Page 23 of Delta Mission
A massive snap pierced the silence. The bridge tore away from its anchor behind me. I dove onto the planks and grabbed a rope. We screamed as we swung through the air.
We slammed, face first, into the rocks on the other side, crushing my fingers. Planks and dirt rained over me as I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my body to the timber.
The debris storm ended, and gasping in shock, I glanced up.
Channing was there.
“Jesus Christ.” He burst out laughing.
I wedged my feet between two planks and adjusted my grip. “You’re fucking crazy, you know that?”
“We’ve got nine lives, Goodspeed. Nine fucking lives.”
“Yeah, well, we just used up one of them.” Excruciating pain ripped through my left hand. The top knuckle of my pinkie finger was kinked at a hideous angle. Dislocated. Or broken.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Pretending I hadn’t noticed it, I glanced down but couldn’t see the river that I knew from satellite footage was there. “What do we do now?”
“We cli—” Channing stopped.
“What?”
“Ah, come on!” he yelled.
“What’s wrong?”
“The planks are all missing above me.”
“Shit! Really?” I eased out to look above him. Only the two side ropes of the bridge remained. “Can you climb up?”
Heaving a breath, he shuffled his rifle around to his back, and then reached up, gripped the rope, and with my heart in my throat, he monkeyed a foot higher. He repeated the move, making it look easy. It wouldn’t be.
I was strong in my legs and could run ten miles without breaking a sweat. My arms, though, were another story. I’d been working on them for years, but chin-ups were still the death of me. As Channing increased the distance between us, dread crawled up my spine.
I won’t be able to do this.
He was six feet off his starting point when he stopped. “You’re not going to believe this.”
“What?” I peered up at him.
“I found our shelter for the night.” He leaned into the rock wall, pushed off the rope, and vanished.
What the hell?
He appeared above me, smiling. “Come on up.”
I groaned. I couldn’t do this, but I had no choice. Climbing up the planks to where Channing had been would be easy. The next section though . . .
I looked up at him.
“Come on, what’re you waiting for?”
I heaved a breath.I can do this.
Trying to ignore the throbbing pain in my little finger, I wrapped my hands around the coarse rope and pulled myself higher. I tried to grip the rope with my legs, but it was pinned against the rocks by my body weight. I pressed the toes of my boots to the tattered twine, trying to get traction, but the rope was too thin.
Oh, God.My hands were the only purchase I had on the rope.
