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ADELE

Now, adrenaline abandoning her, she had to face the stinging bite of failure. They’d saved Malinka’s life. But the game was obviously over before it ever began. Adele pushed away the disappointment. The foliage all around seemed to whisper, mocking. Malinka, limping, bleeding from a cut on her head, her hands raw from the rope, leaned heavily on Adele as they moved slowly together back to the casita on high ground. The storm had lessened some, but the ground was a swamp.

“It’s the eye,” said Cody, looking up into the sky. The clouds had parted, and a field of stars was visible in the velvet-black sky. “It won’t last.”

The girl was shivering in Adele’s arms. “You shouldn’t have come for me,” she said, maybe picking up on Adele’s despair. “I don’t deserve it.”

“Don’t say that,” said Adele. “You’re okay. We’re all okay for the moment. That’s all that matters.”

“You came here for your kids,” Malinka said, her voice throaty. “To make a better life for them. And instead, you had to save me.”

“The only thing that matters right now is that we all make it home.” She meant it. She saw the whole enterprise clearly now for what it always had been. A social-media sham; a false idol. A game that was rigged from the outset. How could she have been so foolish?

Cody took Malinka’s other arm and shifted her weight from Adele. Over the girl’s head, they exchanged a look. Adele felt the energy of a smile.

Inside it was blessedly dry. Cody got right to work clearing away some debris. He took a blanket from his pack and handed it to Adele, who wrapped it around Malinka. They sat together in the corner of the casita, farthest from the window. The occasional lightning flashes were distant now, thunder muted. Outside, the view was clear, lit by the moon.

“It’s so beautiful,” whispered Malinka, looking up. Adele felt it, too, the gratitude just to be alive.

Cody took out a canteen of water, handed it to Adele who drank from it, then offered it to Malinka. She waved it away.

“Drink,” said Cody. “Hydration is everything.”

Malinka reluctantly took a sip. Then she leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.

“Now what?” said Adele.

Cody’s face was half-cast in shadows. He stared outside at the view.

“Well, I think it’s clear that the game is off, right?” he said after a moment. “I don’t think anyone is coming for us.”

As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she knew he was right. Cody’s clothes were soaked through like Adele’s and Malinka’s—their sponsored supposedly impermeable rain gear had been no match for real weather. But Cody didn’t seem cold or especially rattled. His gaze was clear and focused.

“So the way I see it, we have a couple of choices.” He sat cross-legged on the ground next to Adele.

“Okay. What are you thinking?”

“We take advantage of the break in the weather, head back to camp, hop in one of those Range Rovers and get off this site, head back to town or to the airport, and wait out the rest of the storm there. Those men aren’t going to keep us here. They only care about detaining the Extreme team.”

This appealed to Adele. She felt beaten. She remembered something that Cody said. The only true prize in this world is living another day. Thinking that she was going to watch Malinka die, that she might go over the edge with her, had her shaken to the core. She realized that the only prize she cared about now was seeing her kids again.

“Do we have the keys?” asked Adele.

“The last I checked they were in the vehicle,” he said. So he had thought about leaving. “Right before the game began.”

She’d thought about leaving then, too.

“What’s the other option?” asked Malinka. Some of the color had returned to her cheeks. She took another drink from the canteen.

“We go along with whatever stunt Extreme is pulling.”

“What are you saying?” asked Malinka, leaning toward him with a frown.

“Maverick is down in the basement of Enchantments looking for Angeline. If WeWatch is to be believed, she’s been kidnapped.”

“What?” asked Adele. “How do you know that?”

“He went live. I saw it.”

He held up his phone to show the muted video of Maverick wading through the flooded basement, talking to the camera. It was recorded, playing on a loop. Maverick looked truly scared.

In all the videos Adele had watched with Blake, he always had this goofy, performative look on his face, as if all his emotions, from surprise to enthusiasm, were for the audience. The man on the camera was focused, determined, and very afraid. Or a better actor than he had a right to be. She read the cap tions: I think I may have found where whoever is doing this is holding Angeline. I’m about to go in. Wish me luck.

“So we follow,” said Cody. “If it’s for real, Maverick might need help. If it’s theater, then at least we’re there for the finale.”

Malinka’s expression was serious, but her eyes lit up a little.

“We might not get the money we came for. But think of the views,” she said. “Look at that. Nearly two million views of that video since it posted. That’s sick.”

These days sick was a good thing, Adele reminded herself.

But it was also a little sick —not in a good way—to be thinking about views less than an hour after you almost died. In fact, the unwellness of all of it was starting to get to her, including her own. Maybe she and the kids never needed a million dollars. Maybe they just needed each other. She felt something that had been squeezing her heart release.

“I think…” said Adele. Both Cody and Malinka had eyes on her. She felt weirdly close to them, as if she’d known them for years. They’d been bonded by their extreme circumstances. When things went FUBAR, each of them had abandoned the competition to help the others. That was something special.

“I think I’m ready to go home,” she finished.

It hurt because in her heart she was a competitor. Giving up felt like another failure. But the game was clearly rigged: people were missing. Even Mother Nature was angry.

Cody offered a slow nod, keeping his unreadable gaze on her. She figured he’d stay, but then he surprised her. “I’m with you.”

She felt a little jolt of electricity when they locked eyes. He reached out a hand to her, and she took it. It was familiar, intimate. Then he looked embarrassed, drew it back, his heat lingering on her palm.

Adele expected an argument from Malinka, but instead she just nodded, looking as defeated as Adele felt. The heaviness of it all felt unbearable. She thought about asking for Cody’s phone to call Violet. Let her kids know that she was okay and on her way back, however long it might take. But she didn’t. She’d give herself a little longer before she had to call them and tell them she had failed.

Cody rose.

“Let’s take advantage of this break in the weather and get back to camp.”

* * *

Malinka, seeming stronger, led the way down the path, Adele right behind her, Cody taking the rear. They moved quickly, though they were all worse for wear—Malinka limping, Adele’s back and shoulders aching. Cody had hurt his arm pulling on the rope. The night was humid and cool, rain slowed to a persistent drizzle, wind greatly diminished but still gusting as if to remind them that it wasn’t quite done with its show. There was more in store.

“It’s true what they say about me, you know,” said Malinka, turning back to Adele.

“What’s that?” she answered, coming into step beside the younger woman.

“That I couldn’t have made the summits without my father. Especially Everest. I almost died up there. If he hadn’t tethered me, I would have.”

She could see the young woman’s shame. Adele said what she had thought all along about Malinka’s story, “You were a child, you know. Fifteen on Everest, right?”

“Almost sixteen.”

“Still,” she said. “Were you a climber because you wanted to be? Or to please your father?”

Malinka frowned at her, then looked ahead. “I guess I don’t know the answer to that.”

“Most therapists would hold that you weren’t of the age of consent,” Adele went on gently. “That you weren’t old enough to know what you wanted past wanting your father’s approval.”

Malinka kept walking, looking at the path ahead.

“Most adults couldn’t make Everest without assistance,” Adele went on. “Even elite climbers have Sherpas hauling them up or hauling their gear. What you did, what you’ve done—it’s extraordinary. No matter how much help you had.”

Malinka laughed a little. “My company is about to go bankrupt.”

Adele put a hand on her shoulder. “I have a feeling you’ll figure out a way to save it.”

“Maybe,” she said, sounding unconvinced.

“You’re a survivor,” said Adele, looking back at Cody who was a few paces behind them. “We all are.”

They kept walking, each silent for a few paces.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Maybe because you saved my life. When I was dangling there, and you were holding on, I wished you weren’t risking everything for me. I wanted you to know.”

Malinka blinked back tears.

“Here’s the thing,” said Adele. “We’re worthy of life and love because of who we are , not because of what we do . You’re enough, Malinka. I wish someone had told me that when I was younger.”

Malinka reached for Adele’s hand and gave it a squeeze. Adele wasn’t sure if Malinka truly heard her, though. It was a lesson you needed to learn for yourself.

“And for the record,” said Cody from behind them, “while we’re playing true confessions, I did not kill that lion.”

Adele believed him. The man she used to watch on-screen with her son, and the one who helped her save Malinka, didn’t jibe with the images of him she’d seen in the media in the last couple of years.

“That photo was total CGI,” he explained.

Malinka looked at him, eyes soft. “I never believed it. You were my hero, growing up.”

He nodded sadly. “But the whole scandal, the loss of my show, all of it—I’m ashamed to say that I spiraled. My demons caught up with me, and rock bottom was waking up in an alley in New York City, high, broke, and no idea how to get well.”

Adele remembered the mug shot that had made its way around the internet, thinking what a shame that a person so beloved by children could fall so far. “The person I was on the way down, even before that—the things I did, and the people I hurt—I’m not proud of who I was.”

For a moment, there was only the sound their footfalls. Ahead, the turn to camp.

“You risked everything to save me. You both did,” said Malinka finally. “Maybe who we were, the things we did before we came here, maybe nothing matters as much as what we do now.”

Cody offered an assenting grunt. Above, the sky rumbled, the wind picked up.

“What about you, Adele? Anything you want to leave here on Falc?o Island?” asked Malinka as Enchantments rose into view, the sliver of moon glowing behind it.

So many things. But nothing she could share right now because her secrets weren’t hers alone.

The three of them stood at the edge of the campsite.

The men on the ATVs were gone. Was the storm too much for them? The trailer was dark and deserted. The two Range Rovers were parked, unattended, presumably with the keys in the car, if Cody was to be believed.

The wind picked up again, rain growing heavier.

A left turn offered a clear run for home.

A right turn brought them back to the darkness and danger of Enchantments.

There was no discussion, just exchanged looks between them. Adele felt the rush of adrenaline, and then they were jogging to the right.

As the storm began to rage again, the gaping mouth of Enchantments swallowed them whole.