Chapter 9
AT THE BOTTOM of the hill was a mess to make anyone cry. The
avalanche had taken most of the road that snaked around the mountain with it
through the barriers. I could see a couple of cars that had ended up in the
crumpled trees and my heart thudded heavily. No way anyone in those vehicles
had made it.
Renee pulled the ATV to a stop and got off. I lurched forward and
gripped onto the empty seat. The hollow ring of devastation echoed through
every inch of my skin.
CRASH. Smashing, wall of white, Crash, crash, crash. Obliterating
everything. Roaring, roaring, ploughing toward the road. Boom. Solid icy wall.
Wind screamed. A shock wave. Smash. Blast onto the road. No, No, NO! Crumple
the windshield. Heavy. NO. NO!
“Aeron?” I felt the warmth of a hand on my arm.
Black, darkness, hopelessness. No escape, nowhere to run, nowhere
to hide. Heavy breath-stealing damp, crushing, burying—
“Aeron!”
Renee’s yelling in my ear brought me back to the cold, bright
afternoon. I had somehow ended up on the ground. I blinked a couple of times,
expecting to see Renee peering at me, instead I met the soppiest pair of brown
pools that I ever saw.
“Hey, Duke,” I mumbled, trying not to breathe in his doggy breath.
“I guess this was one way of getting you on your own.”
Duke sat and cocked his head, a hot steaming tongue flopping out
of the side. Nice. Drool.
“I need to find Charlie,” I told him. “He’s a deputy but I need
everybody to think it’s you doing the tracking.”
Duke snorted as if to say.
“It
will
be me. That’s my
job, baldy.”
I frowned at him. “Less of the name-calling, fluff ball.”
That earned me a pair of alert ears. Well, as best as a mound of
fur could manage. Duke wasn’t used to humans getting him, that much I could
tell.
“I can find him and you can do the whole rescue thing,” I said.
“But you gotta follow my lead.”
He looked kind of skeptical and sat there panting at me. I didn’t
blame him. I was sitting on my butt having had some kind of fit so I knew he
was figuring me for crazy or an ill person.
He nudged forward with a paw to confirm his thoughts. I took off
my glove and shoved my hand out for inspection. Most folks don’t seem to
realize that a dog’s nose is
that
good that they can tell just how well
you really are.
He had a good old sniff and a lick to make sure I wasn’t tricking
him somehow and then sat back down to contemplate the information. I used his
decision time to focus on Charlie and where he could be.
Now, I ain’t been trained in how to use my burdens and the only
time I had been able to track where somebody might be was by touching jewelry
of theirs. I had nothing of Charlie’s to help me and so hoped that Supernan
would come to my rescue.
I closed my eyes, trying to focus on calling to her. “Nan, you
there?”
Nothing. Not even a breeze. Must have been one heck of a card
game.
I opened my eyes to see Duke wiggling his eyebrows at me. He
didn’t look convinced of my sanity and behind him, Evan seemed to be itching to
search.
I took a deep breath and tried again. I tried to think of Joyce,
hoping that she would somehow connect me to him.
This time I figured I could maybe do it alone, mentally at least.
I pictured the scene, the flash I’d had.
Nothing.
I got to my feet, Renee looking half as though she wanted to shove
me back on the ATV and half like she wanted to throttle me. Her aura rolled
about like waves in a storm but I closed my eyes, one last time, as the roar of
the other parties met my ears.
“Charlie, where are you?” I asked, putting every ounce of mental
energy I had into it. I must have looked like I was in agony with my face
scrunched up so much. I felt a wet nose on my palm.
“Charlie,” I whispered. “You got to help me out.”
Blood, cold, ice, got to hold on, got to pull myself up. They
won’t hear me . . . please . . . grip the wood, hands so cold . . . I can’t
hold on—
“There!” I snapped my eyes open. I sprinted through the snow. It
gave way underneath me as I tried to scramble over it. Renee called to me but
Charlie had no time for me to stick on some snowshoes.
I could hear heavy panting as Duke kept up with me.
“Over the ridge,” I called to him. “Stay back when we get to the
edge. He’s sliding down.”
Duke barked in response and I looked around me for something to
help.
“Need a rope!” I called back toward Renee who was firing up the
ATV.
“Watch the edge!” she called back. “It’ll give way.”
I stopped just short, Duke huffed and panted in my ear.
“He’s cold and injured, right?” I said to him.
Duke snorted, his paws testing the snow in front. His eyes met
mine as if to warn me that it was loose.
“Any ideas?”
If a dog could roll his eyes, Duke would have.
“Look I know I ain’t an expert,” I told him, “but Charlie needs
our help.”
Duke looked over his shoulder at Renee. She slowly moved the
vehicle over the snow, trying not to send a new run down on top of Charlie. I
guessed that meant wait for the person who was actually trained.
“Charlie!” I called out over the edge, my
heart thudded and Duke whimpered as the snow shifted beneath my feet. “Charlie
. . . can you hear me?”
“Down here!” came the panicked reply.
To stop myself saying something stupid like “hold on” I looked
back at Renee. She was off the ATV on snowshoes and had attached a rope to the
front end. “Aeron, you move another inch and I’ll throw you over myself!”
Duke lifted his ears at the threat.
“Oh, that’s nothin’,” I muttered. “Should see her when there’s no
chocolate.”
Renee got to us and fed the rope over the edge. “Can you see the
rope?” she called out.
I fought the urge to move any closer to take a look.
“A little lower,” came the reply.
Renee fed more over and after a long silence, a voice called up.
“Got it!”
I wanted to cheer but Renee was not smiling. “Can you hold on
enough for us to pull you up?”
“Think so.”
Renee looked back to Evan and signaled to him. He started to back
up the ATV. The other members of our rescue crew in the distance were digging
around a car on its side. The snow underneath us shifted and I got a warning
flash.
“Stop!”
Evan did as he was told and Renee lifted her eyebrows in question.
“I’ll have to pull him from here, the whole thing is shifting.”
Renee didn’t argue but took Duke and moved him back. “Aeron,
can
you pull him up?”
I nodded.
“Then I’ll bring a rope out to you too,” she said.
“There’s no time,” I answered. My heart thudded, my skin clammy
against the cold-weather gear. I shivered and Renee frowned.
“Aeron, you don’t look too great . . . maybe—”
“I can do this. Trust me. Just get everyone back.” I turned to the
edge. “Charlie, I’m gonna pull you up.”
“Hurry.”
Renee met my eyes, all manner of thoughts flashed across her face.
“Hey,” I said. “I’ll be okay. What’s a little snow, right?”
She hesitated.
“Nan didn’t get you saving my butt back in Oppidum to see me
hurtle over a snowy edge,” I said. “Trust me.”
Grey eyes bored into mine. “I do.”
It was such a strong statement that I took a few seconds to clear
my thoughts. Renee had always been kinda intense but that was like a
two-by-four across the head. I guessed that was what happened when you lived
the life she did. You needed conviction. There were times, like now, when I
wondered how much of a toll it took on her.
Charlie grunted and I tore my eyes away from her.
“Good. Back up and let the snow expert do her thing,” I said, my
throat feeling like it had a snowball wedged in it. Not the greatest time to
get mushy.
Renee did as I asked, although I knew that no way did she want to.
I turned back to face the edge. My flash had warned me that I stood on the top
of a huge slab of snow which was going to give way . . . soon.
All I had to do was haul up a fully grown man with a tow rope and
not get me or him hurt.
No problem,
I thought as I gripped hold of the rope.
No problem at all.
RENEE WATCHED AERON ready herself, digging her feet into the snow,
and winced. What had Ursula been teaching her? How had Aeron passed the cold
weather training when so far all Renee had witnessed was how little Aeron knew
about any of it?
Renee sighed.
It was simple why Aeron had passed, she
had
to. There was
no way that CIG could operate without her and no way that they could find
anyone else.
How many times had Renee wished that Aeron would lose all her
gifts? That the sweet-natured woman could live her life quietly beside the
river and never have to worry about anything. Aeron deserved that much, she had
been through enough.
Renee watched Aeron slide as she started to pull on the rope and
walked over to the ATV. She’d sent the men back up the hillside but no way
would she leave. She gripped the throttle—the second anything started moving,
she was hitting reverse. There was no way she wanted to leave a man to nature
but Aeron was too important to risk. Too important to the mission, and to her.
A breeze tickled her arms and she smiled. No doubt it was a
reassurance from Nan. God, how she had missed the odd and surreal world that
was Aeron Lorelei.
She swallowed the well of agony in her heart and watched Aeron
haul the rope upward. She tensed. Aeron was going too fast but shouting would
do no good.
“It’d probably make it slide faster,” she muttered.
The sound of Duke barking drew her attention. He was bouncing
around, Evan trying to calm him. A breeze tickled Renee’s arm. She heard Aeron
swear. She hit the throttle. The ATV screamed backward. The snow cracked. The
ground under Aeron gave way. Renee fought the sliding snow. The ATV wailed in
protest. The tread caught on a hard piece of packed snow and a cloud of white
plumed into the air as the run gave way.
No!
Renee clung to the throttle. “Aeron!”
Renee looked through the powdery mist. Her stomach clenched as she
roared the ATV backward.
Please, please . . . please be okay.
She hit a bank of snow and the ATV crunched to a halt. She grunted
as it kicked up at her but her eyes remained on the fallen run.
“Aeron!”
“I’m okay!” came a yelp-like cry. “Got him!”
Renee scrambled off the ATV and used the rope to slide downward.
The road was almost cleared by the snow collapsing. “Aeron, where are you?”
Please be okay, please be okay.
Aeron clung to the rope. Her legs dangled over the edge. She had
one long arm under the man’s shoulders and another clinging to the rope.
Renee’s breath caught when she saw that the man was holding onto a small boy.
“I’m coming!” She could hear barking as the rescue team closed in
on them and reached out to pull the young boy upward.
“Charlie’s got a gashed leg,” Aeron told her as Renee checked over
the boy.
“I can’t see anything,” Renee answered.
“He’s not Charlie,” the man grunted as he hauled himself upward,
the bloodstain dark on his trouser leg. “He was banging a log against the car
he’d climbed out of, made one heck of a noise. I went to get him. Brave little
man.”
The boy shivered and wrapped his arms around Renee’s waist. She
pulled him in close, hoping that her body heat would help him for now.
“Aeron?”
“I’m just great,” Aeron mumbled as she pulled herself up and
collapsed in a heap on top of the ledge. “Walk in the Arctic.” She grinned up
at Renee. “Told you not to worry.”
Renee tried not to show any emotion, not to look at her, not to
give anything away. Her heart pounded with what she
wanted
to say, with
what she felt. It was too dangerous now, Aeron was too essential to the
mission.
“Let’s get you somewhere warm,” Renee said to the boy, knowing
better than to ask too many questions here.
The rescue team set to work transporting Charlie. Evan and Duke
took the boy with them, the dog huddling close. Renee didn’t dare look at Aeron
for too long. In her heart she wanted to praise her, to tell her that she was a
hero, and hug her senseless. To tell her the truth, to hold Aeron close, and
beg Aeron to keep her safe from the cold and the past. Renee tried to keep the
tears from forming. Tried not to break down. There was no place for that now.
Aeron had to stand strong alone. Getting too close would risk everything that
the CIG worked so hard for.