I remember my nightmares after finding Nicole in the cave, nightmares where I'm in the hole and everyone leaves me, and Dalton stays the longest but eventually he, too, gives up on me.
I'm hallucinating. He's not really here. It's the pain and the shock and that memory finding a fresh variation to torture me with.
Even Storm has gone silent above.
Pebbles fall, pelting my face. "Are you crazy, boy?" a voice bellows. "Get your ass back . . ."
The words trail off, and I see a foot over the edge. A boot. Dalton's boot. Vanishing as Cypher hauls him up.
"You want to knock her down into that gorge?"
Dalton reappears, looking over the edge. "Casey? Can you hear me?"
"Course she can," Cypher says. "The whole damned mountain can. Now stop panicking and get back from that edge. Your girl is fine."
Dalton snarls something at him. Cypher's bearded face appears over the edge.
"Hey, kitten," he says. "How are you doing?"
He gets a string of obscenities from Dalton for that, but I say, "I've been better," and Cypher laughs.
"Okay," he says. "I'm going to ask you to try something for me. Take your right hand and bring it up on the other side of your left. You need to reach maybe four inches to the left of it."
I do that, and I find a crevice in the rock, one I can dig my fingers into. It's an even better grip than I have with my left, and I ease a little of my weight that way.
"Don't get too comfortable, kitten. I'm going to make you switch hands. Which will be tricky, but a whole lot easier to maintain. Okay?"
"Okay."
He guides me through it, and a few minutes later, I'm still hanging, but in a far more secure position.
"I'm going down--" Dalton begins.
"No, Eric, you aren't," Cypher says. "I'm not rescuing both of you today. How about you help me figure out how Casey can rescue herself?"
"I'd rather--"
"I know you would. But if you try, I'll throw you down there with that poor drowned woman and save the trouble of having to rescue you."
As he says "poor drowned woman," I turn to see Val's body, directly below. Her one arm is stretched over her head, the current catching it in a macabre wave.
"Yeah, she's still there," Cypher says. "Still dead. Like she was when you
apparently decided you had to go after her."
"I wanted to retrieve her body."
"Why? She doesn't give a damn." He shakes his head, grizzled hair hanging. "You almost kill yourself for a dead woman. Your boy here tries to turn this into a double suicide mission. And people say I'm crazy."
"Casey?" Dalton calls. "Don't move just yet, but I'm going to have you keep shifting left. Once you get past that overhang, you'll be able to get footholds."
"Oh," Cypher says. "You're back with us, are you?"
"Have to, or you'll talk Casey to death." Dalton leans out. "You're going to be fine, but if at any point you feel yourself slipping, or if a hold doesn't seem as safe, I want you to stop. No heroics. I can get down there. Got it?"
"Yes, sir."
Dalton guides me. Whenever he hesitates, Cypher points out possibilities, and they debate them quickly, before coming to a consensus. I move about five feet left and then I'm clinging to the cliffside, hands and feet secure.