The cliff ground against his back with long, jutted teeth. Mason pushed away from the face as the wind launched torrents of rain at his cheeks. Far below him, the tide crashed against the rocks. Was it too much to consider letting go? Would the water be deep enough, or was this yet another desperate fantasy to preserve his dignity?
Another rock crumbled. Gravity tugged at him, making his stomach turn inside out. He let out a cry of pain as it jolted him. He closed his eyes, ready to meet his death as he fell. But was he falling? Plummeting? No, there was a different sensation. A tug on the rope around his hips. It burned as the rope chaffed against him, but all this went to the back of his mind as he discovered he was heading in a different direction.
He was going up.
Mason clawed at the rocky cliff face, straining his neck to look up. There was nothing but two pairs of hands working together against his weight. Mason did all he could to help, pulling at outcrops and placing his feet into crevasses for additional grip. As he rose higher, he felt his worries melt away—his deepest shades of fear burning into bright scolds of rage and vengeance. The top of the cliff greeted him with Kylie and Amelia. Never had he been so pleased to see anyone, but now it was no longer about gratitude or survival. There was no case for patience or moral integrity. There were only two things on his mind as the young women rescued him from death’s doorway and helped haul him to his feet.
There was saving Diane—pulling her from the grips of death’s embrace and easing her back into a life of safety and comfort. Mason would take her away from the danger and deliver her to a better world. A world where Marvin Wendell no longer existed. It was safe there, and wasn’t that the least she deserved after years of patience? Sure it was, Mason thought, and it was possible, too. All because there was that one other thing that circled his mind like a shark meandering around its prey, sizing it up as it prepared to strike.
There was revenge.