Chapter 4Her Worst Survival Mistake

The radio hissed with empty white noise.

She was dragging three young kids into a natural death trap just to spite me.

I inhaled deeply, forcing the trembling rage out of my voice, and switched tactics.

"Courtney, listen to me. Hold your current position. Do not move an inch. I have high-tensile safety lines and a recovery crew. We will be at your location in twenty minutes."

"Don't flatter yourself."

Her voice boomed, clearly aimed toward the trailing camera rig.

"Take a good look, everyone watching at home. Today, we show the world what happens when someone tries to scare you with cheap theatrics."

"Team B, forward march."

To prove me wrong, she was willingly walking into a slaughterhouse.

I dialed the emergency bypass line to network headquarters, demanding an immediate operational shutdown and the deployment of local maritime search and rescue.

The line bounced through two administrative layers before the operator came back:

"Sponsor representatives have rejected the operational hold."

I stared at the screen of my satellite phone for three dead seconds.

Then, for the first time since I stepped foot on this island, I lost my temper. I cursed with violent fury and slammed the radio down onto the wooden folding table.

I grabbed two fifty-foot spools of static line, buckled an emergency vest around my chest, and kicked open the shelter door.

"Medical team, with me! Move!"

By the time we hit the rim of the gorge, the sky had completely collapsed.

Sheets of torrential rain battered the limestone rocks, turning the world into an eerie, slate-gray twilight.

Courtney and her three teammates were standing at the edge of the swollen creek bed.

She was ordering Dylan and the other two to wade across using a single, frayed hand-line they'd brought themselves. Her own life vest was barely clipped, the nylon straps hanging loose and unbuckled around her waist.

"Oh, look! The Director made it!"

She turned, wiping rain from her eyelashes, and actually had the audacity to laugh.

"You arrived just in time to see whose map was right."

Before the last word left her mouth, an explosive roar erupted from the upper canyon.

The mountain flash flood hit.

What had been an ankle-deep stream exploded into a waist-high torrent of churning, coffee-colored water within three seconds. Broken logs, boulders, and river silt churned into a violent hydraulic monster.

In the center of the channel, Dylan lost his footing.

He was knocked off his feet like a rag doll, his scream swallowed by the roar of the water as the current hurled him fifty feet downstream.

"Dylan!"

The other two contestants shrieked, desperately hauling on the frayed rope.

Courtney was standing near the bank, clutching the anchor tail of the line. If she had just braced her heels and hauled back with her body weight, Dylan could have caught the slack.

Instead, she kicked him away.

As Dylan’s flailing hand brushed the bank, she stomped her boot directly into his ribs.

"Let go of the rope! You're dragging me in!"

She was saving herself.

Dylan’s fingers slipped from the nylon braid. His head dipped beneath the frothing brown surface, choking on silt as the undertow dragged him toward the reef.

Then, a rogue surge smashed into Courtney’s shins.

Her ankles buckled.

"Ahhh—!"

She tumbled headlong into the center of the torrent, instantly swallowed by the churning hydraulic boil.

"Help! I can't swim—save me! Help me!"

She thrashed blindly, her unclipped life vest tearing free in the current. She vanished beneath the surface, came up sputtering, vomiting muddy water, and went under again.

On the rocky bluff, the cameraman lowered his rig, screaming into the storm: "Courtney fell in! She's drowning!"

My mind went entirely blank.

I ripped off my rain jacket, snapped the primary carabiner of the safety line to my utility belt, and turned to my lead medic.

"Hold this line! Don't let go!"

I dove into the violent current.

Using the speed of the surge, I angled my body downstream, intercepting Dylan just before he slammed into a cluster of jagged rocks. I caught him by the collar of his vest, shoving my spare flotation collar under his chin.

"Grab my harness! Haul the line! Pull! Pull!"

From the bank, my team threw their backs into the rope, hauling us toward the shallows.

Fighting the water pressure that felt like concrete, I pushed Dylan up onto the muddy shelf until four pairs of hands hoisted him onto dry land.

The second Dylan was clear, I unclipped the carabiner from my belt and screamed back at the crew:

"Get him up to the ridge!"

Then I kicked off the bank, turning my body back toward the raging center of the river.

Behind me, Walsh’s voice was shredding itself over the wind:

"Director Adams! The rope! Come back! That's suicide!"

I didn't turn around.

The crew on the bank was in absolute chaos, treating Dylan's shock; no one was prepared to make a second water entry.

And thirty yards downriver, Courtney’s head had already slipped beneath the brown foam twice.

Her fingers were clawing helplessly at the air.

"Save me! I have money! I'll pay you whatever you want—!"

The second I reached her, she didn't cooperate—she lunged like a terrified animal, wrapping her limbs around my neck with strangling force.

A drowning person has no sanity.

"Let go! Let me get under you—"

She couldn't hear me. She simply clawed, her nails tearing into my neck, forcing my head down into the mud to keep her own chin above water.

The current pulled us both under.

Cold, silt-heavy water poured down my throat, into my lungs, pressing against my ribs like a closing fist.

With the absolute last ounce of strength in my legs, I planted my boots against a submerged boulder and launched upward, heaving Courtney's torso out of the whirlpool with both hands.

The roar of the river was the last thing I heard.

My vision fractured into jagged shards of gray sky and falling rain, and then everything went completely black.