The tug of the carabiner was her only sense of where the fixed line was. For the first time since the climb had started, River’s heart started to race, fear pumping adrenaline through her veins. And yes, the few moments of footage she’d gotten were probably going to be amazing. One didn’t need clear, bright footage to make a movie. Sometimes the raw, blurry, shakiness of a camera in a terrifying situation was perfect. But the deeper they went into the Veil, the steeper the climb. River needed both of her hands on this: one for the line and one for her ice ax.

Trying to juggle the handheld had been a mistake.

Falling behind put them all at risk, so River kept going, fumbling with the camera. Thick gloves and cold hands didn’t mix. All she had to do was turn off the handheld and put it in a side pocket of her now lighter pack.

A simple task…up until she dropped it.

Horrified, River froze in place. So much was on that camera. So many important shots. So much of her documentary they’d never recover. Yes, some had been backed up, but not what was on the memory card inside. They had the other camera, but the handheld couldn’t be gone.

“Easton, I dropped my camera!” River yelled, trying to get someone’s attention. There was no answer. “Jessie!”

From behind her, there was nothing. It was as if the Veil had swallowed her team whole, and there was no one left but her. Hunkering down, River scraped her glove along the ground, trying to find the handheld. Her fingers met ice and gravel but no camera.

“Okay, River,” she said to herself. “Don’t freak out. Think through this.”

She wanted the camera, and she needed to get it before Jessie reached her section of the line. The ground beneath her was steeply sloped, and the camera had been in her left hand when she dropped it. If it wasn’t at her feet, then the most logical explanation was it was on the ground behind her, or it had fallen to her left.

If she left her spot on the line and went backward, River doubted she’d be able to find it again. So she dug into her pocket for the foil wrapper her lunchtime protein bar had come in. Her gloves were too bulky to allow her to twist the wrapper into a knot around the line, so River pulled them off.

Wrapper tied—giving her something to find on her way back—River jerked her gloves back on. Praying the few seconds of exposure to the elements hadn’t caused lasting damage to her extremities, River went backward on the rope, counting each step before hunkering down and feeling for the camera. Nothing.