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“Pipsqueak!” Alex shouted. Her body was being stretched painfully from head to toe, with her muscles burning from the strain of dangling for so long.

“Why are you yelling at me?” Pipsqueak asked. “That’s not very nice. Oh, look! It’s Kaiden. Hi, Kaiden!”

“Pip, what are you—”

Alex didn’t get a chance to finish her question before she felt something warm brush up against her side. The rope had been wobbling so much from her and Pipsqueak that she hadn’t realised someone else was climbing along it. But when she turned her head and saw Kaiden hanging upside-down directly beside her, she released a shaky breath of relief.

Without saying anything, he reached out and grabbed Pipsqueak’s arm just a little further along from where Alex’s grip ended, transferring most of her weight into his hands.

“Hey, Pip, how do you feel about a piggyback ride?” he asked the drugged girl.

“Yay!” she cried, and Alex sucked in a painful breath when Pipsqueak bounced around with excitement.

“How are you holding up, Alex?” Kaiden’s quiet voice held a tone that she couldn’t decipher, and she wished she could turn around again to see his expression.

“I’m… hanging in there,” she answered in a strained voice. He didn’t laugh, so she guessed it wasn’t the best time to joke about their current predicament.

He’d taken the bulk of Pip’s weight from her, but Alex was almost completely drained. She needed to get on solid ground, and soon.

“I’ll need you to help me get back upright so we can start moving,” Kaiden told her. “We’ll both have to reach up and grab the rope with one hand and pull her up together. Do you think you can manage that?”

“I think so,” Alex said, knowing she would have to even though she felt like her body was about to tear in two. “Will you be able to carry her? She might be small, but she’s heavy.”

“I take offence to that,” Pipsqueak said moodily. It seemed like her emotions were all over the place because of the relaxant.

“We have a very important mission for you, Pip,” Kaiden said. “Do you think you’re up to it?”

“You bet I am!” she said, excitement replacing her moodiness.

“In a moment when we’re all back up near the rope, I’m going to need you to climb onto me for your piggyback ride. You’ll have to hold onreallytight because we’re going to race against Alex and we’ll lose if you let go. You don’t want to lose, do you?”

“No way,” Pipsqueak said, sounding like a small child. “We’re so going to win. I promise I’ll hold on tight.”

“Good girl,” Kaiden said, as if he truly was talking to a child. “On three, Alex?”

“One,” she said, starting the count.

“Two,” Kaiden continued.

“Three,” they said together, and they both strained upwards for the rope with their free hands and pulled Pipsqueak up between them. Alex sucked in a terrified breath when Kaiden dropped his legs immediately, dangling by one white-knuckled hand while he helped Pipsqueak wrap her legs around his waist. Once she was secure, Alex released Pip so she could wrap her arms around Kaiden’s neck, which left him free to grasp the rope with both hands again.

“Ready?” he called back to Alex.

“Just go!”

With her legs cramped, Alex had to use Kaiden’s hand-over-hand method to cross the remaining distance of the ravine. When Tom and Jordan helped pull her up onto solid ground after Pipsqueak and Kaiden, she promptly rolled away from the edge far enough to curl into a ball, waiting for her trembling limbs to relax.

“Alex? Alex! Are you okay?” came Jordan’s frantic voice.

“Define ‘okay’,” she said shakily.

He didn’t answer, but she felt someone reach out to take her backpack and she mumbled her thanks.

She heard Tom call out for Declan to come across, and only when she heard the big guy’s voice amongst the rest of them did she open her eyes and sit up from her collapsed position. Her body screamed at the move, and she almost bit through her lip to hold back a moan of pain as she began to massage her aching limbs.

Her classmates noticed her movement and began to cluster around her.

“Whoa, that was just…whoa…” Blink said, apparently beyond a proper sentence.