GOLD RIVER (Book 1)

Chapter 7

An inky blackness surrounded Tom.

The strange abyss made it difficult to distinguish between reality and the realm of dreams. An acrid odor similar to engine oil sifted through his nostrils, causing his nose to scrunch up. The darkness buzzed around him, rumbling through his body, rattling from the heels of his boots to the top of his head. Above the noise, a woman with an English accent pleaded with someone on his behalf.

He knew that voice.

Kate? It couldn't be.

It had to be a dream. He hadn't seen her in years.

"You can't do this," she said. "You have to wake him up first."

Tom tried to say her name, but the word died on his tongue.

"What would be the fun in that?" a man replied, raspy and ice cold. "Do it now. He's stirring."

Light seeped into the perimeter of Tom's vision like the sun rising early in the morning.

Someone grabbed him by the shoulders, dragged him away from the sound of Kate's voice, and then slung him into a whirling vortex of wind. And Tom was falling like he was in one of those nightmares he had as a kid. Except this felt way too real.

His eyes opened with a start.

What the—He saw his boots set against the backdrop of a clear blue sky.

The G-forces pressed against his chest, making it difficult to breathe. The wind blared in his ears like a thousand sheets ruffling in a hurricane, drowning out the sound of his voice—screaming as loud as he could.

An air pocket slammed into him and sent him tumbling, spinning, falling. He caught views of a yellow plane above him, green, tree-topped mountains beneath him, then the plane again, then the mountains... a woman falling from the plane... and then the mountains again.

It only took a glimpse of her chestnut hair and a vague outline of her face for Tom to realize the truth; Kate Lockhart faced the same predicament as he did; plummeting toward the rugged mountain peaks with only air between them and the ground.

Frantically, Tom patted his chest and shoulders, and discovered he was wearing a backpack. More accurately, a parachute. After a desperate search, he found the ripcord and gave it a pull.

Nothing happened.

Wind swirled around him like he was spiraling through the heart of an F5 twister.

The treetops along the mountainside awaited his impact. Luckily, there was a back-up chute. He pulled the handle, and the canopy opened with a whoosh, but it was too late. He had no way to stop his downward momentum in time to avoid a smack down.

Tom plunged into a world of green. Limbs and foliage clawed at him as he dropped, like his boots were full of lead. He had the distinct feeling that this must be what it was like to be tossed in a salad bowl. The leaves were relentless. They crammed up his nose and filled his mouth with the bitter taste of chlorophyll.

Twenty feet from the ground, his parachute chords snagged a branch and snapped his body like a bullwhip. His left shoulder dislocated, the pain roaring so intensely that he nearly blacked out. All he could do was dangle in mid-air, his body weight stressing the branch to its limit.

A warm sensation ran down his pants leg and trickled onto the ground below. Tom groaned in disbelief as his urine splattered onto the leaves of the surrounding plant life, and unfortunately, drew the attention of a jaguar that was nearby. The creature's black fur bristled as it stared at him with a pair of hungry yellow eyes.

"Nice kitty," Tom said in the middle of a painful grimace.

His confidence grew when he realized he was high enough in the tree to be safe from the big cat's reach. A smile crept across his face. Then the limb cracked, and he fell.