After what felt like a long time— minutes or hours, the storm made it hard to tell— we found that one specific vine island.
I knew it was the right one because Alex stopped pointing at things and started looking at the water instead, her eyes doing a slow assessment of the current visible in the dark gaps between vine platforms.
She'd gone mostly quiet after the last bridge, which I'd learned was her version of focused, the chattering and the complaints going somewhere in her head while the calculating part came forward.
"There," she said, not pointing this time, just looking.
"There," I said, looking at the edge of the platform and the aggressive dark current below it. Churning. Active. Literally waiting for me to Jump to SUCK ME.
She looked up at me. "Jump into the water."
I looked at the current.
"Jump into it," she said again.
"We'll die," I said. This felt like a relevant point.
