Something Wilder

“I’m taking her with me,” he said, voice tight. “If you follow us, I’ll shoot.”

Anger and panic were a salty tide rising in Leo’s chest. He couldn’t let Terry leave with her.

He would worry later about what was in the journal, about the loose cannon Terry had morphed into, about what any of this was really about. Right now, he had to get the gun out of Nicole’s face. His eyes shifted to where the barrel pressed into the soft skin of her cheek. Her eyes were squeezed closed, her pulse a riot in her neck. Without thinking, Leo exploded forward, grabbing her free of Terry’s hold and tossing her behind him. Immediately, he wrapped a hand around Terry’s fingers on the gun, wrestling it skyward.

A shot rang out, and everyone but Leo and Terry ducked for cover, screaming.

Terry wrenched the gun free, shuffling back a few more steps. If possible, his skin grew redder, face flushed with anger as he swung the shaking gun at Walt, then Leo, and finally to Lily crouched with Nicole in her arms, off to the side.

“Just—chill the fuck out!” he shouted.

“Terry,” Bradley said, his voice shaking. “Man, put the gun down. I’m not fucking kidding here.”

“I should have known it would be like this,” Terry seethed. “Surrounded by a bunch of cowards. We shouldn’t have come here as a group.”

“Don’t do this,” Bradley said quietly. “Why are you doing this right now? Don’t ruin the trip, man.”

But Leo knew that ship had sailed long ago. Holding his shaking hands out where Terry could see them, Leo—with his heart in his windpipe—took a cautious step forward, and then another. “Terry. I’m going to reach for the gun, and we’re going to put it down. You can take the book and go. Whatever you need. It isn’t worth this.”

Leo reached out, wrapping a hand around the barrel, but as soon as he tilted it to the side, Terry registered that he was fucked. Panicking, he reached with his other hand to try to claw at Leo’s face, and before Leo knew exactly what was going on, the two were wrestling with a loaded gun between them. He heard Lily cry out his name. His heart was in his skull now, pounding, pounding; everything around them was dust and panic and noise.

Walt grabbed on to Terry’s gun arm, trying to help Leo wedge the barrel from Terry’s grip. The gun came free, falling to the ground in the melee. Bradley came for Terry’s other arm, finally managing to drag Terry away. Furious, Bradley wrapped his fists in Terry’s shirt, walking him backward.

“Are you out of your mind?” Bradley shouted into his face. His normally placid expression was tight with adrenaline and fury. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Red dust had kicked up, leaving them all disoriented; Leo had no idea whether the rocky lip of the canyon was in front of him or behind him, so he carefully went down to his knees, feeling around to regain his bearings. Somewhere in the past thirty seconds, the shouting had stopped sounding like individual words and was now only a din. Squinting up into the gritty cloud, Leo reached forward to grab Bradley’s calf, desperately yelling for him to let Terry go and get down.

So, Bradley did.

Terry’s face went round with shock, eyes wide and arms flailing as the dust cleared and all six of them seemed to realize in unison that only the very tip of one of his shoes had any remaining contact with the fragile lip of the canyon. And even that slipped away as Terry’s weight and momentum propelled him backward.

Over the edge, for just a heartbeat, Terry appeared to be running in place on top of nothing but air. Leo reached out, grappling into the emptiness—

But Terry was gone.

Leo was astounded at how fast a human body could fall. He had never—not once in his life—heard such silence. It was as if Terry had pulled all of the sound with him when he plummeted.

For two,

five,

ten heart-pounding seconds, they stared at the empty space that Terry’s body had just occupied.

Delicate swirls of dust danced around them in the fading light. “No way that just happened,” rasped Bradley.

“Maybe…” Walter wondered, “maybe he survived?”

Shuffling to the edge and staring down together, the group struggled to catch their breath. The fall was so far, it was impossible to see clearly from where they stood, but the five of them winced together when a tiny puff of dirt rose up from the distant ground.

Even if nobody said it aloud, they all knew he hadn’t.

Chapter Eleven

NO ONE MOVED.

The numbness began in Lily’s fingers, spreading up her arms with shocking velocity as she registered what had just happened.

“What did I just see?” Nic asked, voice high and thin. “What am I seeing right now?”