I punched the gas and prayed, thanking God when the tires caught and we lurched up the hill.
I didn’t stop until we crested the small hill, leaving at least thirty feet between us and the slide as it rushed by beneath us.
Flinging my door open, I jumped down, immediately drenched by the unforgiving rain. My feet carried me to the back of the Jeep, where I could see the massive river of…fuck, everything flowing down the road.
Rachel stumbled around the back, and I grabbed her to me, clutching her tiny frame against my chest. “Tell me you’re okay.”
She shook violently, and I couldn’t tell if she was nodding or not.
“Rachel?” I tilted her chin so I could see those brown eyes.
“I’m…f-f-f-fine,” she stammered, raindrops hitting her face.
I sat on the bumper and pulled her with me, cradling her as carefully as I could. “Good. That’s good.”
As I relaxed my muscles, the adrenaline fled, draining everything from me but the relief that we had somehow miraculously survived. My breath came in great gulps, and I knew that I held on to Rachel more for myself.
I replayed the last minutes, everything that had happened since we saw the ground give way, and my heart pounded against my ribs. “We’ll have to take the other road back. There’s no way that one will be passable.”
She nodded against my chest, her head tucked into that perfect notch just under my collarbone. It might have been years since I’d held her, but she felt exactly the same, her sun-kissed citrus scent still invaded my senses, and for just this moment, she held onto me as if we’d never been apart.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” I asked, needing to hear it again, needing to know that I hadn’t gotten her hurt.
She nodded.
I tilted her chin again so I could see her face. She looked up at me with wide, wild eyes and parted lips that I had the nearly undeniable urge to kiss.
But I didn’t. Not like this. Not because we’d almost died.
“Rachel?” I asked. “Say something.”
A shaky smile played at her lips. “I’m really glad you didn’t let me drive.”
We both burst into laughter, washing away some of the terror, and I hugged her close, savoring the contact and the beat of her heart.
Even if this was all we ever had—these few moments where we’d sought comfort from each other—it would be enough. Just having her not hate me for fifteen seconds was a hell of a lot better than the last couple of years.
Okay, that was a lie.
It would never be enough.
Chapter Ten
Rachel
At Sea
“Stop looking at me like that,” I told Leah as we hunched over our books at the dining room table the next afternoon.
“Like what?” she asked, her gaze still moving over all my exposed parts.
“Like I’m secretly wounded and about to bleed out at any moment.” I flipped the page in my notebook. “I told you I’m fine. He’s fine. We’re…” I shook my head. “Everything is fine.”
“You were civil to Landon at lunch,” she remarked. “You even let him sit across from you and didn’t break into a food fight.”
“Yeah?” I uncapped my highlighter and attacked my textbook. So much for selling this sucker back.
“Seriously, Rachel, what’s going on? Is this about the”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“mudslide?”
“You don’t have to whisper, I can still hear you,” Penna called out from the living room, where I was pretty sure her ass was going to leave a permanent indent on the sofa.
“Sorry, Penna. I just didn’t want to upset you.”
She scoffed. “Upset me? I wasn’t the one almost devoured by a piece of Sri Lanka, and I can honestly say that Brooke didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Maybe I did. After all? I’m the jinx, right? The curse?” I asked.
She tossed her book on the coffee table and staggered to her feet. “I’m not going there. The whole concept of luck went out the window when Brooke flew off the handle.”
My highlighter paused in midair as she crutched over to us. Opening up about what her sister had done wasn’t really a line we’d crossed before now. Of course I knew what had happened, Leah had filled me in, but this was first time Penna had brought it up herself.
“So you think the weather that almost held up the hang gliding stunt and the mudslide are both…” The curse of Rachel. I came back to the Renegades, and all hell was breaking loose. You’re not back in the Renegades, I reminded myself.
“Shitty coincidences. Well, the rain caused the mudslide, so really it’s the weather. Don’t be so hard on yourself, Rachel.”
I focused back on my textbook, pulling phrases I could cite for my paper proposal. “What I wouldn’t give for some good internet.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Penna asked. “Grab my laptop.”
“You have internet out here? I thought it was impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible when you throw enough resources at it,” she said. “Seriously, do you need it?”
I looked down at my nearly finished proposal. “I think I’m good, but thank you. I might need it later.”
“Just don’t tell your mom that you have it,” Leah suggested.
Guilt hit me like a Mack truck. “I was supposed to call from Sri Lanka.”
“I think she’ll understand,” Penna answered.
“You don’t know her mother,” Leah rebutted.
“True. She’s a little…protective.”
Leah laughed, then clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You know how she gets. The only reason they even ‘allowed’”—I used air quotes—“me to come on this was because they knew you’d be here, and they hoped you’d keep me in line.”
“Yeah, because I have so much control over you,” she said, flipping another page in her book.
“Well, I sure as hell didn’t tell them you’d hooked up with Wilder. That would have earned me a strict demand to get my ass home. Hell, if they so much as sniffed Landon around me, they’d probably be in India waiting for us to dock.”
“They have good reason to hate him,” Penna answered. “From the parent point of view, of course.”
“That’s not going to stop you from coming on the Everest trip, right?” Leah asked.
I groaned. “Leah, as much as I would love to go with you, that’s over a week with him. There’s a bunch of other optional shore excursions that—”
“Wouldn’t be as much fun!” she argued. “Seriously. Pax promised we’d spend one day at the Taj Mahal before flying to Nepal, and that isn’t on any shore excursion. You only get that if you come with the Renegades.”
“How did you convince him to do that? It’s an entire plane ride out of the way.”
“I mentioned wanting to do my research paper on it, and he said he’d make it happen if I agreed to freeze my butt off with him in Nepal.”
“It’s a Renegade-only trip,” I argued.
Leah gave me the you’re-being-stupid face. “Landon wants you there.”