Mount Mercy

“I know.” He looked at the car, then back to me, and there was pity in his eyes. “You’re going to have to take the leg.”

I just blinked at him. It was so far outside what I’d even consider, I just didn’t understand. Only when I saw how sad he looked did I get it. “What?! No! I can’t—” I looked at the car and lowered my voice. “I’m not amputating her leg!”

“Beckett, if you don’t she’s going to die. We have to get her out and get her warm now. There’s a saw in the medical kit. I’ll get it. You….” He nodded awkwardly towards the car.

You tell her. I felt like the cliff had fallen out from under my feet. This was worse than going back a hundred years, this was medieval! But however much I shook my head, he was right. I’d felt how cold she was. She would die if we didn’t get her out.

I walked back to Sophie, heart hammering, and knelt down right on the cliff edge. Even then, with the front of the car hanging out over the edge, I was still too far away to touch her. I had to raise my voice just to talk to her. “H—Hey.” I began. “How are you doing?”

It was getting dark fast and I could barely see her in the shadows inside the car. “Better,” she said. The blood transfusion must have lifted her pulse and woken her up a little. “Cold.”

“I know. Listen, Sophie….” My throat was clamping down, trying to snatch each word away. “We need to get you out. There’s a snow plow coming, we can get you to the hospital, but—” Oh God, how do I do this? I’m the world’s worst person at talking to people, especially about something like this. Why is he making me do this? He’d be so much better at it.

But it was my responsibility. If he’d offered, I wouldn’t have let him and I think he knew that.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “Sophie, to get you out, I’m going to have to remove your left leg below the knee.”

She gave a strangled gasp and then said No just as I started to speak again. No as I told her we could knock her out with pain meds so that it wouldn’t hurt, No as I told her it was the only way. No. No, no, no!

“I’m a dancer!” she sobbed as I finally stopped speaking. “I have a place this fall at Fenbrook Academy! You can’t take my leg. This is my life!”

Tears had filled my eyes and were tracing hot lines down my frozen cheeks. “I—”

“Please!” she begged. “Please don’t!”

I stood up and went over to Corrigan. “She’s a dancer,” I told him. “A ballet dancer.”

I didn’t think he’d understand. I knew he was jaded, knew he’d made the call on a hundred cases like this in the ER, not to mention Africa and other warzones.

But I saw him mouth a curse as he looked towards the car. It was fully dark, now. He weighed the bone saw in his hand and I stared at its vicious teeth as they gleamed in the moonlight.

“I never asked you for anything before,” I said. “But I’m asking you for this. Find another way.”

Corrigan drew in a deep breath. Another. Then he tossed the saw back into the medical bag. “I’ll have to try to pry the metal apart from the outside, to free her leg,” he said. There was a strange finality in his voice, a kind of relief, as if all roads had been leading to this.

“How? We can’t get to the front of the car.”

He looked towards the cliff edge. “I’ll have to climb down, underneath it.”

30

Dominic

THERE WASN’T a good place to climb down on the driver’s side of the car. I’d have to climb down on the passenger side and climb all the way across underneath. With no rope.

As I lowered myself over the edge, I was almost glad it was so dark. I had to feel for footholds but at least I couldn’t see how far away the ground was. The wind was a clue, though, whipping across the ground below me and gusting vertically up the cliff face to tug at my coat. I realized my feet were numb. I couldn’t really tell if I was putting them on firm rock or packed snow that would crumble when I put my weight on it. But it was too late now.

I climbed sideways, underneath the car. It acted like a roof above me, blocking the falling snow, but also blocking the moonlight. I couldn’t see a damn thing. I had to take it slow, feeling my way, and that left too much time for thinking. When I’d realized my full feelings for Beckett, everything from my past had risen up to claim me. The guilt.