Jump Zone: Cleo Falls Read Free Page B

she pulled the leather halter over her head and tightened the laces that criss-crossed her back, bringing the ends around to the front to tie. Her fingers were still stiff and tingly, making the process a bit of a challenge.
    “So what happened?” she asked, pretending the situation wasn’t weirdly uncomfortable. “How did you happen to be at the falls the moment I needed you?”
    “Just one of those crazy things, you know?” he laughed.
    “If the story’s that funny, I definitely want to know the details.” Death generally wasn’t a laughing matter.
    He didn’t reply. Cleo wondered if he’d even heard her. He seemed distracted by something in his backpack. She was about to repeat the questions when he spoke.
    “I’m not sure you do.”
    “Oh, I do. Right down to the last giggle.”
    “Fine. Just remember, you asked.”
    Silence thickened as she waited for him to begin. A beam of sun cut through the trees and caught his hair, turning it to gold as he raked it with his fingers. “I’d just finished making camp and went to the river to clean up before dinner.” He paused, cleared his throat. “I uh…I was taking a leak in the river when I thought I heard a scream. I looked up and saw a dark shape fall over the falls. It took me a second to realize it was a body. It was fair dark, so if you hadn’t screamed when you did, I would have completely missed the show.”
    That didn’t explain his nervous laughter. “Tell me again about the funny part.”
    “I uh… I jumped in as-is,” he said. “Without…you know…doing up my armor.”
    “I’m not seeing the humor.”
    “Yeah, well,” he mumbled, “I reckon it’s guy humor. I have a few friends back home who’re going to love it.”
    Cleo rolled her eyes and wrestled the unyielding hide over her sore legs. It would take a few hours of wear and movement to soften and stretch back to a comfortable shape.
    There was an unmendable tear from the knee down on the right side that matched the bandage on her leg, but closer inspection of her injuries would have to wait—she wanted to dress as quickly as possible in case he got bored sorting through his things. She tugged the laces that ran up the outside length of each leg, loosening them as quickly as her fingers could fly. She lay back on the air cushion—a lightweight bag of nothing—shifted her weight onto her good leg, and hauled her trousers up over her hips.
    “Ow!” A quick sharp poke had her wondering if a bee hadn’t got into her pants.
    “You okay?”
    “Yeah…I think so,” she said, rubbing the sore spot on her right butt cheek. She craned her neck to see over her shoulder but could see nothing; no bee, no burr, and from what she could feel with her fingers, no scab, no cut, nothing to indicate the origin of the pain. “I think maybe I bruised my backside coming over the falls. Or some nasty bug bit me in my sleep.”
    She lay back, exhausted from the effort, leaving the side laces on her pants loose for the moment. She’d worry about tightening them up once she regained her stamina. “Then what happened?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “After you jumped in. What happened next?”
    “I had to dive down a couple of times before I found you—you were pretty limp by then.  I dragged you out and started CPR.”
    Cleo turned her head to the side and watched him zip up the various pockets on his pack.
    “And at what point did you put everything back in place?”
    “Oh, that?” he laughed. “I don’t recall. I reckon during one of the dives, otherwise my pants would’ve fallen off.”
    “Good to know,” she said, not bothering to hide the smile in her voice. She closed her eyes, a wave of exhaustion making her feel drowsy and light-headed.
    The Taiga, vast and great, was ninety percent unpopulated, so the chances that anyone would be within a hundred miles of her at any point in time, especially when she needed help, must have been divine intervention. In hindsight, his story was rather