Page 32 of Extracted

She sidled around him and found herself teetering on the edge of a ravine. She gasped, and he caught her elbow. Backing up a few inches, she shook her head.

There was a river in front of them.

“Oh no. Oh god.”

She glanced down at the GPS and her heart rate kicked up. So that’s what the windy thing cutting between them and the path to the plane was—a damn river. Had she not been on the brink of fainting, she probably would’ve figured it out sooner.

The brown current wound in a turbulent force, making her insides swish.

Dallas let out another few curses. “We’ve got to get across.”

She snapped her face in his direction. “There’s no way we’re getting across that in one piece. Plus, who knows what that water’s infested with.”

He rubbed his hand over his face, wiping away the sweat and adding more dirt. “Yeah, well, we don’t have much choice but to find a way.”

She opened and closed her hands at her sides. He wasn’t wrong. Not only was getting to the plane entirely necessary at this point, but the route to Ecuador was across the river. Even if they wanted to head back to Colombia, they’d never make it without water.

She tilted her head back and stared at the canopy of branches and vines above them. “I mean . . . we could try to climb. The trees on this side interlace with the trees on the other. Those branches look pretty thin, though, and there’re probably jaguars hanging out up there.”

Dallas grunted. “The branches might hold you, but they sure as hell won’t take my weight.” He took a step back and paced the edge of the slope, his gaze skyward. “You might be on to something, though.”

He tugged at some vines dangling from the trees. Setting his stick down, he gripped one of the vines near its base and lifted his feet off the ground. “Pretty fucking strong, actually.” His boots landed on the earth with a clomp.

She held out a hand, a laugh tickling her vocal cords. “Wait a minute. You’re not considering swinging across, are you? Who do you think you are, Tarzan?”

Dallas’s mouth twitched—the first sign of amusement she’d witnessed on his face since they dropped from the sky.

“You got a better idea, Jane?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “We could build a bridge.”

He chuckled.

“Okay, I know that’s not an option. But the distance across can’t be more than what? Eight feet? Maybe if we walk farther down, we can find a fallen tree or something.”

He shrugged. “We might get lucky with that, but we’re going to waste energy and daylight. I think it’s best we try something.”

She tightened her arms around her. Anxiety pulled at the muscles in her neck.

“People make rope swings all the time.” He gave the vine a tug. “We just have to make sure to leap off at the right moment.”

She gave her head a slight shake. “Yeah, rope swings. Not vine swings.”

“Where do you think the idea came from?” He passed her the vine. “I don’t think we could make anything stronger.”

She closed her fingers around the twined leathery material. It felt thinner than she’d anticipated, which didn’t help ease her fears. Placing her hands near the base, as Dallas had, she lifted her feet off the ground.

It was strong.

She dropped back down and glanced across. “I don’t know if this will make it far enough. We’d need a vine from farther out, and even then, we might have to jump.”

Dallas picked up his trusty stick and, holding a tree trunk, stretched his arm toward the river. He scooped up a vine that had previously been out of reach and towed it in.

Gemma caught it and he put down his stick.

Dallas took it from her and tugged then did the weight test. “Seems good to me.”

“Great. You take the first swing.”

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