From long habit, she checked. Her pistol, knife, and survival pouch were on her belt, but her overalls were soaked, as was her hair, and she could feel the water squish in her boots.

Craning her neck, she stared back upstream to the twin cascading waterfalls for which Two Falls Gap was named. The gravel bar had to be four hundred meters downstream from the thundering falls. She stared across the roiling water, gaped at the dizzying heights; how the hell could she have survived that plummet?

Another fit of coughing left her breathless.

To her right, a soggy Dek Taglioni sat with his butt on a driftwood log, his feet at the lapping water’s edge. The man had his forearms braced on his knees, limp fingers dripping water where it drained out of his soaked overalls. He had a crooked smile on his lips, a daredevil twinkle in his designer-yellow eyes that she hadn’t seen for some time now. The pink scar contrasted with his pale skin. And what was it about his eyes? The pupils seemed larger, darker, with an uncanny depth.

“What the hell?” Talina shifted, groaned. Her body felt like it had been pulled sideways through a singularity. “Did I just fall off a cliff? Am I remembering that right? Like, I was moving at the same speed as the water falling next to me?”

“Remember hitting the bottom?” he asked.

“No.”

“Probably because the way you hit, it should have broken your back.” He paused. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”

“Excuse me?”

“I tore loose of your hold, so you wouldn’t fall. What happened?”

“Rock came loose under my foot as I was careening for balance. What do you mean you tore loose? You did this on purpose? You leaped off the cliff and went over a waterfall? That’s a fricking thirty-meter drop! You trying to kill yourself?”

“Yeah, well, I figured it was worth the risk. Had to do something to get that little shit out of my brain. That stuff, that TriNA was picking through my head, playing with my emotions. Making me hate myself. Turned me into a fucking lab rat. I was losing, Tal.” Again the crooked grin. “Maybe you’ve been too busy to notice, but I don’t like losing.”

She shook her head, which did nothing but slap wet hair around. Gasping, she made herself stand. Her whole body felt like a bruise. Every joint ached. Cocking her head, she used a finger to squeegee the water out of her ears. “So, maybe it’s you who haven’t noticed, but we’re on a gravel bar in the middle of the river. How did we get here?”