At the Edge Read Free Page B

inside him.
    Another signal from Hewitt: one minute.
    A cool calm settled over him. Time to get it done. One more glance at his teammates before the CO gave him the nod.
    Ryan gripped the rope. His palms burned and smoked as he jumped into the void.

THREE
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    N ight came swiftly in the jungle.
    One moment she’d been looking at scraps of daylight peeking through the treetops, and then everything had taken on a purplish hue. Minutes later, the world around her had gone ink-black, and every phobia in her deepest, darkest subconscious had come to life.
    Emma had gone to her knees and crawled to a tree, where she’d huddled against the massive trunk and stared into the night, wide-eyed and terrified, sure her heart would pound right out of her chest. In the ensuing hours, every bloodcurdling possibility invaded her mind. She could be stung by a deadly insect or bitten by a rat. Or she might fall asleep and a tree boa would wind its way around her neck and slowly squeeze the life out of her.
    After what seemed like an eternity, she’d managed to quell her imagination. Maybe it was exhaustion or the adrenaline of the crash wearing off, but gradually her thoughts and her heart had calmed, and the shrieking panic in her mind had become a soft whimper.
    She’d started playing games in her head, a sort of mental Scrabble in which she’d create intricate crossword puzzles and give herself points. It was probably an odd way to pass the time, but she’d never been in the wilderness at night. She hadn’t grown up camping. By age twelve, it had been just her and her dad, and he spent half the year in Washington, D.C. Emma had been on a few adventure trips with her boarding school, but those had been day trips—hiking or rafting or rock climbing. She’d never even built a campfire.
    Gradually, her mind had tired, and she’d settled into less strenuous pursuits. She’d turned inward, focusing on her gnawing hunger and imagining herself in the produce section of her Seattle grocery store, surrounded by apples and bananas and juicy oranges.
    But then the howler monkeys had started up, piercing the night with their shrill screams, leaping and swinging in the trees above her, and the strangling anxiety returned, stealing her breath until she felt light-headed with fear.
    Nothing in her life had prepared her for being on her own in the rain forest. And she’d realized for the first time that darkness was a tangible thing. It was thick and pungent and inky. And it pulsed with the lifeblood of a million watchful animals, creatures that surely viewed her as prey—she had the insect bites on her arms and legs to prove it. Sometime deep in the night she’d dug her fingers into the loamy soil and covered every inch of skin she could reach with a protective layer of mud.
    When the forest lightened at last, Emma hadn’t slept a moment. She hadn’t even dozed.
    Now the sunlight beamed down through holes in the canopy, and Emma’s limbs felt heavy with fatigue. Even heavier was the burden on her heart.
    She’d failed to get the satellite phone working on the ridge. Now she was hobbling back down the hillside to the wreckage, and she feared she’d discover that Mick hadn’t awakened during the night.
    She also feared she was lost.
    She’d tried to take a straight route up and down the slope, but the trees and plants around her seemed different today. She was headed down, yes, but nothing at all looked familiar. Maybe she’d gotten turned around.
    Stay positive.
    She plowed through the leafy branches, determinedly pulling her shoes out of the sucking mud. She had to keep going, both mentally and physically.
    She focused her attention on Mick. If he showed any sign of consciousness, she’d try to get some water into him, then some food. It was a modest goal, and she felt sure she could accomplish it. She had to. There was no choice. Dr. Delgado had given her some