Page 35 of Bite of Passage
Gemma released a noise filled with shocked distress.Despite her horror, she wondered why VanFliet hadn’t decapitated Skarde.It would’ve killed her on many levels to watch Skarde die, but, for VanFliet, decapitation would guarantee Skarde couldn’t return.This…well, to die by sunlight would be a painful death, but there were still fifteen minutes before that happened.Fifteen minutes of hope for Gemma.
“Get up,” she ordered.
VanFliet scrutinized his surroundings as if he’d heard her.
The portal might be open.Her heart, already pounding, soared.
She slapped her hand over her mouth to avoid any further sound.
VanFliet ordered one of his vampires, “Sweep the area.I heard something.”
The scene switched to Skarde.He attempted to rise, cradled his head, and fell to his back.His hand gripped the rain slick, muddy cliff in a second attempt to pull himself upright, but he couldn’t get purchase.He wasn’t going to make it up the cliff.
Out loud she whispered, “Come on, be Skarde.Get off your ass and climb before the drug takes you.”
“Can’t do it,” he replied.“Dizzy.Losing blood.”
He had heard her.She’d barely whispered it.
She could either jump into the show and help him up or watch him die.She grabbed her backpack—her first-aid kit might be useful.She’d need rope to get down to him, or maybe to get him up.She didn’t have any lying around.No, wait…
Racing to her bedroom, she grabbed the parachute cord belt she’d bought from the kid down the hall last fall as part of some sort of scout fundraiser.When she returned the show had panned back to the cliff’s edge.Still not sign of him climbing.
Even if she got Skarde up the cliff, she would need something to shield him from the sun.She snatched the Christmas fleece off her sofa before she touched the screen, which immediately sucked her in.The travel was a slippery sensation this time with less compression, but there was a whirring inside her head.It left her wobbly and disoriented upon arrival.
She opened her eyes when she slid on mud.She was above Skarde, on the edge of the cliff.A quick grab for a passing tree branch halted her slide toward the rim.Clinging to the low-hanging branch to anchor herself, she peeked over the edge.Rain pelted the back of her head as if pushing her to join Skarde.
Damn it, why hadn’t she grabbed a raincoat?Her sweatshirt did nothing but absorb the wet.
He wasn’t that far down, maybe fifteen feet.Still, there was no way she could lean over and help him up.They’d both end up at the bottom of the gulley.She couldn’t make out what lay down there with the rain, but best guess, there’d be a river and rocks—certain death for her.
Skarde stared up from where he lay half on and half off a narrow rocky edge.She couldn’t gauge his consciousness.What she could tell in the moonlight was that there was a lot of blood on his shirt.
She whispered as loud as she dared, “Skarde, are you dead down there?”
“Gemma, go?—”
“Don’t you dare say ‘go home.’You’re going to have to participate in this rescue.”
She tossed her backpack and fleece near the tree.Unknotting the parachute cord that comprised the belt wasn’t as easy as she thought.Its selling point, according to the kid she’d gotten it from, was that it could be used in an emergency.Her fingers slipped on the wet, orange cord as she worked to unravel it.
Skarde called from below, “Not going to last long.Sun’s rising.”
“Doing my best up here,” she yelled.She hoped the cord would reach.Best to anchor it.She tied it around the tree, silently shooting athank-youto one of her foster brothers who, even though he’d ended up in a maximum-security prison by the time he was nineteen, taught her about knots and knives.The cord ended a few feet above Skarde when lowered.Damn.“Grab the rope.I’ll help pull you up.”
“That’s not rope.It’s twine.”He didn’t move.
“It’ll hold you.The kid who sold it to me said it’ll hold up to 550 pounds.I figure you weigh two-thirds of that.”
Skarde pushed up on his elbows, wobbled, and fell backward.He stared up at her through the torrential downpour.His eyelids did a few slow blinks.Crap.He was acting defeated.
“Get.Up!”she yelled.
He didn’t move.
Time to channel her best badass nurse attitude.“What do you think you’re doing?You don’t get to pout because you got your ass handed to you.Get up or so help me I will come down there and lay a smack down on you the likes of which you’ll never forget.Climb!”
Laughter.Low and grumbly.Her chest clenched.
