CHAPTER TWELVE
J ENNY WAS GOING TO GET THEM OUT of this mess. And save Orion while she was at it.
Maybe then when she finally told him what she’d done so long ago . . . well, maybe his anger might not be quite as terrible.
Maybe he’d forgive her.
Especially after her tedious but triumphant climb up to the ice bridge. One that he made her rope in for, retrieving the one screw she’d dug into the ledge, then belaying her down to get the other ice screws. He’d belayed her again as she climbed up to the dead climber.
She didn’t want to look at the corpse, frozen in time, and averted her gaze as best she could as she chipped away the pack. He was encased in ice and snow, but she anchored in and slowly he came free. She didn’t know what to do with his body, so she left him embedded in the ice, used her Leatherman to cut his webbing and straps from him, then lowered the pack down to Orion.
It contained a bivouac tent, a sleeping bag, freeze-dried soup, a stove, more webbing and biners, a water bottle, tea—enough for a night or two out in the open. As if he’d been summiting and fell.
She set up the bivouac tent, used a ski pole to re-splint Orion’s leg, tucked him into the sleeping bag, and made tea.
All the while, trying not to let it all sift into her heart—the fact that now God had miraculously saved them twice . Maybe three times, if she counted Orion finding her just as she, Aria, and Sasha were all about to tumble into a crevasse. She wanted to take back her words— “I have reasons to think he’s probably not interested in helping us.”
Maybe she was just looking at herself and assigning her own responses to God. She wouldn’t rescue herself . . . but maybe God didn’t base his actions—or his love—on what she thought of herself.
At least that’s what Garrett Marshall, her foster dad, had told her.
Orion sat in the bivouac sack, drinking the reconstituted chicken soup. She’d staked down the sack to the ice. Overhead, the snow continued to blow. As soon as it cleared, she’d climb out and go for help.
She sat down beside Orion. He looked over at her and grinned. She hadn’t a clue what time of day it might be, but the hours had added a thickness to his dark beard, turned him devastatingly rugged. He’d stripped off his jacket, but it hung around his shoulders, which looked impossibly large in his fleece jacket. He wore just his polar booties, his boots tied into an ice screw near his head.
He looked half invalid, half mountain man, and suddenly, she couldn’t get that kiss out of her head.
Good thing it was only a one-man bivy sack. “What are you grinning about?”
“Nothing,” he said, and continued to look at her. “Except I think my dad would have liked you. You’re his kind of people.”
She didn’t know why that warmed her core. “I had a foster dad that was . . . he was great. They lived in this small town in Minnesota. The Marshall family. They ran a winery, of all things, but they were Christians. And they believed that God was for them, even when bad things happened. The dad, Garrett, used to tell stories at the dinner table. One of his favorites was this Bible story about how the Israelites were escaping Egypt, and God told them to stand aside while he saved them. Then he parted the Red Sea. Or something like that. It was the first time I’d ever heard that God could protect me.” She finished off her tea. “I really wanted to believe it.”
Orion had also finished off his soup. She poured tea into his empty sierra cup.
“My parents were God-fearing people,” he said. “But they never really talked about God. My grandmother, however, was a strong believer. She and my grandpa worked at a missionary camp every summer. She’d say things like, ‘If God is for us, who can be against us,’ and ‘When we are weak, he makes us strong.’ She had this song she loved . . .” He hummed it. The sound found her bones, a deep tenor that matched his voice. “‘In Christ alone, my hope is found . . . He is my light, my strength, my song’ . . . I don’t know the rest. And I guess, well, after Dad died, I didn’t really want to. I sorta felt like God betrayed me.”
“And then you felt like he did again when you were ambushed.” Oh, she didn’t mean to bring that up, but—
“Actually, not until I woke up alone in Germany.”
Oh.
“I realized that everything I’d worked so hard for was over. And . . . that’s when the anger started to live inside me. I expected . . . well, I guess I’d expected to not get hurt. I’m not sure why I expected that—I was in a war zone. But . . .” He lifted a shoulder.
“Do you think God does that? Betrays us?”
Her words sifted between them and fell into the silence. For some reason, she needed to know, because . . .
Because she’d started to believe that maybe she could turn around and face all the wreckage behind her. That if God could forgive her . . . maybe Orion could too. And she couldn’t face it if God was the kind to make her believe, only to turn on her.
“I want to think that he is on our side,” he said. “But it’s hard, you know? Sometimes it feels like all the evidence says that he doesn’t care. That no matter what we do, we’re in this alone.”
Oh.
He met her eyes then, something sparking in them. “But Ham is this strong believer in God’s goodness. He says that even when we can’t see it, God is at work. He thinks he brought me up on this mountain because he has a plan for me. To make me deal with my anger at life . . .” He looked away. “At God, I guess, because he didn’t do things my way.”
“And?”
He stared at his cup. “I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to find peace. Not without answers.”
Oh. But because she had to know, for sure, “Answers to . . .”
He met her eyes, pain in his, and shoot, she shouldn’t have asked. “I guess . . . why? Why my dad had to die? Why the CIA sent us into an ambush? Why we’re sitting down here in a crevasse?”
Maybe it was the psychologist in her, but she couldn’t help but ask, “And what does the answer do for you? Will it make it easier to live with it? To grieve? To have peace?”
He stared at her. “I don’t know.”
“There’s a difference between understanding and acceptance. Do you have to understand to accept?”
“I . . . I guess I don’t know. Maybe not. I mean—it doesn’t change anything, right?”
“No. It doesn’t. I tried for a long time to understand why Billy killed my mother. He was a narcissist. Maybe even a sociopath. And in the end, it didn’t change anything. But sometimes it helps to have someone to direct your anger at.”
His mouth tightened. “I’m already blaming . . . everyone. The military. God.” He drew in a breath. “But in truth, I guess I want to know so I can . . . argue. I can get angry and find the right people to lash out at. Figure out what went wrong. I know it won’t help, but I just hate the randomness of life. That things happen that I can’t control, and it leaves me . . .”
“Broken?”
He looked away. “Busted up, maybe. Helpless.”
“And running away.” She didn’t know why she said that. But she met his gaze. Opened her mouth. Closed it. Then, because it felt so close to the mark for both of them, “Rian, I think you’re scared.”
He stiffened.
“I get it. Guys like you don’t get scared, but anger is just a big mask for fear.”
“I’m not scared. I’m—”
“Broken. Wounded. Trapped and not sure how to get out?”
“What are you, trying to psychoanalyze me?” His mouth tweaked into a smile, clearly trying to turn it into a joke.
She didn’t laugh. “I am a psychologist, remember. And, I specialize in PTSD.”
His smile fell. “Seriously?”
“I have my doctorate.”
“Because you had a nervous breakdown?”
She drew in a breath. “No—I was a psychologist before that.”
“And you used it to become an investigative reporter.”
Oh. Right now. She could tell him right—
“I don’t have PTSD.”
“Orion—”
“Really, I’m fine. I’m just—”
“Angry all the time? Hiding out in the woods? Avoiding humanity?”
Now he was angry, given the thinning of his lips. “Trying to figure out why life keeps turning on me.”
She swallowed. She could tell him the truth, but the fact was, it wasn’t just about life turning on him, but terrible miscalls in judgment, betrayal, lies, and—
“Hey.” He touched her arm. “It’s okay. Right now, life is on our side.”
“No—”
“Yes.” He set down his cup. “C’mere.”
He was sitting up, and now he unzipped the bivy bag.
“Orion, there’s only room for one.”
“Please. Jen. You’re not exactly a hippo. Get in here. We’re fully clothed. I promise, we just need to keep warm and survive the night. I’ll behave myself.”
That wasn’t the problem. She didn’t want him to know she was about to cry. But maybe he’d think it was the fact they were trapped fifty feet below an ice field, the snow accumulating above them . . . Yes, that was something to cry about.
But she was cold, and he was warm and . . . well, if they were going to die down here, maybe she’d do it in his arms. So she slipped off her boots, tied them by the laces, and clipped them to the ice screw. Then she shed her jacket.
He scooted over and she eased in next to him, facing him, trying not to bump his leg.
His arms went around her and he pulled her down to his chest, where she could settle her ear against his steady, safe heartbeat.
Yes, if they lived through tonight, then tomorrow, she would save this man’s life.
Aria was getting sicker. Her last bout of coughing had subsided, but tucked this close, with her asleep in his arms, Jake heard the rasping in her chest.
He wasn’t doing great, either. His bones ached and hunger was a beast in his gullet. Worse was his admission, skulking around in his head.
“I shot an innocent kid.”
He winced at the very words, torn out from inside him, a letting of blood and sorrow. Aria had looked at him, so much horror on her face a second before she reached out for him.
He’d practically fled inside Aria’s arms like some sort of crybaby. Except, holding on to her had helped. Just a little.
Or maybe a lot, especially when Aria had . . . oh, wow, she’d kissed him. Grabbed his face and gave him a kiss that had nearly made him forget he was in a tent on a mountain, nearly frozen.
Maybe it was pity, he didn’t know, but the way she kissed him made him feel forgiven and whole and maybe a little like the man he longed to be.
Which was why he’d backed away from her. Okay, maybe after he’d accidentally kicked her—smooth move, Silver. But her cry had made him slow down, find the pieces of his common sense that kissing her had scattered to the wind.
Down in Copper Mountain, on the dance floor, if she’d leaned into his ear and suggested a quick tumble he might have said yes. But here, trapped on a mountain with her, after knowing her—her literal broken heart, the death of her sister, her courage, and even her amazing achievements, the idea of indulging in something quick and meaningless turned his gut.
Not with Aria.
She coughed again, her body wracking, and he resisted the urge to hold her still.
Sasha, however, hadn’t moved for hours.
He had to get one of them off the mountain, or he’d have two dead women on his hands.
He pushed away the acid that climbed up his empty gut, waited until Aria’s body stopped trembling, then slowly peeled himself away from her, climbing over her body and pulling his warm sleeping bag over her.
He shivered as the air bit through his layers. But the wind had died, the tent no longer trembling.
He checked Sasha’s breathing—yes, still alive. He took her pulse, found it weak but steady. Maybe he’d make her some tea.
Sliding on his jacket, he unzipped the tent, grabbed his boots, and slid his polar-slippered feet into them. His boots were icy and stiff, just like his body as he slid out into the vestibule, and he fought the urge to turn around, climb back in beside Aria. He pulled out his stove and brought it out into the kitchen area, a protected area, now slightly snowed under. Retrieving his shovel, he dug out his work area, sifting through the options.
He could probably put Aria on his back. Carry her to Karstens Ridge. Maybe even leave her there, bivouacked, while he went back to fetch Sasha. But the last part of Karstens Ridge was too steep to descend with either of them on his back. Maybe he could lower Sasha, with Aria guiding her down.
At least then, they’d be down another three thousand feet. But Sasha needed immediate medical help.
Or, she might be beyond help.
He patted down his work area and set up the stove. Filling the pot with snow, he returned to the tent to grab his thermos of water. Aria was coughing again as he zipped the tent shut.
She needed to get to a lower elevation, and now.
He added water to the pot, the wind licking down his open jacket as he lit the flame.
The skies had cleared, and the valley unfurled before him, the Muldrow Glacier spread out like a layer of whipped topping.
Now. If he wanted to escape the mountain, it had to be now. The voice nearly rose up, audibly inside him, and he had the craziest sense that it might be God speaking to him, a little like he did to Ham.
He envied Ham, the way he could live in peace despite the broken pieces of his past.
Despite losing the woman he loved to Chechen rebels.
Yeah, Ham possessed some sort of divine insight that sometimes made Jake jealous. Hungry for some divine insight himself.
God, I could use some help here. He stared at the melting snow, his stomach roiling.
If he left Sasha behind in the tent, maybe he could get Aria down to a lower elevation, then climb back up and . . .
He pressed against his gut, feeling like he might retch.
Behind him the tent zipper sounded. He turned just as Aria crawled out of the tent.
“What are you doing? Get back inside.”
“What is this, gulag? I’m not your prisoner.” She climbed to her feet, steadying herself on a nearby ice axe that she’d picked up.
“No, but you are sick.”
“I’m fine.” She limped over to him. “What are you doing?”
“Making water.”
She stared at it, back at him. The wind trickled her dark hair over her face. She wiped it back. “Jake—”
“It’s time, Aria.” He couldn’t look at her. “You’re getting sicker, and you need to get to a lower altitude. I don’t think I can carry both of you.”
“You don’t have to carry me! Look, I can walk.” She turned away from him and took one step, leaning hard on the axe. Then another.
On the third, she slipped, and cried out.
He could have let her fall into the snow to prove his point, but he caught her, pulling her up into his arms. “Stop trying to be brave.”
She pushed out of his arms. “No.” She turned to him, her eyes bright with tears. “You can’t leave Sasha here.”
“I’ll come back for her. I just need to get you to a lower level—”
“What if you can’t? She’ll die . And you can’t carry her the entire way. You’re weak, too. You’ll fall.” Her jaw tightened, as if she might be trying not to cry.
“I’m going to give Sasha some water, and then we’re leaving.”
The wind whipped between them, her eyes fierce in his. “I hate you.”
He took her words into him, absorbed them with a nod. “Yeah, well, get in line. I hate myself.”
He turned away from her, picking up a spoon to stir the melting snow.
Next to him, she coughed.
He winced. “Listen, I have a plan. We’ll put her into your sleeping bag, she’ll be warm, and we’ll share mine, and . . .”
“Please, Jake—”
“I can’t carry her and you!”
“Then take her. I’ll be fine.”
He rounded on her. “Please, Aria. Don’t do this to me—”
“Don’t make me live at the cost of my friend!” Her eyes turned wild. “Don’t make me live while someone I love dies. I can’t do it again.”
He stared at her, at the tears that flushed her face. “Aria? Do what again?”
“I . . . I have my sister’s heart.”
He froze. What?
“Her heart—she died, and I got her heart. It’s why I can do all the things—it was an identical match.”
Oh no, please—
She covered her face with her hands, unmittened, and they must be freezing. In fact, she’d come outside without her jacket, and now he reached for her, pulling her into his open jacket.
“She died, and I lived, and I can’t do that again.”
He closed his eyes and just held her. Because yes, he knew what it felt like to have someone you loved die—and sure, it wasn’t her fault , but she’d had to keep living. With her sister’s heart in her body.
Yeah, that wasn’t fair. “I’m sorry, Doc.”
She slid her arms around his waist and held on.
His heart might be tearing apart, tiny fissures growing and ripping and widening and—
“I hear something.” She lifted her head.
He heard it too, now, and let her go, cupping his hand over his eyes. She stood next to him, shivering, also scanning the horizon.
Shucking off his jacket, he draped it over her shoulders.
The whump-whump rhythm of a chopper deepened, pulsed through him—
A bird appeared over Karstens Ridge. Deep red, a dollop of life against the white peak. He waved his arms, crazily near tears.
The radio crackled in his jacket pocket. “Denali camp, come in.”
A voice he didn’t recognize, but he didn’t care. He fished out the radio. “Denali camp, here.”
“We see you. We’re sending down a line.”
“Let’s get Sasha bundled up,” he said to Aria.
She was crying.
They had Sasha tucked into two sleeping bags and out of the tent by the time the chopper had lowered an Alaskan pararescue jumper with his basket down to their camp. And with him came—
“Ham, you son of a gun.”
“Sorry we took so long.” Ham unhooked from his line and crunched through the snow toward Jake. “Things got a little complicated.”
Ham looked windburned, sunburned, and ragged, his blond beard in snarls, his eyes a little bloodshot. “How’s Sasha?”
Jake’s mouth formed a thin line as he shook his head. “I dunno. Still breathing.” His throat thickened with that news as Ham and the PJ secured Sasha in the basket.
The PJ attached himself to the basket and the chopper hoisted them aloft.
Jake covered his head as the wind whipped up around them, shivering their tent. “Now Aria.”
She had slipped on her boots, leaving one untied, and her jacket and hat. The harness came back down on the cable and Ham grabbed it, unhooking the harness while he held the cable.
Jake turned to Aria, the wind, the roar of the chopper nearly drowning out his words. “I told you I’d get you off this mountain.” He knelt before her as he held out the harness legs.
Balancing on his shoulders, she lifted her injured ankle and slid that in. Blew out a hard breath as she lowered it.
“Wait,” he said. “No. I said I’d carry you if I had to.” Then he stood up and swept her up into his arms. “Ham. Can you help get this harness on her?”
Sure, it was charming, but really, he just wanted to hold her one last moment, the curve of her, the warmth imprinted on him.
He didn’t know what it was about Doctor Aria Sinclair, but in a strange way, when she was with him, he felt healed. At least a little.
Ham worked the harness onto her legs, then Jake reluctantly set her down and steadied her as Ham fitted it over her shoulders and snapped her in.
“Are you coming, Jake?” she asked.
“Not yet. I need his help,” Ham said as he clipped her into the line. He waved to the chopper. “Orion and Jenny are missing.”
Jake froze, shot him a look. Ham gave him a thin-lipped nod.
Maybe Aria didn’t hear it because up top, the PJ began to hoist her up.
Jake guided her up, letting her go to swing free into the sky. He watched her all the way to the deck of the chopper.
“It’ll be back for us and we’ll search the mountain,” Ham said. “Let’s pack up.”
He was still staring at the chopper, watching as the PJ secured her into safety. Then the bird veered away from the mountain, into the blue sky.
Thanks for the dance, Hot Lips.
What if they never left?
Of course, the thought was not only crazy but lethal, because if they didn’t freeze to death, they’d starve. Still, as Orion held Jenny, her body warm as she rested her head on his chest, her breaths even, her blonde hair silky against his cheek, he didn’t hate the idea.
He didn’t know why being with her awakened a dormant hope, a sense of peace he hadn’t had since . . . well, since the last time he’d held her, the stars spilling across the sky, blinking at him. Watching.
He drew in a breath and stared at the blue swath overhead, the clear sky. “And what does the answer do for you? Do you have to understand to accept?”
Jenny’s words had lingered in his head, digging in to find his bones, not unlike the cold of the ledge, the ache in his leg.
He did want to argue with the outcome. But it didn’t change anything.
So then what? How did he live with a life that wasn’t what he expected? Or wanted?
It would be easier if he didn’t have to look down and see the scars every day. But maybe yes, it wasn’t about understanding, but acceptance.
He still didn’t know what to do with the anger, but he’d lived with it this long, maybe acceptance was the best he could hope for.
At least it might help him stop hiding. Because as Jenny sighed again and roused, the idea of climbing out of the crevasse and . . . well, Ham lived in Minnesota.
Jenny lived in Minnesota.
And if Ham wasn’t dead— please! —then maybe he could join Ham’s SAR team, answer the nudge inside him. “I know you, Ry. You’re a rescuer.”
He let those words saturate him as Jenny leaned up, cold air rushing into the space she’d occupied. Sleep lines ran through her face, her hair tangled. A line of sunburn ringed her eyes, touched her nose.
With everything inside him, he wanted to grab her jacket and pull her to himself. Taste that smile that now slid up her face. Her blue eyes met his. “How’re you doing? How’s the leg?”
“Ready to climb.”
She arched an eyebrow, then looked up at the slice of blue. “Let’s get some breakfast.”
He couldn’t argue with some hot tea, reconstituted oatmeal, dried fruit. He didn’t want to know how old the grub was, but it still filled his belly. Although, “What I wouldn’t give for a cup of dark, bracing straight-up coffee. And maybe a donut.”
Jenny was quiet as she sipped her tea.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to think through how to get us out of here.”
He’d spent the better part of the night churning through the same thoughts.
“I’ll belay you up to the top. You lead climb, set in the screws as you go. Then, when you get to the top, set up a fixed line and I’ll use my foot strap to ascend.”
Her mouth tightened into a thin line.
“What?”
“I just . . . maybe I should haul you up.” She met his eyes. “And no comments about me not being strong enough. I’ll use a haul system.”
“There’s not enough rope for a haul system. It would need to go from the top, back down, back up, and leave room for you to pull.”
She seemed to be measuring his words.
“I’ll be fine, Jen. We’re going to make it.”
The crevasse walls resembled waterfalls of frozen ice—rippled in places, with rugged overhangs and horizontal layers of snow packed tight, nobby juttings of former ice bridges, and massive hanging icicles that, if they unlatched, could spear them through.
A cruel beauty.
“I’m worried about that overhang.” He pointed to the shelf over the edge.
He was also worried about Ham. Which only set a fist into his gut as he remembered Ham’s prayer.
“Make our steps safe and go before us. Finish the task you’ve pressed us to.”
He wasn’t going to assign any blame, because yeah, answers didn’t change anything. But for all the guys to fall on the mountain . . .
“I can climb the shelf,” Jenny said. She stood up. “I’ll go up this waterfall-type section—the ice is bluer here, probably more stable, then I’ll set my screws on the overhang as I climb it.”
He traced her route. Not unlike rock climbing with ridges, nodules, and sheer pitches. But he liked how she thought. They could do this.
She finished her tea, packed it away. Then she kitted up, pulling on her harness, her crampons, attaching the anchors, slings, and webbing with the biners onto her harness.
Meanwhile, he set up the belay system. He flaked out the cold, stiff rope, running his hand over it, checking for knots and working out the kinks. Then he knotted the free end onto the pack. “We’ll haul the pack up after I get up top.”
She was roping into her kit, tying a figure eight, clipping it into her biner. She looked over at him and smiled. “We’ll need it for the hike down.”
Any other time, any other place, and when his leg wasn’t completely messed up, this might be the perfect date. A pretty girl, blue skies, a hint of adrenaline? Yeah, they were going to make it. The sense of it found his gut, pressed through to his bones. She was a smart, capable climber.
And he had been practically born to ice and snow, to climb this mountain.
It couldn’t hold him hostage any longer.
“You having a good time or something?” he asked as he pushed himself up. Bit back a groan.
“Just thinking that today, I’m going to save you, PJ.”
“You think so.” He hobbled toward her. Grabbed her jacket. Pulled her close to him. “Maybe you already have.”
Her mouth opened, as if in surprise. “I don’t—”
“Jacie—Jenny. Whoever you are, seeing you, finding you, even us landing down here, alive—it’s like a miracle. You’re right. Getting answers isn’t going to change the outcome of what happened. God’s not going to answer my questions . . . and maybe he doesn’t need to. Maybe it’s enough that he saved us. And he’s still saving us.”
She closed her mouth, her gaze hard in his as she swallowed. Nodded. “I hope he’s also saving Aria and Sash.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. “We’ll get out and find help. We’re going to escape down this mountain and then . . .” He lifted his mouth in a smile. “What if I followed you out of the woods and back to Minnesota?”
“Uh . . .”
He frowned. Oh no, too soon—
Then she smiled. “You sure you’re ready to do that?”
Oh, honey. “I’m ready to stop hiding. And yeah, maybe I am a rescuer. Or I want to be, again. And if Ham’s . . .” He took a breath. “If Ham gave his life for us, maybe Jake and I need to pick up Ham’s dream.”
She touched his face with her ungloved hand, pressed the warmth of it to his whiskers. Met his eyes, an emotion in them he couldn’t read.
Then she kissed him, a sort of solid determination in her kiss that had him wrapping his arms around her waist and leaning back against the ice to pull her to himself.
She made a sound deep inside, a sort of hum, and he drank it in.
Yeah. He’d get off this mountain and start over. Let go of the anger and start appreciating what he still had.
Jenny. Life.
A fresh start.
She pushed away from him, her face a little flushed. “Okay. Let’s get out of here.”
He let her step back, then couldn’t stop himself from checking her knots. He hooked the belay device into his biner at his harness, and wove the rope in.
“Ready?”
She’d taken his axe, as well as her own, and stared up at the wall. Took a breath. “On belay?”
“Belaying.”
“Climbing.”
“Climb on.”
He stepped close to the wall, praying hard she didn’t fall before setting the first screw, not sure how his leg would hold up. He bore little weight on it, but he didn’t need it to arrest her fall once she clipped in. Just his leverage and good technique.
She chipped into the ice with her axes, then her feet, climbed up ten feet, and set in the first screw. He gave out slack as she clipped in the rope.
Freedom beckoned fifty feet up.
She kept climbing and he fed out the rope, working his feed hand and his brake hand in tandem, one always on the line. She clipped in another anchor twenty feet up, then climbed onto a small ledge.
“There’s a lot of loose snow above me. I’m going to move to the right.”
He fed out the line as she traversed the wall. Then she set another anchor and started up the icy blue waterfall.
Overhead, snow kicked up, a stirring of the wind, and he braced himself for another whiteout when they reached the surface. But they had the pack, so they could probably work their way down. He’d slide if he had to.
And, they still had their beacons, so anyone who got close enough might find them. Except, no one even knew where to look for them.
No, if they got out, they were on their own.
Or rather, maybe not. God had been on their side—
“Falling!”
He yanked down hard on his brake hand, stiffening as the jerk came. It dragged him off his feet and he sat back in his harness to brace his feet on the wall. “You okay?”
He looked up and his heart about stopped. She dangled upside down, swinging. “Jenny!”
“I’m okay! Stupid me, I let the rope get behind me.” Her axes dangled from her wrist loops, her feet searching for purchase on the wall. “I was reaching for the ice screw and missed.”
He wanted to go up and help her as she struggled to dig her crampons into the ice, to wrestle herself upright.
“Maybe you should come down.”
“Everybody falls. I got this, Ry! And you got me, right?”
“Right.” He’d checked their gear—the system was solid. But it didn’t stop the clench in his gut.
As he watched, she braced her feet to the wall, then swung her right axe around, into the ice.
He could hardly believe it when she wrapped one leg around the arm gripping her axe. “I’m good. Give me slack.”
He let out the rope, easing off his brake hand, and settled back on the ledge. A sweat formed under his hat.
“Climbing!”
“Climb on!”
She was some kind of acrobat as, in one smooth move, she used her leg to leverage herself up, slam her other axe into the wall. Then she wiggled out her hand from the loop, set the ice screw, grabbed the rope, and clipped it into the anchor.
Yeah, she was good at this game. Maybe even a better climber than he was. Still, Orion blew out a breath as he watched her scramble higher. Over a notch in the wall, which she used to brace herself as she put in another anchor.
“How many do you have left?”
A pause. “Three.”
Three. And twenty feet left. They’d also salvaged off the pack two pieces of ice pro—long anchors they could drive into the ground at the top. That and one of her ice axes could make a triad anchor system. She could use the other ice axe to create a cushion for the rope over the cornice as he levered himself up.
Then, somehow, they’d hike down to Muldrow Glacier, and . . . well, by then, if the skies were clear, surely someone would be looking for them.
Please, please let Sasha, Jake, and Aria be alive.
“I can see the top!” Her voice echoed down.
He could barely see her. She’d curved around the cornice to climb up its side, her yellow jacket just barely visible.
“I’m setting a screw at the bottom of the cornice. Slack!”
He spooled it out for her. Saw her clip the rope in.
“Be careful!” Stupid, because of course she’d be careful. But he could see the problem in his mind’s eye. She’d have to ratchet in the axes, let her legs dangle, then somehow move her axes up the lip. Problem was, they were already at her arm’s length. And he didn’t know how much arm strength she had left.
He stepped back from the wall, nearly to the back of the ledge, to get the angle to see her. The fist in his gut tightened when she released her feet from the wall, dangling just by one axe, on the cornice.
A fall now would slam her against the icy wall.
Maybe rip out the anchor.
He couldn’t watch. Except, his gaze was pinned to her.
She looped one of her legs over her arm, and again levered herself up using her core.
Landed her left axe into the snowcap above her.
She unwound herself and moved her right axe parallel to her left.
Dangled there.
Her arms had to be on fire. She kicked out, trying for purchase with her feet on the cornice, but she wasn’t yet high enough.
Her body swung with the action.
“You’re almost there!”
She tried again, her feet scrabbling against the underside of the overhang, and for a moment, she got enough lift to move her left hand higher.
“Put in a screw!”
He wasn’t sure if she heard him, but she left her axe in the wall and reached for the ice screw in her belt. Wow, the woman was strong, the way she screwed it into the ice, dangling from only her right hand, her feet barely nipping the bottom of the underhang.
He sat back in his harness to brace her if she fell.
“Slack!”
Shoot. “Slack!” He eased back with his brake hand and fished out the slack so she could move the rope into the anchor.
Her feet gave way. Her scream hit the walls, piercing and raw as she fell. Somehow, she hung on to her axe, self-arresting before her weight could pull him off his feet.
She dangled from her right-hand loop, spinning under the cornice. He braked, leaning back into the harness to give her some help.
She got both hands back on to the axe, still working to affix her feet.
“You got this!”
“I’m going to try and get better footing.”
A fist had moved up to grab him around the throat as she put her left hand on the top of her axe and pulled herself up.
Her feet still bit nothing but air.
“A little higher!”
She unlooped her right hand from the axe handle to cap it over her left, to leverage herself up.
He couldn’t breathe.
Her feet caught on the bottom lip of the cornice.
His chest eased.
“Stabilize yourself before you clip in, Jenny!”
Maybe she didn’t hear him, because she reached down for her rope, grabbing it. Okay, well, she probably knew what she was doing. He frantically fished out slack.
She brought it up and lunged for the anchor.
Her axe slipped. “Falling!”
She toppled off the cornice, swinging into the mountain.
Her weight whipped him off his feet. No! He was so far out, he saw the crash against the wall coming and tried to brace himself. But he slammed into the ice with so much force it shucked the breath out of him.
He nearly let go—just his reflexes hanging on to the brake.
His leg, however. Oh—it took the brunt of the hit. His roar lifted through the chamber as pain shot through him, crippling him.
But he hung on, gritting his teeth, trembling.
Snow cascaded down onto the ledge—he heard at least one axe slamming behind him, tried to look for it, but it bounced away into the dark blue abyss.
Then, all went quiet, save his breaths rasping through his teeth.
“Jenny!”
Nothing. And, pinned against the wall, he couldn’t see her. He tried to push out with his feet, get an angle, but the pain in his leg crumpled him.
He lay in the harness, his arms trembling, his jaw gritted, his brake hand straining to hold her, trying not to let out another shout, this one of frustration.
“Jen, please, answer me!”
Nothing.
He leaned his head back, praying for a glimpse of her. “Jacie. Honey, please! Answer me!” Just his own voice echoing against the icy blue walls, back to himself.
“C’mon!” More feral cry than word. He blew out a breath. Another. Willed his heartbeat to slow.
Think. Just . . . Don’t. Panic.
Get her down.
Orion released his left hand and grabbed the brake rope under the figure eight with both hands, one farther down to give himself slack. Then he released the brake. His left hand slammed into the belay device, the rope slipping through his gloves. Grinding his teeth, he braked hard with his right hand.
The entire movement jarred his body, the pain embedding in his bones.
He didn’t care. As long as she was alive.
Repeating the movement, he braked again, the rope jerking hard to arrest her fall. “Jen!”
Nothing.
He kept working, his gloves rubbed shiny with the raze of the rope, his arms burning as he lowered her.
She came into view and his heart nearly stopped in his chest. Her helmet was crushed, blood trickled down her face. Limp and dangling in the harness, she didn’t rouse when he again called her name.
God, please don’t let her be dead.
He didn’t know why he was calling out to God. Certainly he’d learned the first time Orion had pinned all his hopes on him . . .
No. God couldn’t abandon them now. But . . .
Orion didn’t know what to think.
He lowered her all the way down, then let out enough slack to return himself to the ground.
He rolled over and crawled over to her. “Jenny.”
She wasn’t moving. He unclipped her helmet, fearing a crushed skull, but the blood came from a gash in her forehead, maybe where the helmet had been pushed back. She must have hit something—maybe another ice screw, maybe the sharp edge of the ice. Whatever it was, it tore into her head right above her eyebrow, at her forehead.
He pressed his glove over the wound. “Jenny, honey. Wake up. Please wake up.”
For a second, he was sitting on the edge of the ice watching his father go out into the breach. “Dad, come back!”
“Just hold the rope, Ry! Don’t let go!”
“Don’t let go, Jace.” He pulled her into his lap, bending over her. “Don’t leave me again. Stay with me.”
“Stay with me, Dad!”
“Rian, I think you’re scared.”
Jenny’s voice caught him up, and he even lifted his head to see if she’d woken. No. She lay there, her face pale, her lips slightly open. Breathing, thank you, Jesus. But not awake.
And right then, yes, he was scared. The realization wound through him, around him, squeezing his breath from him.
Trapped. Broken. And very, very afraid.
Hope was a betrayer. Cruel with its blue skies and offers of peace.
Maybe it was better to stay in the darkness.
Orion lifted his eyes to the slice of blue, Jenny’s body in his arms, and because he had nothing else, he screamed. He let out a roar that ripped through his body, tore out pieces of his soul, and let loose all the anger, all the grief . . .
The final fragment of hope.
The sound of it careened through the cavern, ripping through him and settling back into his body with the force of an avalanche.
It broke him with the violence, and he had nothing left when he leaned over Jenny, clutching her to himself.
For the first time since he woke in Germany, alone in the hospital, Orion wept.
Because clearly, they were all doomed after all.