Page 44 of Master of Lies

I hoped she hadn’t dinged it too hard. That woman had enough serious personal problems to grapple with without adding a bad head injury to the list.

Sandee. Freya. Thefuck?

Whoa, stop that shit. No rabbit holes. One thing at a time.

I find footholds, brace myself, studying the situation. Get the rope over her head and shoulders. Pull her arms through. Tuck it under her armpits. Lots of manipulation and movement, without letting her fall off the narrow ledge. Or falling myself.

And it was just a loop, not a harness. So she had to wake up, be smart and active, help me out. I couldn’t hold her limp body and climb out hand over hand.

“Sandee!” I said urgently. “Babe. Wake up. I need you to help me get you out of this. We have to get back up the cliff. Sandee!”

Her eyes fluttered. “Huh?” she mumbled. “Who?”

She wasn’t connecting. “Freya,” I said grimly. “Wake the fuck up.Now.”

That snapped her eyes wide open. She blinked at me.

So it was true. Not that Boer would have had any reason to lie about something so random, so bizarre, so easily disproved. Not that it changed anything right now.

“You’ve got to help me,” I told her. “I have to get this rope under your arms so I can pull you up, so you have to help me out. You have to hang on tight and keep the loop under your armpits, and help me with your feet whenever you can. I can’t do this if you just lie there like a sack of flour. You hear me?”

“I hear you.” Her voice was a thread. It quivered, which unnerved me.

“Is anything broken?” I demanded.

“I don’t think so. I’m really cold. I can’t feel much of anything.”

“Can you move?” I asked.

She lifted her head, and peered over the edge down the cliff, then looked up and met my eyes. “I’m afraid to,” she admitted.

I braced my feet in a notch I found in the rock wall. “I won’t let you fall.”

I hoped I could keep that rash promise as I got her ready, staying pressed against her like a bulwark against that long, empty nothing beyond the ledge.

They were extremely long, painful minutes, working the rope over her shivering body. When the loop was under her arms, I tested my knots. They were good and tight. Then I saw blood on her hands. “What the fuck? Why are your hands bleeding?”

“I grabbed onto the trees on my way down,” she said faintly.

Of course she did. Whatever else she might be, this girl was one badass babe.

“So this is what’ll happen,” I told her. “I’ll climb back up. Then I’ll pull you up. Your job is to keep the rope under your arms, hang on tight to the rope, and help me with your feet, as much as you can, whenever you can. Is that clear?”

“Crystal clear,” she said.

I got to the top, found some solid rock to brace myself, and started hauling her up the slope. She was tough and uncomplaining, mouth set, blood smeared over the side of her pallid face. She clung to the rope, and climbed whenever she could find footholds. There was just one harrowing part when I had to pull her over an overhang where she could find no purchase at all and had to dangle, feet waving over the emptiness. She just stared up at me, not letting herself look down. Tough babe.

And after that sweaty, nerve-wracking eternity, finally she was scrambling up over the top of the cliff. She collapsed onto the ground, panting.

“On your feet,” I said. “We have to get the fuck out of here.”

“Give me a second,” she mumbled.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but there’s a sniper on the other side of the canyon. I don’t know if he’s dead, wounded, or reloading. On your feet.” I grabbed her by the arm. She cried out sharply, and I froze. “What? Did you hurt your arm?”

“I caught myself on the trees with that arm, and the crazy mask guy was hanging off my feet,” she said. “He was heavy. Messed up my shoulder, I think.”

Damn, that sucked. Didn’t stop her, though. She climbed to her feet without my help, but she tottered like a newborn foal.

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