Rise An Eve Novel

cutting the silence. “If you lean back, you can walk down the cliff front,” I explained. I’d seen Quinn do it twice, trying to reach one of the narrow, secluded beaches on the east end of Marin. “Keep your hands on the rope.”
    “Right,” she said. “I’ll be fine.” I pulled some of the rope in, so it was taut, and she started backward, glancing to the spot where the pavement turned into rock. As she got to the cliff’s edge, she leaned back, her eyes meeting mine for a second as I let out the line. She squeezed the tears away.
    I watched as she slowly stepped down the front of the ledge, finally dropping out of view. There was the quiet falling of pebbles, skittering down the cliff front, heard each time she pushed off. Behind me, Bette’s breaths were choked and wet. “She has to get her,” she said. “She can’t die.”
    “No one is going to die,” Beatrice snapped. It was the closest thing I’d ever heard to anger in her voice. It startled even the girls. They all grew silent, letting the rope out only when I told them to.
    Clara was saying something, whispering to herself as she went down, though I couldn’t hear what. Every doubt I’d pushed aside in the past days crowded my mind, closing in on me. I’d been foolish to think I could bring the girls with me, that we wouldn’t all be captured or die from starvation. Even if Helene could be brought up, her leg was likely broken or sprained. How would she be able to keep pace? We’d be on the road another two weeks, at least, as we headed for the coast.
    The rope burned against my palm. I could feel all of Clara’s weight straining against it, pulling back and away. I let some of it give, and after a few minutes it loosened as she hit the outcropping where Helene was. “I’ve got her,” she yelled, her voice small and distant. “She’s okay. I’m bringing her up.”
    I RESTED MY HAND ON HELENE’S FOREHEAD, JUST ABOVE HER brow. “It’ll sting,” I said. Her tiny black braids were caked with dried blood. The three-inch gash was still split open. I breathed through my mouth, trying not to give in to the sick, sinking feeling in my stomach as I poured the vodka over the cut. She winced, her body tensing against it. I brought one of the towels to the side of her head, catching the rest of the liquid, careful to keep the cloth away from the wound. “It’s done now,” I said. “It’s over. Try to get some sleep.”
    Helene didn’t look at me. Her eyes were squeezed shut, tears caught in her lashes. Color had come into the bruises on her arms, the blood crusted black beneath her fingernails. I looked down at her leg. Beatrice had fashioned a splint out of two branches we’d found, tying them together with rope. I had held Helene’s hand as Beatrice pulled her heel, setting the bone in place. Now the area from her knee to her ankle was swollen, the skin stretched and red. We’d given her some of the vodka for the pain, but it was hard to know how bad the break was. The bone didn’t come through the skin—Beatrice had said there was hope.
    I turned away, stepping around the girls who’d settled beside her. Bette and Sarah had fallen asleep. The blankets we hadn’t used for Helene were shared among the others. Bette shifted on the hard earth, struggling to get comfortable. As the wind came through the valley, I pulled my sweater closer, trying to steel myself against the cold, but it ripped right through me. The temperature had dropped ten degrees since the sun disappeared from the sky.
    We’d found camp as soon as the road flattened out, setting up behind a cluster of high rocks. Bette and Sarah had pulled Helene behind them in the sled. Even after we’d given her as much of the alcohol as she could take down, she still sobbed, the pain coming and going in waves. I’d spent nearly an hour sitting beside her, occasionally listening to the radio, trying to get news from the Trail.
    I looked out at Beatrice and Clara, their silhouettes just visible beyond dry, withered shrubs. As I approached, I caught snippets of their conversation, a few sentences carried in by the wind. “If it’s infected, we don’t have a choice,” Clara said. “I just don’t see how she could survive otherwise.” Beatrice was at her side, the two of them hunched over, bracing themselves against the cold.
    “It’s not infected, though—not yet,” Beatrice said. They turned when they saw me coming.
    Beatrice shook her head. “You haven’t