I’ll have the rope cut and we’ll both be free-climbing,” Cantell called up to Summer. They were thirty or forty yards off the ground, McGuiness in the lead, then Salvo with his wounded hand, then Summer, with Cantell last. The route had started out quite easy, the rope for safety only, the physical act of climbing requiring little technical expertise.
But Cantell soon realized they’d been lied to: the route the cowboy had suggested grew increasingly technical the higher they climbed. McGuiness, a human fly, had no problem with it. It was child’s play for him. Matt Salvo overcame his lack of technical prowess and his broken finger with sheer guts and muscle. It was Summer who was slowing them down, and it had taken Cantell too long to realize it was intentional on her part.
“We’ll all be far better off once we’re at the top,” Cantell called out. “If you want to escape, why don’t you try then. Now is not the time. We’ll haul you up if we have to. But if you force us to do that, we’ll punish you. We’ll strip you naked and let the sun get you.”
Icy terror raced through Summer. The man knew which buttons to push. The idea of being stripped drove her to reach for the next rock and pull herself up.
The little guy was above her, and he’d mentally undressed her every time he’d eyed her ever since back at the plane. Even now, he would glance down at her and seem to be leering.
Those looks of his paralyzed her. He was the reason she was in no hurry. The copilot had it all wrong. She wasn’t scheming. She just didn’t want to be close to the little guy.
But she was terrified. She was afraid of reaching the top, of heading off into the wilderness as a hostage of these men, wondering what they had in mind for her.
“Last warning,” the copilot called from below.