Mount Mercy

Chrissy.

Rachel.

Rachel was why I was down there. She’d wanted to be a ballet dancer, too. But there was another reason.

I looked down at the blackness beneath me. Would it be such a bad way to go? A freezing rush of air, the ground invisible as it came up to meet you—

Suicide is a mortal sin. But if I slipped or my grip gave out or the car fell on top of me….

People think you’re a hero for doing dangerous things. They don’t realize you might have your own, selfish reasons.

I reached the driver’s side of the car and held on to the cliff one-handed while I took out my flashlight. It would have been a hell of a lot easier to hang onto the car, but if I did that I’d pull the damn thing over the edge. I got the flashlight switched on and pointed it up at—

It slipped through my numb fingers and fell, the beam twisting and slashing through the night like a lightsaber, revealing the drop below me. I watched it, heart hammering. It was a long time before it dropped out of sight.

I took out a pry bar and, by feel alone, worked it into the dented mass of metal and started trying to loosen it. There was nothing to brace against so I had to use raw muscle, straining and grunting. I started to wonder how the hell I was going to climb back across with no strength left in my arms.

That doesn’t matter, a dark little voice in my head told me. Just get Sophie out. Make sure Beckett is safe. The rest doesn’t matter.

I gritted my teeth and heaved on the pry bar, the metal creaking, and groaning.

“That’s it!” yelled Beckett from the darkness. She was in the back of the car, ready to pull Sophie into the rear seat and then out through the rear door. “I can feel her leg coming loose!”

I heaved again, using both hands. The bar slipped and suddenly I was balancing on just my feet, toppling backwards into space. I had to grab something. My hand found one of the wheels. I jerked to a stop, but the car started to slide. Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!

“It’s moving!” screamed Beckett. “I can’t stop it!”

I got the pry bar in again and tried to force the metal apart, but Sophie’s leg was still trapped. In desperation, I started pounding my fist on the crumpled metal, bending it inwards and upwards. I managed to get my hand up inside the footwell and bent aside the metal that had caught on her shoe—

“She’s free!” I heard grunting and then a limp body being dragged out of the car. “She’s out!”

I let out a breath. The car was still sliding forward. Slowly, but it didn’t have far to go before gravity would take over and carry it the rest of the way. I pulled my hand back—

Fuck. My coat was caught on something inside the footwell. I couldn’t pull my arm out. And I didn’t have a free hand to unfasten my coat and shrug it off.

Beckett’s head appeared over the edge of the cliff. “She’s out! Climb up!”

God, she was so beautiful. But I’d got what I’d wanted. What I deserved.

“I can’t,” I told her. “I’m caught.”

The car slid slowly forward... taking me with it.

31

Amy

I FUMBLED for my flashlight and shone it so that I could see him without blinding him. He looked up at me with a strange sort of calm. “It’s alright, Beckett.” The car slid inexorably forward. “It’s okay.”

I knelt there staring down into those blue eyes. He’d always been going to go out like this, risking his life to save a patient. His path had been mapped out long before I’d ever met him. He was like some comet on a collision course with a planet, blazing across the galaxy with just enough drinking and jokes and sex to ease his pain until impact. He should have sped straight past me: I’d only been drawn into his orbit by chance. And it was ridiculous to think someone as tiny and insignificant as me could alter his trajectory.

“Get Sophie down the hill,” he told me.

I stared, tears coursing down my cheeks and melting the snowflakes that had settled there.

And I decided.

“No!” I snapped viciously. I wasn’t going to let this wonderful, big-hearted man go. I didn’t care how hopeless it was, or how dangerous it was. I grabbed Sophie by the shoulders and dragged her through the snow to the back of the car. “You press down!” I snapped, pointing at the trunk. “You press that thing down, no matter what!”

She nodded and put her weight on the back of the car. It kept sliding, but it slowed a little.

I put my flashlight between my teeth and took out a scalpel. Then I climbed back into the car through the rear door.