CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
DINI SHOVED A LARGE branch aside and stepped carefully along the edge of the bluff, one eye on the roiling water far below. The rain had finally given way to a bright sun, which beat against one side of her body with relentless fervor. The pulsing globe was low in the sky, only moments from dropping down below the horizon and casting her into blessed, cooling darkness. But its imminent lurch into the arms of Morpheus hadn’t dimmed the sun’s enthusiasm for burning the last of the rain away.
The moisture that had fallen to the plants and ground didn’t have a chance. The sun’s rays pulled the damp from the ground and sent it into the air, to hang in thick, lung-clogging sheets that made Dini feel as if she walked through walls of steam.
Her body was soaked with sweat. It
