She handed him her pack, and he set it on the ground, then dug out the rope he’d used to secure their tent to the rock. “We’ll strap him in. And then we’ll just have to do our best not to jar him.”
Much. He didn’t add that, but she felt it in the quick, grim look he gave her.
“Help me get him out.”
She climbed into the tent, grabbed Ollie’s feet as Gage took his shoulders. They grunted, easing Ollie out of the tent.
Only when they had him settled on the makeshift litter did she look up and see the cloud cover. “Is it going to snow?”
“It might. Or it might pass us, but we need to get going.” He had strapped Ollie into that stretcher, running the rope around his shoulders, across his body, down to his feet. Roughly three feet of branch length emerged from the top.
Then he took his ski poles and ran them horizontally across the top. Secured them with webbing from his bag.
“Are we going to carry him?” Ella asked, moving her hand over Ollie’s nose and mouth to make sure he was still breathing.
“We’ll ski him out.”
She raised an eyebrow. “How—”
“We’ll need his board.” He grabbed Ollie’s board and set it beneath the lower end of the stretcher, binding the board to the bottom. “It’ll flow over the snow better.”
Finally, he took her backpack and unclipped the straps. These, he secured to the rope near Ollie’s feet. “This is for you to hold on to, to help guide him down in case things go south. We’ll have to leave the pack behind, but be sure and grab anything out of it you need. You can add it to my pack.”
She stared at the makeshift stretcher, and her brother strapped into it like something out of a survival reality show, and shook her head. “This is crazy, Gage. We can’t carry him out on this.”
Gage was dismantling the tent in record time. He shoved it into its tiny carrier, then packed it in his bag.
Now, he stood up, buckled his pack on. “Did you get everything from your pack?”
She nodded and turned to get her board, but he caught her arm.
She looked up, met his eyes.
And whatever hurt, whatever anger he’d held in them before, had vanished. Instead, he wore a look of dark determination. “Trust me, Ella. I’ll get him home safely.”
She nodded. Because it didn’t matter if she deserved it or not, Gage was a hero.
And she trusted him with everything inside her.
That had never been her problem, really. It was getting him to trust her.
“I do,” she said.
He drew in a breath, nodded.
He tried PEAK one last time before he dropped his board at the head of the stretcher. He clipped in his boots, then picked up the ends of the branches, holding Ollie up in his grip. Ollie’s head was raised to nearly waist height.
She stepped up behind him, grabbed the webbing. The sun was just starting to hover over the eastern rim of the earth, gilding the snow.
Tiny flurries swirled in the sunlight, probably whisked up by the wind.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Just stay in my line and we’ll all get down this mountain in one piece.”
16
PLEASE, GOD, let me not be killing Ella’s brother.
The prayer simply bubbled up, more like a moan of desperation as Gage wound his way toward the ridge. He’d tried to make the ride as smooth as he could for Oliver, but the trail he’d cut last night was designed for speed, not comfort.
He tried to cushion the jarring of the drops between trees with his knees and arms. Occasionally, Ella, behind him, let out a tiny gasp of terror, but she stayed on his line without a word.
His entire body ached. And not just from the fatigue of staying up most of the night, but . . . he longed to rewind this day, back to last night. To before her revelation of her betrayal.
They came to a clearing, the morning sun turning the snow to crystal, the powder thick, save the groove he’d made through it last night. He skidded to a stop, breathing hard.
Oops, too fast, because Ella slid up behind him, nearly tumbling over into the stretcher, bypassing it with a quick cut, a spray of powder.
“Gage!”
“Sorry, I should have given you warning.” He set Oliver down, rolled his shoulders.
She glanced at him. “No, it’s fine.” She fell to her knees, scooted over to Oliver. “He’s still out. But he’s breathing.”
He pulled out his walkie and put in a test call. No answer.
She pushed herself up. “How far are we from the ridge?”
“Maybe another hour, at the speed we’re going.”
He sort of expected her to press him to go faster, but she just nodded, her mouth grim.
He couldn’t take it. “Ella, listen, about this morning. I was just . . . you just . . .” What? Because suddenly he ached to put it behind them. Wasn’t that his hope in moving home, to Mercy Falls? To break free of his mistakes?