Rescue Me(42)
“Don’t touch it!” Vi screamed, and Willow had to agree with her.
But Quinn ignored her and eased it out of the entrapment.
Only when she stopped screaming did Willow hear the yelling.
“Willow!”
“Sam?”
Quinn moved Vi back to the bench seat, and Willow gritted her teeth, fought with her buckle.
It came free, and she scrambled over to the driver’s window.
Oh . . .“Sam!”
He looked up at her, his hands gripping the side mirror of the van as he dangled out over the edge of whatever ledge they’d landed on.
“Hold on!”
He started to pull himself up, and she leaned out the window to grab him, but whatever she’d done to her shoulder made her arm fall limply at her side.
Quinn put his hand on her waist. “I got him! Move, Willow.”
She stumbled back to her seat, watched as Quinn leaned out.
In a moment, he’d dragged Sam through the broken window, then fell back again onto her lap as Sam climbed in.
Sam collapsed into the seat, breathing hard.
He’d nearly gone over the cliff trying to get back to her—no, to them.
“Are you okay?” Her voice trembled, and when Sam looked at her with a tight shake of his head, she put her hand over her mouth.
Stay calm.
But Vi was crying, nearly screaming, and when Willow looked back at her crew, they all wore whitened, stricken expressions.
Quinn knelt beside Vi, grabbed her hand. “Calm down. You’re going to be okay.”
Sam found Willow’s gaze in the erratic wash of light and, for a second, his fierce concern, so much sheer worry in his eyes, reached in, took ahold of her.
Stopped the shaking.
“Are you okay?” he said, his baritone tending her raw, fragile places.
She managed a nod.
He cut his voice low. “Listen. The van is mostly on a little ledge about ten or fifteen feet down from the top. I might be able to climb back—”
“Don’t leave!” She cringed at her tone. “I mean—yet.”
Bless him, he reached out and took her hand, squeezing it. Kept that solid gaze in hers. “I’m not leaving you, Willow. We’re in this together. We’ll get out together.”
Right. She swallowed, nodded.
Except this was all her fault. If she hadn’t demanded, well, togetherness, with her crazy song . . .
“There’s an emergency first aid kit in the back,” Sam said, turning his attention to Vi, his hand releasing hers. “Someone find it and pass it up here.”
Selfish of her, yes, to want him to simply hold her.
Sam moved toward Vi, and Willow knelt next to him.
Quinn moved away, and Dawson crawled around in the back and found the backpack, passed it up. Next to him, Josh was still trying to stop the bleeding in his nose. From the angle, Willow had a feeling it might be broken.
Gus had his big arms around Maggy, who had moved to the middle seat. She had her face buried in his lineman chest, sobbing quietly.
Zena, the source of the iPhone light, passed her phone up as Sam eased off Vi’s boot.
Vi whimpered.
“Yeah, her ankle, even her leg might be broken.” Sam held her foot in his hand, gently probing. “We’ll need to secure it—”
“No!” Vi reached out to grab his wrist in a lethal clamp. “Don’t touch it.”
“Violet,” he said in his impossibly calming voice, “I’m going to get a cold pack on it first, see if we can ease some of the pain. Then we’ll figure out what to do. But we have to protect it from getting jarred, right?”
Her face crumpled, but she nodded.
“Thatta girl,” Sam said and dug out the emergency ice pack. He wrapped it around her ankle and secured it with an ACE bandage.
Willow gave Vi a smile meant to tell her she’d be okay, but frankly, right now, she needed someone to tell her that.
Sam motioned to Josh to come to the front.
He worked his way forward and collapsed in Willow’s captain’s seat.
Sam put his arm around Willow to gather her into their huddle. “We’re on a cliff that’s not much bigger than the van. I don’t know how precarious the ledge is, and in this weather, the van could slide right off.”
“How high are we?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t see the bottom. If I lean out the window to check, it might jar the van loose.”
Oh.
“The storm is picking up. The temperatures are dropping, and the sleet is turning to snow. If we leave the van, we’ll be sitting out in the weather, exposed. And we have no idea how long it will be until they find us.”
“If they find us,” Josh said. He checked his bleeding—it seemed to have stopped. He looked at Willow. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this—”