Summer by Summer

Author:Heather Burch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Blink
Published: 2015-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

Summer

Several thoughts occurred to me at once, fighting for dominance inside my head. But the biggest of all was, “How are you going to get the supplies?”

“I’ll make it,” he said, and smiled. “Down is always easier than up.”

My arm felt like someone had held it in a washing machine and turned on the spin cycle. Bray inspected it, his hands working in smooth motions over my fingers, palm, wrist, then up my forearm and settling on my shoulder. “All this okay?”

I nodded, bent my wrist back and forth. “Seems so. I mean, it hurts.”

His index finger traced the red lines left by the rope. “I don’t think it’s out of place. You did a good job holding some of your weight with your free hand.”

But I was concerned for Bray. He kept holding one of his arms to his ribcage, like someone would do if their arm was broken and in a sling. “What about you?”

“I’m good.” Such a liar.

“What if I wasn’t telling you the truth?” I said.

His gaze narrowed, concern knitting his brows together. There were dirt smudges on his cheeks and forehead.

“What if I really was hurt but I didn’t want you to know?”

“That wouldn’t be okay, Summer.” He moved closer so that I couldn’t escape his inspection. “We’re alone out here. We have to depend on each other. It would be really unsafe for you to be hurt and not tell me.”

I grinned victoriously.

When he scanned my face for an explanation, I nodded to his arm.

It only took him a second to understand my meaning. His eyes rolled. “It’s hurting.”

I took his arm and turned it palm-side up. Red snaked from his wrist up to the bend of his elbow. “Oh, Bray.” I placed my hand flat against it gently. “It’s hot. Like it’s on fire.”

We stared down at the bright-red skin. “I scraped it climbing. Some of that might even be inflammation. My dad has arthritis in his knees, and when we play tennis, they look about like this.”

“Inflammation?”

“Yeah. And I felt something tearing while I tried to lift you over the side. It wouldn’t have been difficult — you hardly weigh anything — but I couldn’t really use my stomach muscles because my ribs are still sore. Guess whatever I did was the wrong thing.” Then he switched tactics. “Come on. Let’s check out the cave.”

That stole my focus. I couldn’t believe I had climbed a mountain to do something I never, ever wanted to do. But Bray felt we were unsafe as long as those men were around, and I had to agree. They had killed a man.

I stood at the mouth of the cave — and that’s exactly what it looked like: an open, hungry mouth fitted with tiny, jagged teeth, smiling sadistically, inviting us inside where the gums would clamp down around us and crush us into powder.

“You gonna be able to do this?”

My head shook back and forth. “Yes.”

There were a few hanging vines blocking the entrance. Bray pulled his dive knife from its sheath.

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