Silas's hand caught the broken edge.
A human hand, pale in the water, fingers closing where claws had failed to hold. Daniel stared at it.
Then Silas's head came up.
He drew air in a ragged gasp. Water ran from his hair and mouth. He was naked, smaller, the shoulder split where he'd struck the stone. His right leg dragged below him.
He had chosen to come back; there would be no second change to lift him out.
He pulled with the left arm, then reached higher with the right. The injured shoulder barely worked. The old forearm scar showed red for a moment before water covered it again. The right hand closed, slipped and closed again.
“Help,” Silas said.
The word was scarcely more than breath.
Daniel stayed against the wall.
The line moved across his back. Leah was still on land, farther downstream, trying to bring the pressure into a direction his body could follow. It couldn't lift him while he was wedged like this. His upper arm bled beneath the coat. His left hand was curled against his chest.
Silas pulled again.
One knee found the roughness beneath the surface. He rose far enough to bring his face level with Daniel's feet.
“Your hand.”
Daniel looked at him.
“You can—”
Silas coughed. The water caught him in the middle of the sentence.
Daniel could give him a hand up. Or bare his chest and take the wolf damage, giving Silas back a working shoulder and leg, though the old wounds and the water in his human lungs would stay.
Silas put his good hand onto the ledge and dragged his chest higher.
Daniel pulled his feet back.
The line tightened. He tried to move with it, but his coat had caught on a jagged part of the wall. The cloth wouldn't come free. He reached behind him, couldn't find the place, reached again.
Silas took his ankle.
Daniel kicked with the other foot. Weakly, awkwardly. The heel hit Silas's arm and slipped.
“Don't,” Silas said.
His fingers closed harder.
“Don't do this.”
Daniel pulled against him. His own line held him, turning the pull into pain across his ribs.
He heard Leah call his name.
Silas came up another few inches.
The partial footing was enough to give him something to push from. He put the wounded arm over the ledge, using the forearm like a bar rather than a hand. His face twisted.
Daniel could see him properly now.
The man from June. Wet hair, eyes too wide, ordinary skin. He could remember him leaning over Leah, asking whether she could hear him, telling Daniel where to hold the blanket.
Silas used that memory before Daniel could stop seeing it.
“I brought her out.”
Daniel shut his eyes for a moment.
Silas pulled.
The coat tore at the snag. Daniel slipped towards him. His right foot went into the water and the line caught his torso so hard that he couldn't make a sound.
Silas grabbed at the front of him.
Not the line. Cloth.
Daniel got his right forearm between them.
Silas seized the coat, pulling it open. The shirt beneath was only partly buttoned; a button broke, then another. Cold air and spray struck Daniel's bare sternum.
He felt the hand searching.
He drove his forearm across it.
Palm met sleeve, not skin.
Silas swore. He could barely get the sound out.
Daniel twisted the torn shirt between their hands. His left fingers couldn't hold it properly. He pressed the fabric against his chest with his wrist instead.
Silas leaned towards him.
“Just let me.”
“No.”
“I can get us—”
“No.”
The hand slid against Daniel's collarbone.
A touch. A few fingertips. Daniel turned sharply and it broke before the palm could settle.
He felt no wound move.
Silas's shoulder stayed open. Blood kept running down the chest which Daniel had touched at midnight.
Silas hit him.
Not hard enough to knock him free, hard enough to make his head strike the wall. Daniel's vision darkened. His forearm dropped for a moment.
Then he saw the hand coming again and raised it.
The damaged left wrist took the pressure. Pain burst through it. He couldn't grip, but he could make the bones and cloth an obstacle.
Silas's breath was loud in his face.
“You agreed.”
“I know.”
The words came out brokenly.
“You agreed.”
“I know.”
He had to keep moving.
Below them the current struck Silas's hips and turned him. The foothold went. His left hand tightened in Daniel's coat.
Daniel felt the weight.
The line dragged at his back. Leah had begun to pull from downstream. He could see part of her torch beam now, far beyond Silas's shoulder, light across the rough lower bank.
“Come this way,” she called.
He couldn't.
Silas was holding him against the wall, trying to use him to rise. If Daniel followed the pull, he'd drag the man with him. If he stayed, Silas might find purchase again.
The shoulder against the stone had begun to shake. Daniel couldn't stay much longer.
Silas looked towards the light.
For a moment Daniel saw calculation return through the fear. A bank. A person on it. Another way to get out if he could keep the hold.
He took his right hand out of Daniel's shirt and reached for the line.
Daniel saw him find it.
Not attached. Only a hand round rope. The other still in the coat.
It could be enough to bring him to the lower bank with Daniel. Enough to put them beside Leah, whole or wounded, with the connection still alive.
Daniel looked down at the water.
He had wanted a place where Silas couldn't keep the body he pursued.
Now he was on a ledge with that body against him and no easy way to finish what he had begun.
“Daniel,” Leah called.
Silas's grip tightened.
Daniel put his good arm across the man's chest.
Not to help him rise.
He pushed.