Alive (The Veiled World Book 1) (21 page)

Chapter 23

Amber

All of us ran for the plank bridge at the same time. Unfortunately, due to the river water, some were still clumsy on their feet, the ones who’d drank from the river only this morning. But, for the most part, fear had slapped us well and truly awake.

Jacob leapt onto the bridge first and was now pulling others up. He helped Claire, Noah, Reuben, and Kyle. Reece slipped and fell, dangling off the side of the bridge, his knuckles bulging as he gripped tight to the plank.

An ear splitting roar nearly burst my eardrums.

“Hurry!” I screamed at Axel, who had slung a spaghetti limbed Bruce’s arm over his shoulder.

The trees behind them snapped and I left the bridge to help Axel.

We dragged Bruce up onto the bridge. But just as the monster broke through the trees, Bruce slipped off the bridge, sliding back onto the river bank.

The creature sniffed and roared, his head thrown back, his sharp teeth visible.

“Bruce!”

Claire screamed an ear-splitting scream, but it was nothing compared to the sound of Bruce’s shrieks as the Tyrannosaurus rex made a lunge for him.

I shut my eyes, but then couldn’t resist opening them again. Luckily, Bruce had rolled out of the way. But in his escape from the dinosaur’s jaw, he’d rolled off the river bed, which was more like a cliff face since the
Change,
and down into the greenish-yellow waters, his head slamming against one of the jutting rocks.

“No!”

I winced at the bloody gash on his temple, and the way his lifeless body didn’t resist as the wild waters swept him away, his body rising and falling over sharp rocks.

The dinosaur stepped closer, the earth quaking and the bridge shaking with each movement.

There was no time to scream or cry for poor Bruce.

The T. rex was so close I could feel the heat of its breath.

“Cut the bridge, Amber,” said Axel, his voice low and steady at my ear. “Use your sword.”

“Everyone, hold on!” I shouted. “Are they holding on? Check before I cut this thi—”

The dinosaur bent low, opened its jaws, and roared, the hot stench of rank, rotting flesh blasting me so hard that I fell back against Axel.

“Do it now! I’ll help.”

I unsheathed my sword just as the T. rex reared back, looking ready to chomp me.

Axel’s hand closed over mine.

“Now!”

With his help, the sword sliced through one of the ropes that bound the bridge to the cliff face. The bridge sprang to the right.

Axel wrapped his left wrist around the remaining rope and I did the same.

“Hold on!” I shouted over my shoulder as we sliced through the last rope.

Everything that happened next seemed to happen in slow motion.

The dinosaur lunged at us, its teeth dripping with saliva, and at the same time we fell away, the bridge snapping back fast. As we swung, I looked through a gap in the planks and realised that we were about to smash into the wall of rock on the other side, and would probably not survive it.

The dinosaur roared again as it slipped over the edge and crashed into the water below. Claire screamed and slipped down, her body hitting the others as she fell past them, landing just above me.

“Hold on!”

It was then I realised that we hadn’t hit the wall on the other side. We’d stopped mid river.

I looked down and saw that the cut end of the bridge had snagged onto a rock, creating a much steeper bridge, but still, a working bridge.

The T. rex fought the current, refusing to be swept away. It was slowly moving towards the base of our bridge.

“Climb up! Quick!”

Claire was in front of me, hugging a plank, refusing to move.

Her left leg slipped, kicking me in the face.

I swore and momentarily lost my balance, falling back against Axel before slipping my hands around another plank.

“Hurry! Move, Claire!” shouted Axel from behind me. He slipped a hand around my waist and held me against him. “I won’t let go of you, Amber, no matter what.”

The T. rex was getting closer.

“Hurry!” I screamed. After all we’d been through, I was not going to die between an extinct creature’s jaws.

“Who the hell wants dinosaurs in heaven?” I shouted with frustration, tears stinging my eyes.

Axel wrapped me tighter against him and chuckled in my ear, his voice low and gravelly.

“My baby brother.”

I laughed breathlessly, like a crazy person. It was strange to be finding humour in this situation. Dangling from a bridge over a dinosaur.

“Come on, Claire! Please!”

I tried inching my hands across to hers. If I had to force her to climb, I would.

She screamed and shook me off. I couldn’t get around her. I looked down, past Axel, at the water and the sharp rocks and pictured Bruce’s broken body as it was swept away, and then glanced at the T. rex snapping at Axel’s feet.

I wasn’t about to die. And I wasn’t about to lose Axel either.

The others had already climbed up the bridge and were shouting and screaming at us from above to hurry up. Only Claire was stopping us.

“Hold on. Give me some room,” I said to Axel. He eased his grip on my waist.

Unsheathing my sword, I carefully drew it up and past my body before pointing the tip of it at Claire’s butt.

“I don’t want to have to do this, Claire, I’m so sorry.”

She looked down, under her arm, at my sharp sword poised at her butt.

“What…what are you doing?”

“If you don’t move up this bridge, I’m going to poke you in the arse with this thing. It’s sharp. You won’t like it. Now move!”

She held my gaze for what seemed forever and I mouthed, “Sorry,” before she nodded and started to inch her way up the bridge. Finally.

Axel, who’d slipped his arm back around my waist, whispered, “Clever girl,” in my ear before he let me go and we both started climbing.

Plank by plank we slowly made our way up the bridge until Claire was lifted off by Jacob and Reece and it was just Axel and me.

“It’s gone,” said Axel.

I looked down and saw what he meant. Hopefully the T. rex had been swept away down the river. I didn’t want to imagine that it was waiting for us at the other side of this bridge somehow.

“Nearly there, Amber,” said Axel, who’d climbed a plank or two extra and was behind me again.

With shaking limbs, my muscles burning, I lifted myself up the last couple of planks, and, with the help of Jacob, managed to scramble up the cliff’s face to the edge.

Solid ground.

I threw my sword down and rolled onto my back, staring up at the sky through the canopy of leaves above me. Every muscle in my body burned. I didn’t realise how painful holding on to that bridge had been until now. My fingers throbbed and I had bleeding callouses on my palms from severe rope burn.

“Axel!” I sat up just as he was being pulled up and I knelt down beside him as he caught his breath.

“Thanks,” I said.

He stared into my eyes and didn’t break that stare before he leaned forward and cupped my face in one hand and pressed his lips to my forehead.

“No. Thank you, Amber,” he whispered in my ear before he seemed to realise what he had said and done, and released me as though I was on fire.

He scrambled to his feet and backed away from me, swearing under his breath and raking his hands through his tussled hair.

“You okay?” Noah asked, his gentle hand on my shoulder. I shrugged him off and nodded.

“You?”

He nodded, blood dripping down his cheek from his forehead. I felt my eyes sting as something trickled into them and when I wiped it away I realised it was blood from where Claire had kicked me in the face.

“What happened to Bruce?” Noah asked, wiping away his own blood. “Is he going to be okay?”

“We have to find him,” said Kyle, who I remembered had taken to Bruce as somewhat of a father figure. They’d bonded over their love for surfing.

I slid my face over to the edge of the cliff and vomited as I pictured the gash on Bruce’s forehead and the way his lifeless body had slammed against the rocks on his way down the wild river.

“I don’t think he’s alive,” I said, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. My throat tightened as Kyle’s eyes turned red with emotion. “I’m sorry, Kyle.”

“Maybe he’s okay. You don’t know that he’s dead. He could have washed up somewhere safe.”

“She’s right,” said Jacob, grabbing hold of Kyle’s arm. “I saw him. He hit his head on the rocks. Hard. We’ll have to continue without him.”

“But he said it won’t work if were not together,” said Reuben. “Don’t we have to be a group of nine to get to this Land of Resting Souls place?”

“Maybe we can find his body and carry it with us,” said Claire, her voice hoarse.

“No way,” said Noah. “I’m not going to drag a dead body around.”

They all looked at me, like I was their leader, second in command after Bruce. It made me feel awkward, not heroic or brave. I looked to Axel, because, to me, he was the best authority on this place. I wanted him in command, not me. But he wouldn’t meet my eyes after that forehead kiss.

I sighed. I was on my own.

“I don’t know how this works, but maybe if we get through nine of these
Changes
, these different versions of heavens or hells, then we’ll get to the Land of Resting Souls. Maybe that’s all there is to it. But I think Claire’s right. I think we need to find Bruce’s body. Maybe if we have him with us it’ll still count. And even more importantly, we can’t leave him in another person’s afterlife. That could be dangerous for his soul.”

“What if he never gets to reunite with his wife?” said Claire. “We have to find him.”

Axel nodded. “I think she’s right,” he said, nodding towards Claire and completely ignoring me. “We must find Bruce.”

Everyone agreed.

I sheathed my sword and rubbed my sore head.

Now that the danger had passed, the effects of the river wine hangover intensified. I wondered how long it would take before I felt normal again. The pounding against my skull was so bad I felt like chopping off my head and throwing myself at the mercy of the rocks below. At least I wouldn’t feel anything anymore. It made me wonder why people went back for it, like Jacob’s mum. If this was how they felt the day after drinking, why would they do it again?

We started walking in the direction of the flowing water, each of us silent, deep in thought.

My cheeks heated as I recalled my failed attempt at kissing Jacob, and when I looked up he was staring back at me over his shoulder, his dark eyes soft, and his cheeks equally as inflamed as mine. He quickly looked away.

Great. Jacob was never going to say another word to me again. I’d ruined my friendship with him before it had begun.

And then there was Axel and that kiss.

A flood of butterflies fluttered inside my lower belly as I recalled the feeling of his hand as it had cupped my face, and the way his lips had caressed my forehead. He’d stared so deeply into my eyes when he’d thanked me. And then there was the way he’d held me tight against his body on the bridge. Oh God. Surely I hadn’t imagined the electricity that had vibrated between us.

“Let’s just follow the river until—”

“Until the shit comes at us,” said Reuben, finishing Reece’s sentence, staring up at the sky before he continued forward, shoulders down. “I’m sick of it already. Maybe I want to let my dad’s soul rest in peace. Maybe we shouldn’t be here.”

“I wish I was home in my own bed,” said Claire, sniffing.

“Me too,” I said, feeling guilty as soon as I said it. I didn’t deserve a comfy bed until I got my brother back.

Reece looked up sharply at me, but his face softened. “Same.”

I was surprised, unsure what to do. Normally he’d attack me for speaking, the only time he’d ever been nice to me was last night, and that was only after he’d drunk from the red river.

“Do you remember much of last night?” he asked, falling into step beside me.

My shoulders stiffened.

“Only the stuff I want to forget.”

He shrugged. “Don’t worry. We all said and did stupid things last night.”

We walked in silence for a while and I wondered how much of last night I’d blocked out. Who knew what else I’d done beside kiss Jacob. Maybe that was why Axel was upset. Had I tried to kiss him too? No. I’d remember kissing Axel. Wait. No. He’d only changed after the bridge and that forehead kiss.

“I remember something you said to me,” Reece said.

I swallowed thickly and tried to quicken my steps but he kept up.