handholds, and when our boots finally hit solid ground, relief surges though me.