Amber keeps encouraging her. You got this, girl. Take it slow.

Kyla womans up and handles her business, little by little, one step at a time. She digs deep within herself and finds that inner courage and conquers the mountain and triumphs over fear and if this was a movie it’s the part where the soundtrack would be soaring and everyone would be crying and even freaking Christian and Warden would hug it out because how could they not, right, when confronted with such a stirring victory of the human spirit?

If this was a movie, Amber wouldn’t fall.

But it’s not a movie.

Chapter 44

IT’S A FREAK THING, how it happens. Innocuous. It doesn’t look like much until suddenly it’s the Worst Possible Thing.

Kyla’s almost at the end of the ledge. She’s got her confidence back, moving faster. Maybe she’s still crying, but she’s laugh-crying, looking at Warden as he crouches down to meet her, saying something funny and encouraging and beckoning her forward.

We’re all in this together. The whole gang’s going to make it. Everything’s right in the world.

Kyla gets overconfident. She gets sick of crawling. She’s a couple of feet from safety when she stands up, suddenly and without warning, like she’s getting off this freaking ledge on her feet, damn it.

Only problem is, nobody told Amber. And Amber’s right behind Kyla, guiding her, encouraging her, and so when Kyla bolts upright like it’s the hundred-yard dash, she brushes against Amber. She knocks Amber off-balance.

Time goes in slow motion.

Amber just seems to sway there. She sways there forever. And if it weren’t for how her face goes ghost white, you might not think there was anything wrong.

Ahead of Amber, Warden reaches out and grabs Kyla, pulls her to safety. Wraps her in a hug, and they’re all too happy to notice how Amber’s reaching behind her for the wall, trying to find an edge or a lip or a crack or something, anything, to find purchase and keep herself from falling.

But her hands only find smooth rock, and then it’s too late. She looks straight at Dawn as she goes over the edge, and there’s this look on her face and it’s straight unfiltered fear. And then she’s gone.

She doesn’t scream, or if she does, it disappears into the wind.

She pinwheels in the air. Somersaults, her arms and legs flailing.

She drops fast.

She clears fifty feet in a blink, hits the steep slope at the base of the cliff, hits it awkward and sends up a huge cloud of dust and keeps falling, tumbling over sharp, bruising, body-breaking rock.

By now, Dawn is screaming. Kyla is screaming. Lucas is swearing very loudly. Warden is holding on to Kyla, trying to wrestle her into some kind of calm.

Christian looks ashen.