Page 103 of Valley Girls
Thea straightened. “I’m done.” Grabbing her hat, she stormed down the hall and slammed her bedroom door.
Done?
Rilla glared at the door.Donedone? “Ofcourseyou are,” she yelled, before stomping outside. She kicked the dirt all the way through the meadow. Hating the gear and all it represented—not her hard work anymore, but the things she’d never be able to climb beyond. Thea was unfair—but she was right. A month of climbing wasn’t anything. She’d give it all over just to have her sister not think she was a useless annoyance. To have hernotbe done. And what was she going to do about climbing now? The Nose?
The Nose!
If Thea found out about The Nose, she’d send her back to West Virginia for sure.
The grass was dry and dead at the edges of Camp 4, and on her first walk through the camp, no one was there. She sat at the picnic table at Tam’s empty campsite, waiting for someone to show up. The afternoon light shifted through the trees and Rilla put her head in her arms and sank into the heaviness in her chest.
Someday she was going to go so far away no one would know who she was or where she came from, and she could start over with no memory of her mistakes.
Rilla kept expecting someone to show up. But no one did. She glanced at the SAR site, but no one was there either. It was sunset now, the tourists had all lit fires and climbers and hikers she didn’t know were beginning to come back to camp. She pushed off the table to go find Jonah, still carrying the cam with her.
On her way across the Valley, she caught sight of the old man at the SAR site who’d fed her the morning she’d climbed with Caroline—hustling somewhere in his fluorescent T-shirt. She wanted to ask where everyone had gone, but his face was set in a grim line, and he seemed not to notice anyone or anything except the place he was trying to be. Her chest tightened and she picked up her pace. Something felt wrong. She felt wrong. Her stomach churned, hating that she’d made Thea mad, hating that Thea was right, and hating Thea for being unfair. The temptation to message Curtis hit her in the gut, and then she only hated herself for having to fight so hard against it. Rilla couldn’t go back—not when she kept screwing things up like this.
Rilla found Jonah in the cafeteria. “Do you know what’s going on?” she asked.
He looked confused. “I haven’t heard anything,” he said with a shrug. “You okay?”
She nodded.
“Run later?”
“Yeah, sure.” Thanking him, she left the building and wandered back outside. The crowds seemed on edge too—people talked with each other in urgent, curious tones. She wanted to stop and ask everyone what was going on, but didn’t know how to intrude. Maybe it was all in her head.
There were no sirens, but she followed a passing ambulance anyway, out of the woods and into the meadow below El Cap. The massive cliff stood in shadows. Only the tip-top of Half Dome held light now. And a dark haze seemed to creep out of the trees.
She edged to Lauren. “What’s going on?” Rilla asked. Even Ranger Miller was there, looking like he was actually doing work as he talked with other rangers and then spoke into the radio.
“They’re doing a rescue.”
Rilla looked up. The dusty orange-and-cream granite was darkening and if she squinted, she could spot tiny stars of light beginning to dot the cliff—they were each climbing teams, she knew that. But which one ...
“Where is it?” Rilla asked.
Lauren pointed. “See under that big shadow.”
Rilla put both hands on her forehead, straining, trying to see. There was nothing but dusky granite.
Her pulse raced in her neck. Who was on the wall? And who had been sent to get them?
“Everyone’s gone for this? What happened? Do you know who?”
“I don’t know. We have a broken arm from a dropped haul bag. Half of us are here. Half are split between some hikers missing in Tenaya Canyon. And a turned ankle on Four-Mile Trail.”
“Shit,” Rilla breathed.
“When it rains, it pours.” Lauren’s radio bleeped. She turned away and answered. “Thea’s coming over,” she said. “Hang around. We might need bodies for Tenaya Canyon.”
Rilla startled, but Lauren didn’t seem to notice. Hang around? As in, to be useful? She wasn’t useful. To anyone. But suddenly, she wanted to be. Her pulse pounded in her neck and she nodded to Lauren, a sense of purpose flooding her body and rooting her to the meadow.
Rilla moved in the grass, pushing through the dry stalks until she came to a man with binoculars. “Can I borrow those for a second?” It was nearly impossible to spot climbers on the wall without binoculars.
The man pulled the glasses away and blinked, but he handed them over and pointed at the wall. “Right there, below the big flake.”
Rilla’s hands shook as she put the binoculars to her eyes and blinked. The wall came into focus. Empty. She moved it, slowly, scanning, straining her eyes in the fading light. With every second she couldn’t find them, it felt as if the possibility it was someone she knew increased.
