The brother died on impact—decapitated.
I catch another glimpse of that glinting wire as our raft noses down the wave, preparing to pop up toward it.
Allie’s words thunder in my brain for the second time tonight. “A couple of the rafters were missing their hands. Two were missing their heads.”
Terror seizes my entire body.
Allie was right. It’s all happening again.
Bryan must have somehow strung razor wire across the river between the canyon walls. Those of us who escaped his stabbing spree have been sent downriver to die in a second trap.
Suddenly, I can feel Parker in the boat beside me. I can’t see him, but I know he’s here all the same. Calm, insistent, and absolutely real.“Head down, Kaia. Tell the others. Now.”
This is Third Man Syndrome,the uselessly rational part of my brain manages to interject. But I’m not listening to it, I’m listening to him. The words tear from my throat the instant before we buck through the wave. “Headdown! There’s razor wire!”
“What?” Macy cries, her hoarse voice barely audible from her position at the rear. “No, keep rowing!” she insists, clearly not understanding.
“Get your fucking heads down!” I snarl in desperation, feeling the raft tip upward as the other women fling their paddles into the center of the boat and follow my lead.
I throw myself down into the pocket of space at the front of the raft alongside them, grabbing the straps of Allie’s life jacket and bringing her down with me just as thewave launches the boat up like a rocket toward that glinting wire at head level—now dripping with blood.
“No—” Macy cries, followed by a shrill scream that turns into a wet gasp.
Then she goes silent.
The raft shudders and bucks as Macy’s guide oars slam into the narrow canyon walls with a splintering set of cracks, then a muted splash.
“No, no, no,” Allie whimpers, crouching in the inches of water sloshing around us, surely tinged with blood. “Oh my god, no.”
My mind goes numb with horror. I want to vomit. There’s no way anybody survived that. The smell of copper wafts toward me again, raw and violent.
I stay next to Allie, face down in the center of the raft, until I feel the boat begin to bob more slowly. Then I ease myself up and blink into the night.
In a daze, I count the remaining women in our raft.
Four. Me, Allie, Deborah, and Pam. Macy is gone—and so are her guide oars. The clamps that kept them locked in place at the back of the raft are twisted and broken.
A wave of disbelief makes me feel so lightheaded I think I’m going to pass out, my hands shaking so badly I can hardly grip my paddle.
“What was that? What just happened?” Pam asks, voice high and shaky as she drags herself up onto the middle bench. She looks between me and Allie, eyes wild. “Where is Macy? What thehelljust happened?”
“Beth!” Deborah screams frantically, rising up from where she’s been crouched beside Pam. “Beth? Oh god, where is everybody else, why aren’t they answering?” She whirls around to face me. “What the hell happened to Macy?”
Without waiting for a response, she grabs hold of a paddle, dipping it into the river to aim us toward the firstpassenger raft that is now floating maybe ten yards downriver in front of us, scraping slowly against the canyon wall in the meandering current.
I strain my eyes in the dark, but I can’t see a single person manning that raft. And it certainly no longer sags with the weight of twelve people. The faintly glowing orange rubber is no longer uniform in color. Dark splotches and streaks dribble into the water.
A full-body shiver tears through me. I’m terrified to imagine what’s left of the other women.
The river has gone eerily silent. No moans. No cries for help. Only the distant thunder of the falls behind us.
And—I realize with a jolt—there’s no sign of Bryan’s gear raft.
Why isn’t he on us yet? Where is he?
I’m terrified to learn the answers to those questions. All I know right now is that we have to get out of here. We have to keep rowing. But there’s no way we can move on without looking for survivors—if there are any.
“Shh. Listen! Can anybody hear anything?” I cry. We all go very still, looking out into the water surrounding us. There are still no cries for help. No splashing. No movement at all, except the rippling current.