The Number 8 (17 page)

“No, not really,” he lied, “I just wanted to know who it was and why they were standing in the rain by an overgrown path having a loud discussion.”

“There’s a name for that you know.”

He was silent, waiting for her to make whatever joke was coming next.

“It’s called being nosy. Who cares what some random people were talking about in the rain?”

I do
, Dante thought. But instead he said, “You’re right, it’s stupid.”

Annie went off to shower, while Dante got dressed into something comfortable and lay on his wafer-thin mattress. If it wasn’t some of the passengers, then it must be a couple of the locals from the bar. Maybe it was the table who had given him a strange look. But something about it didn’t sit right with him. They had stopped so suddenly and disappeared so quickly as he had gotten near. But as he lay there, he decided to put it out of his mind, at least for a while.

Dante lay still. He was warm, exhausted and his head was still hurting. This combination sent him to sleep within three minutes of laying his head on the pillow.

He was awoken by Asmir shaking him lightly.

“Food time, D. Well enough to eat?”

Dante groaned and wiped his eyes. He looked at the clock on the wall opposite. He had been out about an hour. A few of the late rafters were getting dressed but it was clear that most people had already gone. He felt groggy, but he knew he had slept well because he had woken up in the same position he had fallen asleep.

“Let’s go,” Dante said as he pushed himself to his feet.

He filled Asmir in on what had happened that afternoon, explaining that he wished he had taken Asmir’s camera to the top of the mountain. He attempted to explain it to him, but he still wasn’t fully awake and ended up slurring his words while trying to be poetic about it all. Then he mentioned the strange conversation and Asmir had a very similar reaction to Annie. He cracked a few jokes and mocked Dante a little bit but even Dante had to admit it sounded odd.

Then it was Asmir’s turn and like Dante had expected, his version of events was a far cry from Annie’s. He described how treacherous the trip had been and how brave each and every one of them had been. He explained that the instructor had forced them to jump into the river from nearly ninety meters. When Annie had told it, he was pretty sure it had barely been twenty, but he let him continue. His final tale was so fantastical that he actually had to stop Asmir in his tracks.

“So you’re telling me that Becki was pinned to a rock in the rapids, so you dived out, freed her and swam with her, unconscious on your back, to the edge of the river?”

“Is that so hard to believe?” he asked, clearly offended.

“I am more likely to believe in Bigfoot, Az. I heard you were screaming the whole way round and that you forced them to sit you at the back.”

“Firstly, Bigfoot is very real and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were around this area and secondly, I was not screaming. It was more like a manly howl.”

“Either way, it’s embarrassing,” Dante grinned, delighted that he was able to wind Asmir up so easily.

Asmir ignored this statement completely.

“As for the story, ask anyone, it’s true.”

“Oh, I will, Az. I can’t wait to hear this one from someone else’s perspective.”

With that, they made their way down to the bar. Dante had wanted to find his hooded sweatshirt and keep the hood up to avoid detection, but Asmir had rushed him, so he was exposed. But as he reached the final stair, he breathed a sigh of relief. All of the bar staff that had been on earlier had been replaced. None of them had seen the mess he had made, so he felt comfortable.

Asmir and Dante sat at the end of a long table next to Carl and Dick. It was clear that Asmir was more than a little annoyed to be sat so close to Dick. They hadn’t got on from the word ‘go.’

“Well, if it isn’t the little pig who went ‘
squeeee, squeeee, squeeeeeeeeeee
’ all the way home,” Dick shrieked.

“Well, if it isn’t the idiot that’s going to be eating the rest of his meals through a straw if he doesn’t shut his face,” Asmir growled, his rage evident.

Dick murmured something under his breath and that was it. It was clear that Dick was everything that Asmir hated. Arrogant, close-minded and most importantly, racist. Apart from Asmir, he hadn’t even made an effort to talk with any of the other passengers who weren’t white and English. He found his niche and only ventured out to verbally abuse others. Dante knew it wouldn’t get to the point where it turned violent because he knew Asmir would break him in half. Asmir wasn’t the biggest guy in the world, but he was very strong for his size and when he got angry, he tended to get violent pretty quickly. Dick needed to watch himself.

The evening went by without another altercation. Most of the passengers were telling stories about the funny moments while white water rafting. All Dante could do was listen and laugh at the right points. He felt a bit left out and it didn’t help that he was still feeling a bit queasy.

It was early when he excused himself and made his way back to his small corner bed. It was just him and the book he had brought with him. He had loved getting to know all these new and interesting people, but today had been a day that he was happy to spend alone. He read for about half an hour until the bright lights in the room began to give him a headache. His headache had flared up again and he found it hard to keep his eyes open. So, slowly and in a deeply relaxed state, he fell asleep. Excited for tomorrow and thankful for the day.

Chapter 32

Asmir was still wide awake and the life of the party. He was telling stories he had embellished a great deal, but they were going down a treat. But he had been annoyed that Dante had left him alone to sit next to Dick while he went to sleep. It wasn’t typical of him. He was usually there, next to Asmir whenever there was a new story to be told, but not tonight.

All night, Asmir and Becki had been exchanging looks. He wasn’t sure whether it was getting more flirty now or whether it was just getting creepy. But he quickly decided that he wasn’t satisfied to just share a few seconds of eye contact here and there.

As he got up, he tried to be discreet. He tried not to attract any extra attention, but this was hard as he had been the one telling most of the stories. Becki was sitting on the opposite end of the table and trying to speak to her without the rest of them seeing would be tough. Usually he didn’t care what people thought, but Dick was really pushing his buttons and if he saw Asmir trying to take a girl outside, he would probably say some snarky comment which would lead to a fight and he wasn’t too excited for Becki to see him like that so early on. So, he was trying his best to avoid that.

Asmir walked towards Becki, pretending to text someone. He raised his gaze for just a second and saw her staring back at him. Then, like they had communicated telepathically, she got up and walked out of the door ahead of him. It seemed that no one had noticed this except her friend Annie, who was attempting to cover a smile with her hand. It had worked out, just as if it had been choreographed to perfection.

Asmir edged his way through the open doors, only to find no sign of Becki at all. To the left was the bus, the lights were out and there was no sign of life. To the right was the outside set of stairs that led up to their room. The door was closed and there was nowhere else to hide.

“Becki?” he called out. “Where are you?”

“Down here,” she replied, her voice like a whisper.

He spotted her standing by the river. She had her back to him.

“Oh, I didn’t see you down there. How you doing?” he asked.

“Bored of people telling false stories. They forget, for a lot of them, I was there. I know it’s not true.”

“Yeah, well, I was the one doing most of the storytelling and I take offense to that statement,” he joked. “Yes, they have been exaggerated, but, they’re not false.”

“Oh really? What about the one about you saving my life as the current pinned me to a rock?”

“It happened just as I said. You fell out of the boat and were underwater for nearly a full minute and I jumped in and pulled you out. You should really be thanking me.”

Becki turned towards him and crossed her arms.

“I remember it a little differently. See, I remember that it was the very end of the rapids and we were all paddling to the sides. There was almost no current and most of us decided to jump out and swim the rest of the way. I jumped out the boat and was under for maybe two, three seconds. You jumped in and grabbed me from the back and dragged me to the side.”

“Well, there are two sides to every story. You are entitled to your opinion and I respect that,” he continued to joke.

“You didn’t save my life, Asmir, you actually nearly dragged me under.”

“Well, the intention was there. I thought you were in danger, I jumped in after you. The details may have been a little different. It was cold, our adrenaline was pumping and we were crashing through ice-cold water. Who could remember exactly what happened?”

“Me. I remember,” she smiled. That was a good sign, but he was starting to think that maybe she was annoyed with him.

“Rain’s stopped.”

“Nice segue, genius,” her expression more playful than annoyed.

“So what are you doing all the way down here, by the river?”

She didn’t reply, instead she started taking her clothes off until there was nothing left but her bra and panties.

“I’m going swimming,” she said before diving head first into the river.

Asmir just watched, his mouth agape. He didn’t know what was more shocking, that this girl had just stripped down to her underwear in front of him or that she had just jumped into freezing water without a second thought.

He waited for her head to pop up before saying, “You know there was a reason that we were wearing wetsuits earlier, right?”

“Stop your whining and get in.”

“The river is moving really fast now, the rain has…”

“What did I just say? Are you coming in or what?”

“No, I’m good. I’ll just wait out here.”

It was clear she was a strong swimmer. She was moving into the areas where the current was weakest with ease.

“Suit yourself,” she said and dove under again, reappearing a few meters away from the bank. “Could you hold this for me? It’s a bit restrictive.”

She threw something at him. At first he thought it was a rock or a shoe but he soon felt that is was too light to be a shoe or a rock. He looked down at the item in his hands. It was her bra.

He placed it on the ground and got down to his boxers as quickly as he physically could. The moment he had seen that in his hands all the other arguments vanished and getting into the water was the best idea in the world. As he stripped down, he heard her laughing from the far side of the river.

She must think guys are so predictable
, he thought. She wasn’t wrong there.

He took a run up and dived into the icy waters. The moment his head went under all the thoughts he had been having were gone and replaced by one; get to the surface.

His head breached the surface of the river and he began to desperately gasp for air. If he had been at all foggy before, he was sure wide awake now. His body tingled all over and let him know that it was in fight or flight mode. But as he broke the surface a larger problem became apparent; he was about five feet from where he had jumped in and moving fast.

“This current is too…strong, we need to…get out,” he spluttered, as he tried to keep his head out of the water.

“Swim over here,” Becki said. She was in a quiet area of the river towards the inside where the current wasn’t so strong.

Asmir paddled furiously, raising his head every few moments to see if he had made it any closer. Each time he seemed just a little further away. He upped his speed, his arms and legs moving as fast as they could go. This time when he raised his head, he was closer. He kept at this for about thirty seconds, each stroke getting him closer.

He raised his head. He was about one meter away from Becki who was reaching out to him, but she clearly didn’t want to drift into the danger zone. He was so close that he wanted to reach out and try to take it, but he knew that if he missed, it would put him back about another meter or so and he didn’t have the strength to lose that much ground.

Then something put an end to his fight. His right leg smashed into a rock that was hidden just below the surface. His knee cap hit the jagged edge and sent a searing pain shooting up his leg. His shriek was muffled by the water and his arms automatically grabbed for the source of the pain. His head breached the surface again and allowed his screams to be heard, but not for long, because he fell under again.

“Swim to the side,” Becki called out as Asmir surfaced again.

He caught a glimpse of the bank and tried to paddle to the edge, but his body was in shock and he could feel himself panicking. The bank looked miles away and the current had caught him powerfully and was dragging him further down. About thirty meters away he could see the rapids. This should have made him paddle faster to the edge, but instead, he froze. Fear and panic had taken over. He wasn’t even noticing the cold any more, he wasn’t noticing anything. He drifted down the river another five meters. Then, he felt the crunch of his body bouncing off of another large rock and that was the last thing he remembered.

Chapter 33

Asmir woke up on the muddy bank, his head throbbing and his body shivering hard. Annie knelt over him, her hair and clothes soaking wet.

“It’s not your time yet, Asmir,” she said, half smiling, half scowling.

He lifted his head to look around him. In the distance he could see Becki running along the edge of the river in only her bra and panties.

“Oh my God, Asmir, I’m so sorry,” she said. She was wide-eyed and clearly distressed.

“Becki, what were you thinking?” Annie growled.

She didn’t reply. She just got on her knees next to Asmir and touched his shoulder lightly. He winced in pain. Annie saw this.

“Asmir, I don’t think you have any broken bones, but you’re going to be bruised tomorrow that’s for sure. You want me to get Dante?”