Page 8 of No Hope of Rescue

“I can’t hang on much longer.”

“To the left.”

I shifted my gaze only by moving my eyes. A miracle. “Yeah. There’s one.”

The sounds of climbing were already coming from beneath me, the dry rustle of skin against rock and shoes scraping sandstone.

“I’m Brock,” said the voice as he slipped a quickdraw on the anchor. He was still a good seven feet from me and about three feet below. “What’s your name?”

“Riley. Riley Delgado.”

“Your helmet tight?”

I swallowed. “Yeah.”

I still couldn’t really see him, just the top of his black helmet. But I didn’t need to see him. My job was to follow his voice.

He never once sounded tense or impatient. “Okay. So. I want you to bend your left leg about thirty degrees and release your right grip, then lower your right leg six inches till you feel a ledge.”

How embarrassing. Six inches to freedom? That’s what I’d been scared of?

The moment I released my grip, my arm ached with lactic acid, and I had to force myself to attach again. Feeling the ledge hold under my weight was a relief—the ledge wasn’t wide, not more than three inches or so, and I had no idea how long it was.

“How’s that left arm?”

“Good,” I said and licked my lips.

“I’m coming to you.”

In two or three smooth maneuvers, he had climbed over the anchor and crossed the distance between us. He was now above the point of safety.

I could smell his skin and taste my own sweat. “I got you,” he said. “Let go.”

I couldn’t.

“Riley,” he said again, saving my name for this moment. “Let go. Just lean to the left, toward me, then put your arms around my neck. Don’t push,” he cautioned.

His right arm wrapped around my waist and held me tight. If we fell even a few feet before the anchor caught us, he might drop me. I had to trust him.

“Okay,” I said and immediately wrapped both arms around his neck and hung on.

His frame was hard and muscular. He had to use shorter grips to get us down to the anchor. Then he yelled, “Slack!” before running a rope under my arms and knotting it.

Only then did I look down. Another man was belaying him—us.

“You good to go?”

“Yes,” I whispered. He wrapped his arm around me again, and then I didn’t have to hang on to him so hard anymore. Good thing, too. My arms felt like spaghetti.

“Descend,” he called down, and slowly, using his other hand to keep us from crashing into the rockface, we made our way down. I never let go.

It took less than a minute.

Brock was a good foot taller than me, so he reached the ground first, then gently set me on hard-packed red earth. He reached up and unlocked my hands from the back of his neck and then unknotted the rope under my arms. My fingers were useless.

More humiliating than being stuck was the fact I suddenly felt faint.

“Sit down,” he said. And then the next “sit” was more forceful. I squatted, and he pulled one leg out from under me and then the other, put a hand between my shoulder blades, and tipped my head between my knees.