Chapter 2

The vibration from Amanda driving away triggered a second collapse.

A falling boulder slammed into my left leg and snapped it clean. The quicksand surged up to my neck in seconds.

To survive, I pried my leg free from the rock with an entrenching tool, forcing the bone loose through sheer will, spitting blood as I dragged myself out of the pit.

In fifty-degree heat, I walked on that mangled leg. One step, then another.

I don't know how long I moved. When my mind started to blur, I finally saw the cluster of red tents and the high-end climate-controlled trailer sitting on the edge of the horizon.

That was our base camp.

Running almost entirely on instinct, I crawled on my hands and knees to the door of the climate-controlled trailer.

I reached up with a hand caked in blood and sand and pulled at the door handle.

It didn't move. Someone had locked it from the inside.

Cold air seeped through the gap in the metal door, a faint, maddening whisper against my skin.

Through the sand-resistant window, I could hear Stellan's weak moaning, and Amanda's gentle, soothing voice.

"Take it slow, Stellan. It's ice-cold lemonade, best thing for heat exhaustion."

My hand hung in midair. The grime under my fingernails was dark with the blood I had dug through the sand with.

I clenched my jaw and knocked on the window with the wooden handle of the entrenching tool. Hard.

"What is wrong with you? Ethan, seriously!"

Amanda's voice came through the trailer's external speaker almost immediately, dripping with irritation and barely restrained fury.

"Stellan just had a severe panic attack down there. His airway is badly inflamed right now. You're covered in filth and you smell. If you bring germs in here and something happens to Stellan, are you going to take responsibility for that?"

"You walked back on your own two feet, which means you're fine. Go wait in the supply tent. There are sleeping pads in there. Once Stellan falls asleep tonight, I'll come out and bring you something to eat."

The speaker cut out. Silence settled over everything like a burial.

I leaned against the scorching metal side of the trailer and slowly slid down to the ground.

My left thigh had swollen to the size of a bucket. The skin had turned a sickly blue-black. I was losing sensation fast.

My wife, knowing full well I'd just survived a life-threatening collapse, wouldn't even unlock the door.

Because she found my smell offensive.

I stared at that sealed door, and then I dropped my head and laughed.

I laughed until something dry stung the corner of my eye, something that evaporated instantly in the desert heat before it could even fall.

I didn't knock again. I didn't say another word.

I pressed my hands to the ground, dragged my useless left leg behind me, and inched my way toward the tent.

I lay down beside the cold, hard metal of the equipment cases, closed my eyes, and let the darkness take me.