Esteban shouts.
Your phone falls from your pocket.
Lucía shoves you with both hands.
The sky flips.
For one horrifying second, you are weightless.
Then Arturo’s arms slam around you, and both of you tumble down the slope beyond the rock shelf.
You hit dirt first.
Then stone.
Then branches.
Pain explodes through your shoulder, ribs, hip, skull. The world becomes leaves, sky, rock, Arturo’s body striking yours, your own scream lost in wind.
Then you stop.
Not at the bottom.
A narrow ledge catches you twenty or thirty feet below the overlook, hidden by brush and a twisted pine. Arturo lies half over you, one arm still around your waist.
You cannot breathe.
Your body wants to scream.
Arturo’s lips are near your ear.
“Don’t move,” he whispers. “Pretend you’re dead.”
You freeze.
Above you, Lucía’s voice cuts through the wind.
“Mom?”
Silence.
Then louder.
“Dad?”
You feel Arturo’s blood dripping onto your sleeve.
His breathing is shallow.
Your leg burns with pain.
You want to move.
You want to cry.
You want to call out.
Arturo tightens his hand once against your side.
Do not.
Rocks shift above.
Lucía is peering over the edge.
You can sense her there.
You keep your eyes half open, unfocused, staring at nothing the way you have seen bodies stare in nightmares.
Lucía says, “Oh my God.”
Esteban’s voice trembles. “Are they dead?”
Lucía breathes hard.
“I think so.”
“Lucía, what did you do?”
“What did I do?” she hisses. “You helped get them here.”
“I didn’t think you’d push them!”
“You knew why we came.”
“No. I thought you were going to scare them into signing.”
A bitter laugh tears through her.
“They were never going to sign.”
Your heart pounds so loudly you fear they will hear it.
Esteban says, “We need to call 911.”
Lucía snaps, “No.”
“We have to!”
“You want to explain why we brought them to the same kind of cliff where Diego died?”
Silence.
Then Esteban whispers, “You said Diego slipped.”
