Ahead of us, the ground fell away in a sheer cliff. A hundred feet below, a river crashed and foamed along the bottom of the rock face. I looked left, right…but the cliff continued. We were trapped.

Shouts from behind us, getting closer. “What do we do?” asked Erin in a strangled voice.

I walked to the very edge of the cliff and looked down. “There’s only one thing we can do,” I told her.

35. Becker

35

BECKER

I was the first to reach the cliff edge, bursting out of the trees with my gun leveled. But they were nowhere in sight.

As my men arrived behind me, I motioned for them to fan out and search, just in case they’d hidden behind a tree or a rock. But they returned shaking their heads: nothing.

I stalked towards the edge and glanced down at the river. Idiots. The fall had probably killed them and the shock of the freezing water certainly would. I kicked a rock over the edge and watched it arc down towards the water, then sighed. It rankled, not catching my prey after hours of chasing, but dead was dead and I was a practical man. There were still four more to find. “Get the prison on the radio,” I ordered. “Find out if they’ve found the helicopter yet.”

36. Danny

36

DANNY

Don’t think about it.

I had my eyes screwed shut and I was trying to breathe slow and steady. To concentrate on the feel of Erin’s body against me. To not think about the—

Don’t. Don’t think about it, Danny.

—the drop.

I opened my eyes.

We were on a ledge, about three feet below the edge of the cliff. It was partially hidden from the top because the cliff had a bit of an overhang. To see it, you had to walk right to the very edge, like I’d done. And fortunately, Becker hadn’t gone close enough. Now all we had to do was wait until he left.

Except…the ledge was too small.

The problem wasn’t the length. It was only five feet long, which meant my ankles and feet were hanging over the end, but I could live with that. No, the problem was the width.

It was only a foot wide. Erin was lying on her side, facing the cliff, and she was pressing herself against the rock as tightly as possible. But however much she squished in, there was still only about two inches of ledge for me to lie on. What made it worse was that there was nothing to grip onto: the cliff face was just smooth rock. I just had to balance there precariously, spooning her and trying not to roll back, with a hundred foot drop behind me.