Excerpt from Chapter One
“So,” Ollie began, “Emma and I were thinking of heading over to Joe’s Diner in a bit, if any of you want to come? Maybe grab some late-night pancakes or—”
A loud, electronic chirp-chirp interrupted her, and bright white headlights suddenly blasted the shore from beyond the party, silhouetting all the college students now frozen in alarm. Red and blue lights flared to life above the glare, and a moment later, the shifting light revealed three cop cars negotiating the narrow road down the slope toward the river.
“Oh, crap,” Ollie muttered.
By the bonfire, the stereo cut off sharply. Half the partiers scattered like mice, tearing toward the relative safety of the forest and the cars parked in the lot beyond the trails, while the others gave cries of futile protest.
“Well, kids.” Brayden rose to his feet quickly, brushing off his plaid shorts. “Time to go.”
Harper motioned for him to stay. “I’m sure it’s fine. Probably some fisherman just being a jerk and—”
“And none of us are twenty-one,” Ollie called, already by the edge of the forest with Emma. “What do you think the cops’ll say when they see the beer cans all over this place?”
My sister and I shared a brief look. “Mom might be with them,” I said.
Harper shot up from the log and started after Brayden. “Let’s go.”
I shoved my feet into my shoes as the sound of car doors slamming came from up ahead. I glanced up, tying my laces on autopilot. The cops climbed from their vehicles, taking off across the gravel beach toward the people trying to escape. Flashlight beams pierced the fire-lit night, sweeping and bobbing wildly across the fleeing partiers.
“Wren, come on!” Harper urged, waving a hand at me from the edge of the woods.
I rushed after her, darting past the cover of the trees with her only a few steps ahead. With a quick look back, she tossed me a nervous grin in the last edges of the firelight that stretched past the trees.
I returned it, though the expression turned to a wince a heartbeat later when I started walking. I hadn’t been joking about the blisters. I loved these shoes, had loved them since I bought them last weekend at the mall, but little had I known when I headed out this evening that the things liked to chew on my ankles like rabid Chihuahuas.
Much more of this, and I’d be bleeding.
“This way,” Ollie called in a low voice from up ahead.
We all started after her through the undergrowth. The glow of the firelight cast long, dwindling shadows from the tree trunks and picked out what I hoped was a trail climbing up the slope away from the beach. Boulders and fallen logs lay scattered amid the bushes and weeds like a natural obstacle course, blocking even the thin track through the woods. I vaguely remembered the trail from a hike a few months ago, but the knowledge did me little good. Not when, after only a dozen yards, the last traces of the firelight were gone, swallowed by darkness.
“Anyone know where we’re going?” I whispered, glancing around nervously. The more my eyes adjusted, the more I thought maybe I could make out a trace of moonlight to my left, where the trees thinned at the cliff’s edge.
“Yeah, kinda,” Ollie replied, following the winding path as it curved that way. “The trail leads—”
She cut off with an oomph and a sudden rustle of undergrowth.
I stopped cold. “Ollie, you okay?”
“Yeah.” She sounded aggrieved, and more rustling sounds followed. “Fine.”
A white light flared to life ahead of me. I winced, my eyes stinging. “What the—”
Brayden gave me a questioning look, his cell phone clutched in his hand and its flashlight glaring like a lighthouse in the darkness. In the glow, Ollie was clambering to her feet with Emma’s help. At my side, Harper held up a hand, trying to block the light from reaching her eyes.
“Turn that off, you idiot!” Ollie hissed, brushing leaves from her legs. “You want the cops finding us?”
“Idiot? You just fell. We need light to—”
“I said turn it off.”
Brayden frowned. The forest plunged back into darkness.
“There’s a break in the woods at the top of the hill,” Emma said.
“Okay,” Brayden allowed, “but if no one can see, how are we going to get there?”
Silence followed.
“Fine,” Ollie grumbled. “But keep the beam aimed at the ground, okay?”
The flashlight flared to life again. Scowling, Ollie resumed leading the way up the hill, Emma and the others right behind her.
I cast a glance over my shoulder. What little I could see of the river shore beyond the trees seemed empty of anyone but cops now, and none of the police were heading toward us on the hillside. A new siren announced a fire truck somewhere in the distance, probably sent to put the bonfire out, but thus far, the blaze still burned, lighting up the beach and the cops so well that we would be easily able to see anyone coming after us.
A breath left me, and I hurried after the others. The trail climbed up to trace along the edge of the cliff, and at its highest point, a log fence bordered it, separating us from the abyss. But if I remembered correctly, at the bottom of the hill, the trail turned and climbed back toward the parking lot.
This might work. If we made it to our cars before the cops, Mom might never know we—
Something slammed into my right side, knocking me hard toward the cliff. I crashed into the fence, but it didn’t stop me. My body tumbled past the barrier, and only the fact my arms instinctively wrapped around the top log kept me from falling all the way down.
The dark drop toward the river loomed beneath me, a hundred feet straight into the black water.
Rough wood cut into me as I clung to the beam, making pain flare hot across my palms and forearms. My feet scrambled for purchase on the rocky cliff face, and over the blood rushing in my ears, I could hear my friends shouting and running back down the trail toward me.
I couldn’t look away from the plummet to certain death.
“Grab her!” Harper cried.
“Oh my God, Wren.” From the corner of my eyes, I spotted Brayden reaching for me. “Just don’t move.”
I choked on a scoff. Like I was going to—
Wood cracked. The log lurched.
My sister’s shocked face was the last thing I saw before I tumbled over the cliff.
