Thea dove forward, but her hands grasped air. Christos tumbled toward the Zambezi River, the bungee cord wrapped around his arm, the slack snaking off the platform after him.
While her brother leaned over the railing to watch, Thea shimmied backward, snatching a harness, securing it to her hips. Her gaze met Nikos’s for a fraction of a second, a lifetime of memories passing between them as he saw the choice in her eyes.
“He’s not worth it.” Her brother lunged toward her.
Twisting away from him, she dove off the platform’s open ledge into free fall. Inverted, she sliced downward, the air barreling past her ears, obliterating all other sounds. The wind whipped her hair as the river rushed toward her. Falling, falling, she scanned the water for Papa, but she couldn’t find any sign of him in the deep, rushing river below.
The bungee cord reached its full extension. A strong jerk grabbed her hips and legs, and she bounced upward, weightless. Blood rushed to her head, leaving her disoriented. After a long moment, she fell toward the water again, then another sharp tug pulled her up. Up and down, up and down. People enjoyed this?
The yo-yoing slowed, and she swung at the end of her tether, studying the waters thirty feet below, searching for Papa. Finally, movement in the river caught her eye. Her father had survived the fall and was clinging to a rock. His head disappeared underwater and resurfaced again, bobbing like a cork as the rushing waters of the Zambezi tried to sweep him away.
Thea jackknifed her body, clutching the bungee cord with her left hand. She reached for her boot knife so she could cut herself free. Before she could remove the knife, something slammed into her right shoulder blade. Pain reverberated down her spine, and she lost her grip on the cord, spinning around and around upside down, like a top.
Dazed, dangling, she spotted Nikos bouncing beside her on another bungee cord. “You need to stop living Papa’s lie,” he shouted as he smashed into her again, his left hand grabbing a large clump of her hair. She turned her body sideways and crooked her right leg, uncoiling a vicious kick to his chest. A loud grunt. Sharp, stinging pain flared in her scalp as he swung away, taking a handful of hair with him.
He came for her again but swung past without contact. She scrambled for her knife. Her hand connected with her boot, but she couldn’t lift her pant leg fast enough.
In the meantime, Nikos had encircled her so that their cords were now intertwined.
She rotated in the opposite direction to unlink the twisted ropes, but Nikos’s fist hammered her jaw. She tasted blood. He spun around her again. The knife. She needed it now. In close quarters, he would overpower her.
Nikos swung toward her, but she arched out of the way, yanking up her pant cuff. His foot connected with her lower back. Pain shot deep into her left kidney; white spots blurred her vision. Their faces were inches apart. His lips curled in rage. “How dare you choose Papa over me?”
All these years, she’d never seen this Nikos. Love and guilt had blinded her.
His breath was hot against her cheek. The pungent stench of gasoline flooded her nose. She flashed on the General, his necklacing. She understood now—all this was payback.
She tried to twist away, but his hands closed around her neck, crushing her windpipe as they swung back and forth, awkwardly spinning above the river. She chopped at his arms, but his grip was impenetrable.
Can’t breathe. Darkness descended. She curled her leg underneath her, her fingers connecting with the blade’s handle. She pulled it out and sawed desperately at her cord.
Nikos drew her face to his, his hands still wrapped around her throat. “You were supposed to choose me. Not him. You were supposed to love me.”
“I do love you,” she gasped.
Snap.
Her full weight ripped her out of his hands and sent her hurtling toward the river.
The impact of the water hammered into her like a truck, and she plunged down, the cold river swallowing her. She clung to the knife as her body tumbled in the vicious currents.
The sound of roaring water hit her ears when she broke the surface. A deep gasp, and she coughed repeatedly. Her throat burned. Her lungs heaved, greedy for air. She looked right, left, trying to orient herself. Nikos was still in the sky, hanging from his cord. She scanned the water for her father.
Papa lay face up in a slower-moving eddy created by a collection of rocks near the shore. His left hand clung to an outcropping, but the swirling water could suck him down the rapids any second now.
She swam to him, keeping an eye out for crocs. His skin was pale, but he was conscious. He’d lost a tremendous amount of blood from the gunshot wound.
“Can’t move my arm. Hurts.” His teeth were clenched, his eyelids fluttering. His right arm hung a few inches low and wide—his shoulder had been dislocated from being yanked by the bungee cord, but it had saved his life.