CHAPTER TWO

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I FELL TO MY KNEES.

Blank shock numbed me. My mind couldn’t decipher what’d just happened. An awful kind of hissing erupted in my ears. A static white noise that trickled into my bloodstream and made every bone twitch.

He’s...gone.

I shook my head. My mouth parted. My heart raced.

He can’t...it’s not possible.

I blinked, expecting him to still be there. Smirking that mocking grin, long hair touching his shoulders, eyes so dark with history they defied common color.

But he didn’t appear.

There was nothing.

Just me and the fading energy of a man who’d imprisoned me.

A man I just killed.

Oh, God.

My heart cramped as I wedged fists into my belly.

No one can survive a fall like that.

What have I done?

Yes, he’d taken my body and my freedom, but I’d done something a million times worse....I’d taken his life.

I—

My horrified shock suddenly gave way to coldhearted analytics.

Wait, he could survive.

He might—

Scrambling to my feet, I grabbed a branch and looked down.

Down.

I tried to see him.

I guessed the height of such a plummet.

A thousand feet perhaps?

More? Less?

I don’t know.

You have to know.

The buzzing turned vicious in my ears and marrow.

He might be alive.

It’s possible—

Panic fought with calm as I edged from the drop-off and dug both hands into my mud-dirty hair.

You have to find out, Gem.

You can’t leave him.

Images of him in pieces at the bottom of the cliff made me sick. Shattered bones, vacant eyes, a scarred body that was no longer alive.

Stop.

I ground the heels of my palms into my eyes, trying to rub such images away.

I swallowed hard.

I’d done this. He was down there because of me.

If I hadn’t jumped on him, he would still be whole.

There wasn’t even the question of leaving. Not yet. I would never be able to live with myself if I turned my back on someone in agony.

Someone crippled and bleeding and—

“Just focus. Stay strong.”

It didn’t matter how he’d treated me. I didn’t care that I was trading my last chance at freedom to go after him. If he was dead, I would bury him. I would ignore the awful pang in my soul and would honor his remains as any loved one would.

It was the least I could do.

He had no one.

He deserves to have someone.

God, he deserved so much more than what he had.

And if he’s alive?

I couldn’t answer that question.

Because if he was alive. If he was okay. It meant I’d chosen his survival over my own. I would never get another chance. I was turning my back on my family for a man, and I didn’t even know his name. I was admitting to myself that for all my bluster and bravery, something had blossomed inside me.

Something I couldn’t even acknowledge without cursing my stupid, stupid heart.

Hurry.

I exploded into action.

Leaping to my feet, I grabbed my overstuffed backpack from where it’d waited patiently by the tree and shrugged it on. Securing the straps tight and buckling additional ones around my waist, I stepped off the edge and descended.

If he’d survived, I’d need supplies. I’d need every tool and trick I had to fix him.

My backpack upset my balance as I climbed faster than I’d ever climbed before. I shut off every thought and focused.

Toe hold, traverse, hand grab, drop.

Repeat.

I yelled at my panic-pounding heart the entire way down, forcing myself not to think about him, not to second-guess or fret. Not to worry about anything until my feet touched earth safely.

If I fell too, then we would both die.

Side by side, entombed in his valley forever.

My knees threatened to buckle as the distance to the valley floor decreased. Sweat poured down my back, and my hands slipped on a few rocks.

Don’t rush!

I made the mistake of looking down. There, obscured by leaf matter and lower crisscrossed branches, a foot existed.

A man’s dirty, leathered foot, splayed to the side and not moving.

Oh, God.

My stomach lurched.

My hand latched around a branch, and I kept climbing.

I climbed until I reached the valley floor and then I ran.

I ran to his side, shoved off my bag, and crashed to my knees.

I pressed my fingers against his throat.

And waited.

Come on.

Come on!

My fingers burned against his skin. I willed every power in the twisted universe for him to open his eyes and reveal that sinful sneer. That arrogant cruelty that hid so much inside.

Nothing.

I slumped over him.

I pressed my ear to his naked, scarred chest.

I listened.

My own heart thundered in my ears, pounding without pause.

There!

Was that—?

Holding my breath, I shouted at my nervous system to shut the hell up. I pressed my ear harder to his sternum. I dug my fingers deeper into his jugular.

And there...

Faint and almost unwilling, the soft thud of his heart.

Rearing back, I shook him. “Hey. Can you hear me?” I tapped his filthy cheek, brushing aside leaf-tangled hair. “Open your eyes.”

God, what is his name?

I needed his name so I could scream it. So I could yell it into his ears and force him to stay alive.

As I shook him, my temper spiked. “Come on, Simon, Andrew, Colin, whoever you are...open your damn eyes.”

Nothing.

Not even a twitch.

I kept trying. I pinched his cheek. I punched his chest. I listened again for a pulse to see if it was stronger or weaker.

Still faint.

Still unwilling.

But still there.

Late afternoon sun hid behind clouds as I sat back and surveyed his body.

With the mess of last night and the wounds I’d given him in my key attack, it was hard to tell what was dirt and what was old blood. Fresh cuts spilled crimson along his side, a few good lacerations but nothing to suspect broken ribs or internal hemorrhaging.

No black bruises hinted at pooling blood beneath the skin.

His lips weren’t turning blue.

His face was blank and serene.

If I didn’t continuously check his pulse, I would’ve been convinced he was dead.

He lay like a corpse. Legs splayed and arms palms up, flat on his back as if he hadn’t fought the fall at all. As if he’d stayed lax and limp, accepting the end in a way no happy person ever could.

The backpack—

I glanced around for it. He’d been wearing my spare when he went over. It must’ve fallen off—

There.

A few feet away, covered in leaves, rested the bag he’d stolen from my Jeep. Full of treats and sugar from a society he no longer belonged to. He was just a wild man, with nothing and no one, forgotten on the forest floor.

My heart broke all over again.

What if he’d wanted this?

What if, in those final few seconds, he’d chosen not to fight and let the ground catch him in whatever cradle it wanted.

In a way, he’d saved his own life.

Survivalists all said that the best way to fall was to do it without any tension or anticipation of the crash. The harder you braced, the harder you broke. And in his case, he hadn’t braced at all.

Tears shot up my spine, tingling and hot as they pooled in my eyes.

I didn’t know why, but that simple fact told me so many soul-shattering things. It revealed more complexities and vulnerabilities than he ever could’ve shown me while awake.

And I hated him all the more because it meant I couldn’t leave.

Not now.

Not until he either woke up or died.

And if he woke up, how could I look him in the eyes, knowing things about him that painted him not as the villain but a victim who’d never had a chance?

I checked his pulse again before running my hands along every inch of his body. His hands, wrists, and arms. His neck, chest, and hips. His legs, knees, and ankles. Some areas were blazing hot, swelling rapidly from the blunt force trauma. I couldn’t tell what was broken or sprained. I wasn’t a doctor or qualified in any way past my first-aid training in field wounds.

He needs a hospital.

Peeling open his left eyelid, I observed his blank stare. His pupil constricted, but that was it. No other sign of alertness.

Brain damage?

Concussion?

What would cause him not to wake?

“Hey...you....” I grimaced.

Hey you?

God, I’d never been so annoyingly frustrated not to know someone’s name. How had I spent a week—has it been a week?—in his company and still not know his damn name?

Give him a nickname.

Something to call him by.

Something to shout when he starts to fade.

Tapping his cheek, I snapped firmly, “Time to wake up...douche bag.”

Maybe something not so derogatory?

“Monster?”

Something that’s actually true and not you trying to convince yourself he is?

“Robert, Charles, Jon freaking Snow?”

Doubt George R.R. Martin would appreciate you plagiarizing one of his most iconic characters.

Placing my hand on his forehead, I paused and quieted the panic in my blood. I had to accept that he most likely wouldn’t make it. My only task now was standing vigil beside him so he wasn’t so alone as he passed away.

Fresh tears cascaded down my face.

I’m so sorry.

I was responsible.

In some sick way, I’d been the cause of all of this.

I was the one who’d trespassed. I was the one who derailed his simple life. I was the one who’d jumped on him while he stood so close to a cliff edge.

“I’m so sorry...whoever you are.” I cried harder. “I wish I knew your name. I wish I could apologize for everything I’ve caused.”

God, what is his name?!

He’d been forgotten by society, hidden from kindness, denied love and connection. He was anonymous to happiness as well as freedom.

Anonymous.

He was forgotten to everyone.

Everyone but me.

The online group that’d posted the boulder I’d been hunting was called Climber’s Anon. They’d brought me here. If only to destroy this man’s final sanity and to hold his hand as he died.

Anon.

That will do.

Cradling his cheek, I bent over him. “Can you open your eyes...Anon? Just give me some sign you can hear me.”

I waited.

I shivered.

Nothing.

“Come on. Just open your eyes, and I’ll do whatever you need. I don’t know how to help you if you don’t tell me.”

Silence.

Stillness.

A forest empty of his existence.

“Anon, please...”

Nothing.

An hour passed while I kneeled beside him and hoped.

I spoke to him often. I checked his pulse and assessed his bruised body. I thanked the thunderstorm the night before for softening the ground and turning hard dirt into squishy mud.

I racked my brain on what I could do to make him wake, going over my basic first-aid training and coming up blank. I had a simple kit of needles, surgical twine, an EpiPen (not that I was allergic), antiseptics, a ten-day course of antibiotics, gauzes, bandages, and painkillers.

None of those things would help with a head injury.

You can’t stay here all night, Gem.

I looked up, noticing for the first time how dark the world had become.

The sun had quietly gone to bed, letting darkness creep shadowy fingers out of the trees toward us.

Twilight made everything seem so much worse.

If he hadn’t died by now, perhaps...

Hope flared.

Fear crushed it.

I was paralyzed.

I didn’t know what to do.

I couldn’t carry him back up the cliff to civilization.

I had no way of going for help that wouldn’t take days.

He needed treatment immediately, but I didn’t know how.

All I could offer was comfort.

Take him home.

How?

Brushing aside my tears, I let my mind cling to the task. I’d always been a doer instead of a worrier. If I could somehow figure out how to get Anon inside his home, then I could problem solve other things along the way.

Glancing down at him, I ran my hands over his cooling skin. More bruises had appeared, mottling his old scars. His breathing seemed to be stronger, even if he hadn’t opened his eyes.

The fact remained he was still too big and heavy for me to carry him.

I’ll have to—

My head whipped up and darted toward the trees.

An idea sprang to mind. A trick I’d watched some bush-bashing hikers post on YouTube.

Pushing off my knees, I opened my bag’s side flap and reached for my emergency tools. A Swiss Army knife, hunting blade, and a hacksaw.

I selected the hacksaw and stood.

With dusk came exhaustion, but I ignored my stumble and marched toward the gangly saplings that’d sprouted from seeds above. Keeping my eyes off the man lying like the dead, I dragged my blade forward and back, forward and back, sawing into a flexible tree until it cracked and fell.

I repeated the task, selecting an equally malleable sapling, turning it from vertical to horizontal. Their trunks only measured seven inches in diameter or so, but they’d be strong. They’d work and not be too heavy.

Hacking the off-shoots and ensuring they were smooth, I carried them back to him.

Still asleep.

Still trying to die.

Placing the two trunks side by side, I measured out his size, then used my climbing rope to create a stretcher. Tying the two trees together, I formed a small hammock between them.

Full darkness had descended by the time I’d finished, stepping back to assess my work, squinting in the gloom and using my flashlight to check the finer details.

Thirst forced me to drink; hunger made me eat.

I wolfed down two muesli bars because I needed to be strong for this next part.

Ducking by his head, I tried to tip some water into his mouth. I prayed he wouldn’t choke or inhale it, but nothing happened. The water just spilled from his lips, cascading down his cheeks to leave dirty streaks over his throat.

Fine.

I would ensure he’d eat and drink once we were back inside.

Once he wakes up.

If he wakes up.

For now...it’s time to go.

Bending over him, I dug my toes into the soft, muddy earth and grabbed him by the shoulder and hip. With a grunt, I pulled him forward, rolling him onto his stomach.

I grimaced at the mess of his back.

Old scars and fresh scratches. Bruises had turned black on his shoulder blades. I hoped it was just from the fall and nothing sinister killing him inside.

With another heave, I rolled him onto the stretcher, laying him in the middle of the rope hammock, resting him on his back.

His head lolled to the side. His arms floppy and legs crossed.

Ignoring my tiredness and fear, I rearranged him so nothing would cramp or stitch, then reached for my backpack. Grabbing the smaller backpack he’d carried, I secured it to my larger one.

For a second, I paused.

I gathered energy.

I prepared.

This journey would zap me of everything I had left, but I would do it without complaint. I would protect him because I doubted he’d ever had anyone who cared enough in his past.

Hoisting the two bags onto my shoulders, I placed myself between the two saplings, grabbed the ends, bent my knees, and hauled upward.

Argh!

My hands clawed at the trunks, struggling to get a good hold.

God, he’s heavy.

Even with his weight distributed by the stretcher, it still cost me. Jerking him higher, I did my best to get a strong position, then lurched forward and dragged him behind me.

I dragged, and I dragged.

At one point, he groaned.

A guttural groan full of pain.

I almost dropped him. A sick recipe of hope and anxiety commanded I check on him.

But he fell silent as quickly as he’d made a noise, and I kept going.

Kept dragging him through the darkness, resting, stumbling, struggling...all the way back to his ivy-covered, secret-shrouded mansion.