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Eli exchanged a glance with me, his thinning patience dancing in his captivating gray eyes.

“Fine.” He passed the rope to James. “I’ll go behind you, but we have to work together.”

“Sure.” James wrapped his hands around the rope’s girth as Eli got into position to his rear. “Miles, we’re about to pull!”

“Do it!” Miles screamed from below.

“Ready?” James peered over his shoulder for a moment. “On three. Three... Two... One!”

I swore time stood still as they took the strain, both men edging backward inch by inch until finally, Miles’s voice grew louder. Tension seeped into my body, contorting my muscles until it was difficult to take another breath. I didn’t know Miles—and didn’t much like what I knew—but the idea of him falling to his fate on our so-called adventure was too much to process. Eli and Jameshadto save him.

“That’s it!” Miles cried with excitement. “I’m climbing. Only a couple more feet and I’ll be up.”

“How’s that knot, Chelle?” Eli asked without turning to face her.

“O-okay...” She sounded on the brink of tears, and I considered going to hug her but decided against the move. Better that I was available to help Eli if he needed any new equipment from his pack.

“That’s great.” Eli’s jaw stiffened as he pulled harder against Miles’s weight.

Moving tentatively toward the edge, I saw the top of Miles’s light brown hair come into view, the sight only escalating my peaking trepidation. He was so close to the top, so close to accomplishing what had seemed at first glance to be near impossible, yet the apprehension inside me counseled caution. Something could yet go wrong. He wasn’t safe until he was on terra firma with us.

Anxiety hung in the air like moisture from the nearby waterfall, ratcheting every second until it seemed unbearable. Only James seemed able to see the bright side.

“Miles!” James beamed as his friend neared. It was the happiest I’d seen him. “It’s going to be okay. Just hold on.”

“I’m slipping.” Miles’s frowning countenance came into view. “My hands are wet, and now, so’s the rope.”

“Here.” Releasing one hand, James edged forward and offered Miles his palm. “Take this.”

“No, James!” Eli yelled. “Hold the rope. That’s how we help him.”

“Take my hand!” James shouted, dismissing Eli’s caution. “Come on!”

“James, don’t!” I pleaded as Miles released his grasp on the rope and reached for James’s hand.

“Damn it, James!” Anger burned in Eli’s voice as he struggled to take the strain. “Listen!”

“Quick!” James shouted to Miles. “You’re so close.”

“Wait, I...” Miles reached for his friend’s hand, clutching first at his fingertips, and then his entire right palm. “I have you! I think I have you!”

“Thank God!” James let go of the rope and grabbed Miles’s hand. “You’re all right!”

“James!” The twang of desperation in Eli’s usually so composed voice was the most disturbing sound so far. “I can’t hold the weight alone.”

“I’ll help!” I ran toward the rope, watching as time started to move in the same strange pockets of slow motion it had lurched into when Miles had first slipped and fallen.

Only inches from the rope, I watched James clutch Miles’s hand, only to see his grip loosen against his friend’s wet skin.

“No!”

James’s panic echoed around the clearing, and then and there, I knew what was going to happen. My heart was pounding so fast that I thought I might vomit.

“Shit!” Miles was the first to articulate their doom as, losing his grasp of James’s hand, he toppled backward.

“Miles!” James went next, lurching forward like a man deranged in a crazy attempt to catch Miles.

Reaching the rope, I clasped its width, but it was already too late. James had let go of the cord to save his friend, and Miles had already abandoned it in favor of James’s hand. I tumbled back into Eli, and we landed on the dirt with a thud as the two hapless fellows plunged to the rocky depths below.

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