The story that tumbled out had Aidan grinding his teeth. Aaron and his friend Gil had taken two girls up the mountain to show off and hopefully get laid. The girls had dared them to climb down the face. To sweeten the pot they’d promised something “really special” if the boys could climb down the rock face on the left side, traverse the rock face itself, and reappear on the right side.

Mitch shook his head and gave Aidan a look that said, Can you believe these dumbfucks?

Another time Aidan might have laughed, but the weather was going south as they stood there and worse, he still had no idea where Lily was, or if she needed help.

She doesn’t, he told himself. She was smart, she had more mountain experience than most, and surely she’d seen the storm moving in.

“Where are your friends?” Aidan asked Aaron.

“I think they went for help.”

A third harness had been lowered for Aaron. Aidan was still fuming, so Mitch explained to the Horn Dog what the plan was. All Aaron needed to do was slip into the harness. That was it, the big extent of his efforts needed.

But Aaron paled at the thought of moving around on the narrow ledge and shook his head. Granted, their space was extremely limited, and, with the three of them there, they had precious little room to move around. But there were only two ways off the ledge: either a hundred-foot drop to the wild river below, or up.

“Can’t you call a helicopter?” Aaron asked hopefully, squinting into the sky, which was now dark and turbulent, whipped into a frenzy by the winds. “Cuz that would be great.”

“A helicopter,” Mitch repeated, and looked at Aidan in disbelief. “And would you like fucking lunch to go with that?” he asked Aaron.

“Dude,” Aaron said, looking hopeful. “Do they serve meals?”

A bolt of lightning had Mitch and Aidan looking at each other. One one-thousand. Two one-thousand. Three one-thousand—

Thunder boomed so viciously that the ledge beneath their feet shuddered.

“Two minutes,” came the warning on the radio.

Shit.

“Listen to me,” Mitch said hurriedly. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to put on the harness, nice and slow, and then we’ll check it. And then you’re going to get your ass off this rock before we all blow off, and you can go home and get your own damn meal, and we can go rescue someone else. And you’re going to do all of this fast. You hear me?”

Aaron nodded, eyes wide.

But it wasn’t that easy. Hell, nothing was ever that easy, and Aidan should have known.

The skies opened up right then, dumping water like the heavens had sprung a leak, making the going even more treacherous as the rock beneath their feet was now slicker than ever.