Mount Mercy

Rachel wound up dangling from one leg and escaped with nothing more than a bump and some tears. But that feeling of something happening and being completely unable to stop it... that’s exactly what it felt like when I saw the car sliding off the cliff. All I wanted to do was run to it and grab the bumper, but I had just enough sense left in my head to know that would do no good. My eyes searched the same ground I’d been searching for the last five minutes and suddenly, out of desperation or pure dumb luck, I saw what I needed: a rock the size of a watermelon. I grabbed it and sprinted.

The lack of noise as the car slid was eerie, just a creak and crunch of snow beneath the body. Moving slowly but picking up speed.

I’ve never run so fast in my life. If I slipped, even once, I’d be too late.

The car tilted down, scraped... and I dived to the ground and shoved the rock in front of the rear wheel like a footballer player scoring a touchdown. The car jerked, rocked..., and stopped.

The driver’s door was hanging open over space. Beckett was clinging to the seat, terrified, looking down at the drop: there was no way she could climb out on her own. I leaned right out, straining, and managed to grab her hand. I wasn’t waiting around for any of that count to three bullshit, I just pulled her out of there and turned, flinging her round in an arc to land on the soft snow behind me.

I nearly lost her. I stalked over to her. “You fucking stupid—What were you thinking?” I roared.

She just stared up at me, still sprawled on her back in the snow.

I nearly lost her. “You—” My throat closed up. I couldn’t speak.

She stared up at me, white-faced and mute.

I nearly lost her. It pounded through me with every heartbeat. I grabbed her by the wrist and hauled her to her feet. I was shaking with fear and anger and—

I felt it rise inside me, soaring and swelling, taking my breath.

I didn’t just like her, or care for her, or any of those weak little words. They didn’t cover it, not anymore.

I felt myself lift...and then those chains from my past pulled tight and wrenched me back down. I was the worst bastard in the world, for feeling that way. What about Chrissy? And Rachel?

I froze, torn between past and future. All I could do was stare down into her eyes. God, she was so painfully, heartbreakingly beautiful. Neither of us had noticed, with all the panic, but it had started to snow again and tiny flakes were dusting her cheeks and gleaming in her copper hair. She was looking up at me with big, frightened eyes.

All I wanted to do was kiss her. But I didn’t deserve her. I knew what I deserved.

“I clamped the bleeder,” said Beckett in a small voice.

“You clamped the bleeder,” I repeated. I closed my eyes for a second and felt the world sway around me. I felt sick when I thought of how close I’d come to losing her. “Of course you did,” I leaned down and touched my forehead to hers. “Damn you, Beckett,” I whispered.

Does she know? Can she not know?

I turned away and marched back towards the car.

29

Amy

TO TAKE A LOOK at Sophie’s trapped leg, Corrigan had to stretch out with his legs on the cliff, his arms and head in the car and his midsection suspended over space. I knelt on his legs to help pin him in place and tried not to look at the town a hundred feet below. Even with the danger, I couldn’t stop thinking about what just happened. He’d looked at me as if he—Oh God! It kept replaying in my head and every time, I went heady. But there was still something holding him back, something he couldn’t break free of, and I had no idea what it was.

He squirmed backwards onto the cliff and then motioned me over to the trees, out of earshot of Sophie. The sun was down, now, and the light was draining from the forest rapidly, leaving impenetrable shadows that made it easy to trip. The snow was getting heavier, the flakes slow and silent, and the size of dimes.

“We can’t free that ankle,” said Corrigan. “The car’s all twisted and bent. If we were on a freeway and we could get to the fender, maybe we could pry it apart. But it’s hanging over space.”

I wanted to scream. All we needed was a tow truck to pull the car back onto the cliff, or a jaws-of-life from a fire truck, or a cutting torch. The blizzard had set us back a hundred years. “Then what do we do? She’s freezing, she can’t wait.”