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He didn’t read me wrong. I’m an asshole, but I still believe every word Mom said to me. I lower my head to avoid any contact with his moonlit glowing eyes. I have nothing to say in return—nothing can make this less awkward or easier.

“I’m going to rinse off real quick. I need to clear my mind for a minute. You mind?” he asks.

I shake my head, still holding my attention to the rock below my
feet. I see his shadow stand tall beside me, and his arms lift over his head. The scent of his shirt, which is a combination of man and sunscreen, swooshes into my face as the material drops down next to
me. I hear the
metal clink of his belt buckle release, which allows me to imagine
what he looks like while taking it off. The clamor of his shorts hitting the rock forces oxygen to constrict in my lungs.

The shadow quickly disappears into the water and my eyes are unwillingly drawn out to him. He’s facing away from me, probably admiring the waterfall, and I’m ogling the shadows of his half naked body.

The water cuts his body off at the middle of his waist, making me wonder what his clothes have been hiding. He lifts his arms and combs his fingertips through the short spikes on the top of his head. His biceps must be larger than my thigh. They flex with such a simple
movement, showcasing what he’s capable of.

I’m going to regret this. I just told him this was basically over and now . . . I’m changing my mind.

I stand up and pull my tank top over my head. The coolness of the musky air chills my skin, forcing a mist of goose bumps over my
stomach. I drop my shorts down to the rocks, revealing more than I thought I’d ever allow someone to see again, and I kick off my boots while unwrapping the fabric from my leg. The bleeding has stopped, and I’m taking that as a sign that I should continue. I place the scrap
of fabric over my clothes and dive into the water.

When I resurface, I rake my fingers through my hair to clear it out of my face and I open my eyes to see Tango staring at me. Getting a better glimpse of the front of him without a shirt convinces
me that I
was the biggest moron in the world a few minutes ago. The darkness in the hotel room last night didn’t do his body any justice. He’s so fucking hot. I can’t just coexist on this trek with him and not touch
him again. And I don’t care if he thinks I’m crazy. I don’t care about what I just said to him. All I care about is the way his hands feel over my skin.

Without an idea of what to say, I pinch my lip between my teeth again. It happens without a thought. It’s my body reacting to his flawlessness. His eyes are having trouble focusing and his chest is
heaving in and out at a much faster rate than it was a second ago.

His lips part and I can’t take it. I tread through the water faster
than I thought I could, and I wrap my arms tightly around his neck as I slam my lips into his and suck all the breath out of him. His
hands loop
around my waist and he lifts me up with ease, allowing my legs to wrap around his narrow hips. He’s forgiving me for everything I’ve
said and doesn’t question my change of mind.

I feel his bulge press into me, and my body responds instantly.
His
hands slide down over the thin material of my panties as a growl
hums
from the depths of his throat. His grip tightens and his teeth clamp down over my bottom lip. My body presses against his as our skin blends smoothly from the water acting as a lubricant between us. There
is no resistance, only a relentless desire. He treads us backwards
toward
the falls and pulls me under until we’re being showered by the solid thick sheen of falling water. We continue to move in stride until
we’re up against a rock wall. “I’m not going any further until I know you
believe me. I don’t want to hurt you. I want to be with you. I haven’t lied to you about anything, and I trust you, Cali. You don’t have to trust me, but I need you to believe me,” he says loud enough so I can
hear him over the rushing water.

I can see truth in his eyes. It’s something I didn’t see in Reaper’s.
He looks at me in a lot of ways Reaper never looked at me. I look
him in the eyes and let the truth roll off my tongue. “I believe you.”

“Don’t just say that to get in my pants,” he laughs softly.

I slap his chest playfully. “No, I do believe you. And . . . you’re
not exactly wearing pants.” I could hardly find the right words. It’s been so long since I’ve felt anything like this.

He lifts me up a bit higher until my head is above his, giving his hand easy access to cup around my breast. He pushes it up and wraps his lips around my nipple, using the tip of his tongue to draw
small pleasurable circles. The sensation causes my breaths to increase and my fingers to press firmly into his shoulders. Obviously he knows how to use his tongue, and that thought turns me on even more. Just
as I think I can’t take much more, his hand travels down my side and onto my thigh, lowering me until our eyes meet again. But it’s only until his starved mouth finds the spot on my neck that makes my body tighten around his. He continues sucking and biting the spot
until I let
out a soft moan. I’m becoming weak in his hands and he definitely knows it. His hand finally slides under the hem of my panties and his finger slips inside of me briefly, but he pulls it out much quicker
than I
want. His hands instantly clamp around my sides and he drags me under the water with him, leaving me breathless and terrified. My
body is too weak to struggle against his hold, and my eyes remain
clenched shut, imagining my worst nightmare, knowing I shouldn’t have fucking trusted anyone.

CALI

TANGO’S BELOW THE WATER
with me. He’s pointing frantically at something, but I don’t understand. As the remaining oxygen seeps out of my body, Tango’s hands grip around my waist and he thrusts
me up above the water. His hand slaps over my mouth and his other arm wraps around my stomach as he drags me up to the nearest rock. He puts his face in front of mine and mouths the words, “Stay
here.” The purposeful look in his eyes screams danger and my eyes dart
around looking for the source. But I don’t see anything. How could he have seen anything, but darkness or the water that was barricading us?

He wades over to the rock we jumped from, grabs our clothes and water, and holds it above his head as he makes his way back to
where I’m sitting. “Get dressed, quickly.”

I struggle to pull my shorts up over my soaked legs, and before I have them settled over my hips, Tango is pulling my tank top over my head. He places my boots next to each of my feet and I shove them in
without tying up the laces. I toss my water pouch back over my shoulders just as he reaches for my hand from the above rock. He
nearly catapults me upward and repeats this three more times until we’re back on solid land.

He pulls me over into a nook of a rock formation and squats
down, pulling me with him. “He’s here,” he whispers into my ear.

Those two words hold all the meaning in the world. I know exactly
who
he
is and why Tango almost just drowned me. “Reaper?” I
confirm. The name tastes dirty on my tongue.

“I’m assuming it’s him. He’s been tracking us, I’m sure. I saw a man with an assault rifle on one of the higher boulders. Moron was
standing right in the glow of the moonlight.” His eyes shift wildly behind me, searching through the darkness. “We have to lose him or whoever it
is so he doesn’t find our campsite.” Tango hovers over me and
begins to lace my boots up.

“I can do it,” I say, brushing his hand away from my foot as I continue to lace them up, quickly and tightly. He steps into his shorts, pulling them up over his soaked boxers, and pulls his T-shirt over his head.

“This way,” he whispers, nodding his head in the opposite
direction than where we came from.

The slight sound of our feet crunching against the moss-covered
dirt is loud enough to overload my ears, and I’m fearful whoever is after us can hear the same thing. But my fear disappears as my
memory jogs
back to the moment I watched Reaper murder Krissy. If it is him
who’s following us, I want to go after him.

I continue following in Tango’s footsteps, noticing the maze he’s
created in the woods. I know how to throw a tracker off. I remember Dad telling me about it. You walk in different directions, leaving your footprints where you want the tracker to go. That’s what we’re
doing.

By the descending angle of this trail, I believe we’re heading back down the canyon, far away from our tent. Tango has his pack, but I don’t have mine. I want to see inside of his mind right now and
find out
what his plan is, but I don’t want my voice or whisper to carry
through the breeze.

We’ve been walking for over an hour in what seems like circles. Tango releases his pack from his shoulders and hovers over to pull something out. He retrieves a pair of binoculars, which I don’t know how he’ll use within the darkness and cluster of trees surrounding us. He looks up at me and the confused look I’m giving him, then he hands me the binoculars, placing them over my eyes. Everything is green, and I can see through the murk. “Night vision goggles,” he
says softly. I nod my head with understanding and hand them back
to
him. He uses them to search around the vicinity, taking his time to
look in every single direction. “Let’s head back. We lost him for now.”

For now.

It must be the middle of the night by the time we return to our
campsite. Everything appears unscathed and unnoticed, but Tango
isn’t comfortable with assuming that to be the case. “Grab your stuff and follow me.”

He folds up the tent enough to move it and tucks it under his
arm as he looks back at me. He jerks his head for me to follow him, and I do. We find a small shallow cave and Tango shoves the tent inside.
However, the cave isn’t large enough for the tent to be opened. I don’t
think he intended to open it anyway. I can assume a tent is a clear
indicator of our location, which is precisely what we’re trying to
avoid.

He pulls a large sleeping bag from his pack, and I open mine to follow suit. He lays his down inside of the cave and I lay mine next to his. The space is so tight we’ll hardly be able to move once inside, but this is necessary. Once my sleeping bag is laid out, he tells me to
climb in, and he follows. Being caught in a vulnerable situation by what was likely my ex—my sister’s murderer—is too much to digest
and I’m
trying to avoid the thought. But I can see it’s all he’s thinking about
as he pulls both of our packs toward us so they’re blocking the opening to the cave.

 “No one will see us in here now,” he says.

Before settling into his sleeping bag, Tango removes his shirt and
drapes it over his pack, but leaves his shorts on, which are likely still wet. And I leave mine on as well since there doesn’t look to be
enough space to change in here.

He places a small flashlight in the corner, giving us a bit of light so we can see one another. The slight glow is comforting and we
both lie
in silence, listening to each other’s breaths, feeling the heat build
around us from the locked in moisture.

We’ve been lying in silence for a bit, but a clap of thunder
rumbles
in the distance, and the break in the quiet is welcoming. Pellets of water ping against the rock we’re beneath, one by one, until the rain turns into a steady stream. The cave is elevated on a short mound, which
I’m now thankful for since the drainage isn’t seeping in below us.

“How long were you with him?” he asks in a dour voice.

“Reaper?”

“Yes.”

“A few months. Enough time to make me fall for him and trust
him,” I reply. “I wish I saw warning signs. She’d still be alive. But without sounding too cocky, I think he lost track of what his plan
was. I think he
might have accidentally fallen for me too. It felt like a normal relationship and I don’t know how someone could fake that, but he
must have realized it had gone too far at some point—the point where he ended everything.”

“I’m sure he did fall for you. It would be hard not to.” He turns over onto his side to face me. “But even if there were hints, what
would you consider to be warning signs?”

I know he’s looking at me, but I can’t look back at him. I can’t look at anyone while talking about Reaper. “I suppose he tried a little too hard to spoil me. And I guess the compliments were overly
abundant. And the gifts he bought me were too much. Thinking about it now, he was pretty ostentatious. But he was my first real relationship and I didn’t know better. He told me he loved me after only a few weeks, and I fell for it. I fell for him. He never inquired about my parents, so I didn’t have a reason to worry. I asked him about his family and he
didn’t retaliate with any questions about mine. He hadn’t told me where he went to college or if he was in the military. That part was
always a little fuzzy. He changed the subject a lot, and now I know why. But he didn’t make me think I couldn’t trust him until the night he killed Krissy. That was the night I learned that nothing I trusted was real.” I feel myself breathing heavier, fearful of these emotions resurfacing. I’ve tried hard to keep them in the back of my mind, but nothing can keep them away for that long.