She nodded, the motions taking three times as long as normal. “We were eating lunch, right there.” She pointed to the group. “And then we finished, so we walked in a line, just like we’re supposed to. We weren’t even close to the edge, I promise!” Her voice broke.
The officer next to us started taking notes.
“I know. It’s okay.” I took her hands in my own with Colt’s cap between us. “What happened then?”
“We turned around to come back, because the other kids were slow eating. Then the ground just disappeared. It was gone so fast.”
“Okay, and what then?”
More uniforms gathered behind us, and I waved them off. She looked up at them and then at Colt’s hat, shutting down.
I looked over my shoulder and saw Mark. “Blanket.”
He took one from the new batch of officers and handed it to me.
“Keep them back. She’s in shock, and they’re making it worse.” He nodded and started barking orders as I put the heavy material around her. “It’s just you and me, Emma. Can you tell me what happened next?”
Her eyes rose to mine. “The ground left, and I started to fall. Colt grabbed my hand and pulled? I think? Or pushed. I was behind him, and then I was in front of him. It was so loud. Like ice cubes in a glass.”
Landslide. It had to be.
“I tried to grab him, but it was done. Then I was at the edge, and he was gone. I had this.” She lifted his hat.
My heart stopped. It ceased beating, and everything around me froze. Then my heart pounded, and the world sprung into life again, but felt twice as fast.
Colt. Oh my God, Colt.
“Some of the kids think they saw him on the other side. Is that what happened? Did you get separated?” Please, say yes. Please.
She shook her head slowly.
“Emma, did he fall?” My voice was high, strained by the giant lump in my throat.
She nodded.
For three heartbeats, I didn’t think I was going to be able to get control. But I sucked air into my lungs and somehow back out.
“Thank you,” I told her. Then I sprinted up the path, whistling for Havoc. She came up on my heels and then right beside me. The trail narrowed as we rounded the corner, and I skidded to a halt, grabbing Havoc’s vest as she slid.
“Careful, it’s a bad drop,” one of the county guys said, leaned up against the hillside. “I don’t see any sign of the kid, though, which is good. He’s probably on the other side of the trail like the teacher thinks. We’re just waiting for the team to come up from the other side.”
Five feet in front of us, the cliff-side portion of the trail had fallen away, and the rest looked ready to go. My heart climbed into my throat. “Stay,” I croaked at Havoc.
Then I inched forward, bracing my hand on the hillside to keep steady. Peering over the edge, I saw a dramatic fall—maybe fifty feet—that ended in a steep, tree-covered slope.
“See? No sign of him. Teacher said he has on a blue fleece.”
“It’s bright blue,” I answered, scanning the terrain below. “With the TSR logo on the back and Gentry labeled on the front.”
It was the one thing he’d begged for before he went back to school, and the only thing he had of mine with my name.
“Oh, okay, then. Well, we don’t see him. What does your dog say?”
I glanced back at Havoc, who was sitting perfectly still. Not alerting. Not anxious to get over the trail. She knew the same thing I did. “She says he’s down there.”
I took one last look at the terrain, trying to commit it to memory.
“Damn. Then it’s about to be a recovery mission, because there’s no way that kid’s alive.”
I spun, shoving my forearm into the guy’s throat as I pinned him against the mountain. “You don’t know that.”
He gurgled.
Hands pulled me back. Mark. He let me go and squeezed my shoulder.
“What the hell is your problem?” The uniform rubbed his throat.
“It’s his kid,” Mark answered.
The guy’s expression fell. “Oh, shit. I’m so sorry. I mean, there could be a chance—”
I was Colt’s only chance.
Grabbing Havoc, I left, sprinting back down the trail, careful to keep my balance on the rocks. Rolling my ankle could kill Colt.
I grabbed my walkie and pressed the channel. “Nelson, it’s Gentry. That helo still running?”
A static-filled moment passed as I came up on the first class. Maisie sat with Emma, holding her hand at the edge of the group.
“It is,” Nelson answered.
“Keep it that way. Havoc and I are on the way, and we need to get down that cliff fast.”
“Roger.”
Mark caught up as I dropped down to Maisie, who had stopped crying and now looked completely blank, her arms wrapped around her stomach.
I hugged her, curving my body to surround her as much as possible. “I’m taking you down, okay? And then Mark is going to get you to the station, and we’ll call your mom.”
“Beckett, you want me to leave?” Mark asked softly. “Don’t you need my help?”
“I need you to get my little girl off this mountain,” I said as I stood, Maisie shifting in my arms to hold onto my neck. “Hold on, Maisie-girl.”
I jogged, balancing her weight, knowing every second counted, but there was no way I was leaving her up there. Ella’s voice filled my head as I thought about every time she’d felt guilty having to leave one to take care of the other.
We rounded the next bend, and the helo came into view, along with a group of parents who stood behind a line of uniforms.
“Bad news. Travels fast.” Mark’s words came stuttered through heavy breathing.
“Beckett!” Ada called from the front of the group.
“Ada’s here,” I told Maisie. “Mark, change of plans, get on the bird.”
Ada ran to the edge of the crowd, Larry not far behind her. They reached an officer who let them through after I nodded.
There was a general cacophony of shouting from the parents, no doubt wanting news, but the whir of the helicopter behind me blurred any words.
“Is everyone okay?” Ada asked. “Oh God, where’s Colt? Why didn’t you bring Colt back, too?” Her voice shot high in panic, and Larry put his hand on her shoulder.
“I need you to take her,” I told Ada, but Maisie clung to my neck. “Maisie-girl, you have to let me go, okay?”
She pulled back, taking my face in her hands. “He’s hurt. I can feel it.” She touched her belly.
“I’m going to find him right now, but I need you to go to Ada, okay?”
“Okay.” She hugged me, and I gave her a squeeze before handing her over.
“Where’s Ella?” I asked as Maisie transferred into Ada’s arms.
“It’s Colt, isn’t it?” Ada asked.
I couldn’t say it. If I said it, the cellophane walls I had up would stop holding me together, and that wasn’t an option.
“Where’s Ella?” I repeated.
“She’s in the ranger station right back there with a couple other parents.” She motioned behind the crowd. “They’re trying to get news from the county. Want us to get her? Someone has to tell her.” Her face crumpled.
Flashing lights came into view. Good, the ambulance was here.
“No, just stay with her. It’s…it’s not good. She’s going to need you.”
Colt didn’t have the time for me to wait for Ella. I looked at Larry, whose face was drawn and tight.
“What do you want me to tell her?” he asked.
“Tell her I’m going to find our son.” Before I could lose it, I ran to the helicopter, Havoc with me. I deadlifted her into the bird and climbed in. Helmet on. Seat belt latched.
“Fly sout
h,” I told the pilot. “There’s a section of the trail that’s fallen away. We need to be dropped right beneath it.”
“Roger.” The pilot took off, and my stomach lurched as we rose into the air.
I leaned forward and clipped the sections of Havoc’s vest I’d need to keep her safe.
“Slight problem, there’s nowhere to land,” the pilot called back.
“Can you rappel?” I asked Mark.
“In theory,” he answered.
“Get us to where we can rappel,” I told the pilot, then I turned to Mark. “Keep up.”
He nodded.
“I need you to be ready, Jenkins.”
“I’m steady.” He assured me from the bench. “Backboard and litter is ready.”
“You have the new report?”
He nodded.
“What time did it happen?”
He scanned through the clipboard and checked his watch. “Report came in forty-five minutes ago, and they called it in about ten minutes after.”
He’d been down almost an hour. I set the timer on my watch.
“Radio back and get as many hands down here as we can get.”
The helo steadied above the only clear ground visible. We looked to be a short distance from where the rocks would have fallen.
“We’re ready,” the pilot said through the comms.
I removed my helmet as Jenkins secured the line. Then I clipped Havoc into the slider and kept her between my legs as we shuffled for the door. Jenkins passed me the line, and I secured the slider that let me control her rate of descent. “I know you hate this,” I told her as I made sure it was tight where it attached to the line a couple feet above her harness. “But our Colt is down there.”
I gripped the line and her slider, gave her the knee signal she was all too used to, and we stepped out into nothing. She went completely still as I worked us down the line with her dangling between my knees.
We’d done this hundreds of times, but I’d never felt as urgent. Urgent caused mistakes, so I calmed my breathing and lowered us slowly, hand over hand, until we reached the ground.
Then I unhooked the slider and stuck it in Havoc’s pack. Mark started down immediately.
I slipped Havoc a treat from her pack. “Good job. I know that sucks.”
“How do you do that with a dog?” Mark asked after he reached the ground a minute later.
“A lot of experience.” I leaned down to Havoc. “Seek Colt.”
She started sniffing, and we walked in the direction of the slide. “How long will that take her?” Mark asked.
“Not sure. He didn’t walk this way, so she doesn’t have a path to go on. We’ll have to get close enough for her to catch his scent in the air, or anywhere he’s touched.”
We hiked uphill, through patches of knee-high grass and then under tall pine trees. I concentrated on my breathing and my footwork as Havoc walked ahead of us, searching. The less I thought about what we would find, the better.
“Colt!” I called out on the prayer he could hear us…that he was capable of hearing us.
“Colt!” Mark joined in. “Should we have brought Jenkins?”
“No. He needs to stay with the helo. When the other teams show up, he needs to be available, and if he’s with us, and someone else finds Colt…”
“I get the picture.”
“I’m a combat medic, which means I’m qualified to do just about anything besides surgery. Everyone in our…everyone is where I used to work.” It was part of the training before you were selected as a tier-one operator. “Colt!” I tried again.
And again.
And again.
The beep on my watch signaled that it had been an hour and a half, and still no Colt. I looked up the mountain. We were out of the tree line, right beneath the slide zone, and there were plenty of rocks around us that all looked the same. I couldn’t tell what was new and what had always been here.
We’d seen the helo drop a couple teams, and Mark had handled radio coordination, making sure we chose different grids. My grid was wherever Havoc decided to go, and they could all deal with it.
Havoc was sniffing like crazy toward the south, so we followed along the tree line.
“Colt!” I saw the bright patch of blue just as Havoc took off at a dead run.
I covered the ground quickly, jumping rocks, ducking pine tree branches as I ran. Havoc sat next to him, whining.
“Colt,” I called, but he didn’t respond. His upper half was clear, but his lower half was obscured by fallen foliage.
“Good girl,” I told Havoc, handing her a treat from my pocket out of sheer habit before dropping to my knees next to him.
“Colt, come on, bud.” His skin was pale, blood trickling from small cuts on his face. I put my fingers to his neck and waited.
Please, God. I’ll do anything. Please.
He had a pulse, but it was rapid and thready. His skin was cold.
“He’s bleeding somewhere,” I told Mark as he dropped to Colt’s other side. “We need to get these branches off him, but only the lighter ones. If it’s heavy, wait for me.”
Mark nodded and started pulling the smaller branches off Colt. “Rescue 9, this is Gutierrez and Gentry. We’ve found the male. Pulse is present but thready. Please send in medics ASAP.”
Static came through Mark’s radio as I unzipped Colt’s fleece.
“Shit. Gentry.”
I looked back to Colt’s lower half, and bile rose in my throat, but I looked up at the sky and forced it back down. Colt’s right thigh was pinned under a large, jagged rock roughly half the size of a car engine.
“Cut his pants around it. I need to see the skin.” Not good.
“Gutierrez, this is Rescue 9. Please note we are midrefuel. On our way immediately.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Colt, you in there, bud?” I asked, stroking his face. “Can you wake up for me?”
His eyelashes fluttered. “Beckett?”
The sweetest sound I’d ever heard was Colt’s voice at that moment. He was alive and able to speak. Thank you, God.
“Hey!” I hovered over his face, locking his head in place as his eyes opened. His right pupil was slightly larger than his left. Concussion. “Hey, don’t move, okay? I’m here.”
“Where am I?” he asked, his eyes scanning from left to right.
“You had a really bad fall, so you can’t move, okay? You might have hurt your neck. Mark is here with me, and the doc is on his way. Just don’t move your head.”
“Okay.” He winced. “I hurt.”
“I bet you do. Can you tell me where?”
His eyes shifted. “Everywhere.”
“Gotcha.” I looked down to where he was pinned. “Colt, can you wiggle your toes? Just your toes?”
“Yeah,” he said.
I looked up at Mark, who shook his head with a pursed mouth.
Don’t panic.
“Good job, bud. Can you do it again?” I hoped I sounded way calmer than I felt, because I was about to crawl out of my own skin.
“See? Toes are fine. They don’t even hurt,” Colt said with a little smile.
Mark shook his head again, and my soul crumpled into a little ball.
“Your legs don’t hurt?” I asked.
“No, just everything else.” His eyes started to drift shut.
“Colt. Colt!” I gripped his face. “You have to stay with me, okay? Wiggle your fingers.”
All ten wiggled. I can work with that.
“I’m tired. Is Emma okay?”
“She sure is, but she’s worried about you. You did great, Colt. You saved her.” I took his pulse again. Shit, it was faster and lighter.
“We protect smaller people,” he said with a weak smile. “I’m cold, Beckett. Is it cold?”
“Look under that rock. Is there blood?” I ordered Mark. I stripped out of my fleece jacket and draped it across Colt’s chest. “Better?”
Mark crouched down. “I can’t see. I bet we could get it off him.”
“We need to tourniquet it first. There’s every chance he’s got a crush injury. It’s been almost two hours, we can’t just lift it off him. There’s one in Havoc’s pack.”
“Shit, Beckett,” Mark said softly. “Blood.”
I grabbed the tourniquet and knelt next to Mark. Dark red blood oozed out from beneath the rock. “Where the hell is the helo? Tell them to get the basket here.”
“Rescue 9, this is Gutierrez and Gentry. What’s the status on getting that basket?”
“Gutierrez, this is Rescue 9. We’re inbound with a five-minute ETA.”
“Fuck,” I muttered. There was no better word in this moment.
I dug just beneath Colt’s thigh, enough to slip the tourniquet through, and then yanked it tight, securing it right above where the rock had him pinned.
“Don’t move it,” I warned Mark.
Then I knelt at Colt’s other side. His lips were blue, his skin pale, clammy, and cold. His pulse was fast and weak.
“Hey, bud, I got your bleeding stopped. You just gotta hold on for the helicopter, okay?”
He gave me a small smile. “I get to ride in a helicopter? Cool.”
“You do. Plus you’re kind of a hero. Everyone’s going to think you’re cool, but I’ll still think you’re the coolest,” I promised. “Anywhere else hurt?”
“No, nothing hurts.”
I froze. Shock. Bleeding out. We’d stopped the bleeding in his leg, but there had to be a secondary bleed, if not a dozen of them after that fall.
He’s hurt. I can feel it.
Twins. Just like he’d woken up when she had the infected PICC line.
“Okay, just keep talking to me, buddy.” I took my fleece off him and lifted his shirt. Deep purple bruising discolored the entire left side of his chest. His belly was swollen.
I sat back on my heels and put my head in my hands.
Ryan. You gotta help me here. Please.
“Where are we?” Colt asked, his voice soft.
I stood quickly and grabbed onto Mark’s arm. “He’s bleeding out internally. My guess is spleen, which means minutes. Run to the nearest place you can see the sky and pop smoke.”
The Last Letter Page 38