10:56 A.M.
NATALIA UNBUCKLED WYATT’S BACKPACK and set it down. Then Wyatt stepped close, opening his arms as if to hug her. He passed the leash from one hand to another, wrapping it around her waist. He was so close she could have kissed him, but only a small part of her mind registered that. The rest was too numbed by fear to think.
By threading the clip through the handle, he again made a lasso, which he pulled snug around her waist. Then Wyatt fastened the leash to his belt loop and stepped back. There was about eighteen inches of leash between them.
“See if that holds.”
She tried to step farther back, but the leash wouldn’t let her. Next she dropped to her knees. The leash stretched tight, holding her suspended just above the ground.
Taking her hand, Wyatt pulled her back to a standing position. “Let’s go.”
And before Natalia could argue she wasn’t ready or someone else should be first, Wyatt was walking to the bridge and she was following.
He stepped out on the bottom chord, leaving just enough room for her. As she joined him, a jolt of fear ran up her spine.
Mirroring Wyatt, she rested her forearms on the handrail, cupping her hands around the edge, hinging at the waist so her hip bones pressed into the warm metal edge. It didn’t feel as precarious as it had looked when she was watching Wyatt. But of course, it was easy to think that when she could simply reverse course and jump back down on the ground.
“Okay, here we go.” He took a sideways step.
Tugged along by the leash, Natalia followed. She was sweating so much that her shirt clung to her back like plastic wrap.
Another step. “You’re doing great!” Wyatt said.
His words were more like distant sounds. Natalia’s focus had narrowed to the two strips of sun-heated metal—one underneath her feet and one under her hands—that were the only things between her and death.
After two more sets of sideways steps, Wyatt said, “Okay, here’s the first post. I’m going to step around and then I’ll help you over.” When he did, the leash went tight, cutting into her waist. “Now put your hand here.” Gently grasping her wrist, he guided her right hand to the correct spot. “That’s good. It’s just on the other side of the post. Great. Now move your right foot.”
A whimper escaped her clenched teeth as she carefully transferred herself to the far side of the post. Her boots felt so stiff and unwieldy. Stiffness had been good for walking over rocks and roots, but now when she needed to maintain contact with the bottom chord it was a drawback.
“You’re doing great, Natalia. You really are.”
Wyatt kept shuffling sideways and she kept following, even though each step was taking her farther away from safety. Her palms were so wet they slipped along the handrail. What if she completely lost purchase? What if just thinking about slipping off was making it more likely she would slip?
Wyatt’s voice was as calm as a hypnotist’s. “Try focusing your gaze on your hands or maybe your feet.”
But it was all too easy to look past her hands or feet. To look past them to white waters where she would die. His words reminded her of Dr. Paris. “Five things you can see,” she muttered to herself.
“What’d you say?” Wyatt asked. They were already at the next post. She resisted the crazy urge to turn to look at the empty space behind them. It felt like a vacuum sucking at her. Like an open airlock on a space ship.
“I’m trying to do that thing my therapist taught me, where you find five things you can see, four you can touch, three you can hear, two you can smell, and one you can taste.” Gradually, they were falling into a rhythm, like a sideways sack race. His right foot, his left together with her right, then her left.
“Okay, then tell me five things you can see.”
“The handrail, the post we just passed, your hand”—she was already running out of things it was a good idea to look at closely—“the ashes smeared on your skin, and um, the bee sting on your wrist.”
“We’re more than halfway there,” he said as they stepped around another post. “So four things you can touch?”
She forced herself to think. “Your hand. The leash. The post. And I can feel how heavy my boots are.”
For a second, he squeezed her hand, and then moved it past another post. “Three things you can hear?”
“My breathing. Your breathing.” Hers was too fast, his slow and steady. “Um, and far away, I can hear the fire. And I don’t know if this counts, but I can even hear my own heart beating in my ears.”
“We’ve only got one more post. And I didn’t even get a chance to ask you about smell and taste.”
“I think right now neither one of us should focus on smells.” She could smell them both, her body odor a sour note to Wyatt’s sharp and spicy scent.
“Fair point.”
And her tongue was still coated with the bitterness of fear, even though they had reached the end of the bridge.
“Okay. We made it! Good job! Want to jump off together?”
Natalia was not capable of jumping. She set one foot on solid ground, then the other. Her knees went weak and she felt herself began to sag. Suddenly Wyatt’s arms were wrapped around her for real, holding her up. Holding her close.
“You did it,” he whispered. “I’m so proud of you. You—”
And then he couldn’t talk anymore because Natalia was kissing him. His mouth was soft and hard at the same time. She felt herself catch fire. His teeth bumped hers. She put her hands on either side of his face.
From the other side of the bridge came the sounds of clapping and cheering, even a whistle. They barely registered.
Finally the two of them broke for air, both of them breathing heavily. Natalia wondered if her eyes looked as glazed as Wyatt’s did.
After a long moment, he undid the leash from his belt, then slipped it off her.
In a halfway decent Terminator impression, Wyatt growled, “I’ll be back.”