CHAPTER 1
FOX
When the wind shifted, I knew this would be more than an eighteen-hour day. We all did. I went through the motions I’d been trained for, checking supplies, working the containment line, keeping up communications with air support and the ranger station. Trying not to get burned alive by the furious inferno that seemed intent on taking down all four million acres of the Oka-Wen National Forest… the usual.
No time to think about anything else, no time to dwell on the months-empty condo back in Seattle or the fact that lately everything I did seemed like a prequel to my life actually starting. This fire wanted us, and she wasn’t giving up. Mother Nature had it in her to be the worst girlfriend you’d ever had.
“Damn, Foxy,” McDaniels panted, jogging up to my side. “Is today over yet or what?”
I cracked a grin at him, feeling the blistering heat from the sun and the fire mix into one and swirl around us as I hefted my chainsaw. “Not by a landslide.”
McDaniels gave me the side-eye. “Really? You wanna joke about landslides?”
“Hey now,” Sloane popped his head out of the crew buggy where he was listening intently to the handheld radio. “None of that.”
“We need to be monitoring this backburn more closely.” Landry spoke up from the ground, where he was seated against a tire with a damp rag over his face. “The wind is changing.”
If anyone could tell where the weather was going, it was Landry. Even with his face half buried under a towel, he was more in tune with the elements than anyone I’d ever met. If Landry said the breeze was out to get us, we needed to hustle.
Sloane jumped out of the truck, swearing. “Shit!”
“What now?”
“Base camp got a call. Campers they thought were accounted for are actually missing.”
My nerve endings thrummed into action. I knew it. Summer time, prime hiking season. Evacuations had gone too smoothly. “Where?”
Sloane was already plugging coordinates into a GPS. “About three miles from here. We’ll get as close as we can and hump it the rest. Let’s take a split, have five head in from the other side,” he said, referring to more members of our twenty-man Hotshot crew.
“Where’s Dempsey?”
“Ghosting, as usual. I’ll grab him.” McDaniels headed around the truck toward the trees.
“He needs to keep his head in the game,” Landry muttered from under his towel.
I knew Landry was right about Dempsey but I was too focused on the lost campers to give it much thought. Grabbing the GPS from Sloane, I checked the coordinates and swore softly under my breath. These kids were inside the damn containment line. Our long day had just morphed into a ticking time bomb.
* * *
“We have a semi-conscious male, twenty-seven years old, with blunt force trauma to the left cranial region and superficial flesh wounds consistent with a vehicular accident. B.P. is eighty over sixty and dropping.”
“Let’s get him into a room, move it, move it!”
“Call Simms, get her down here ASAP!”
“We need a CAT scan!”
My eyes were so heavy. I wanted to open them, to ask who this poor guy was, this unlucky bastard everyone was buzzing about. Did they need a crash cart? What could I do to help?
Fluorescent lights flickered through my half-open eyelids as shadows loomed over me, talking amongst themselves. My stomach churned with the sensation of rapid movement, and I tasted vomit in the back of my throat. I tried to move, to sit up, to turn my head, but my limbs were leaden, immobilized. The voices continued over me, discussing a fate that seemed doomed at best, and as I struggled for breath I felt the darkness that threatened to consume me finally take over, and then everything went black.
* * *
“This is like trying to find five needles in a burning haystack. We might have to bring in air support, see if they can spot anything before we head this way.”
“We’ve looked everywhere else, Sloane. This is it. If these kids are out here, this is the last possible place they could be.” I wiped my brow and pulled a rope from my pack. “We move now or we lose them for the night.”
“He’s right,” Landry said. “If they were down in this valley, they probably didn’t smell the fire until this morning. They’ve been upwind with a creek between them.”
“Until that wind changed and fucked us all,” McDaniels muttered.
“Let’s do it.” Sloane shifted his eyes to Dempsey. “Everyone ready?”
Dempsey nodded, his mouth set in a serious line. “Yeah.”
I watched Landry scout the area, taking in our surroundings. “Cut through here and we’ll drop down.”
* * *
“He’s stabilized again, for now. Keep the oxygen at ten liters.” The doctor wiped her brow. “Where are those CAT scan results?”
“Here, Dr. Simms.”
A shuffle of papers and a few clicks of a mouse.
“This can’t be accurate.”
“I thought the same thing.”
“Let’s order an MRI. I need to know more.”
* * *
The bottom of the valley was dark, a thin layer of ash hanging in the air with residual smoke trapped by the thick trees. McDaniels and Sloane led the way, hacking through with their Pulaski axes to make a path where there was none before.
“You got anything?” Dempsey asked me.
“Not yet.”
This part of the forest was relatively untouched by the actual fire but it was still. Too still. Nothing moved, nothing hid as we approached. The birds were gone too, long since relocated to better air and clearer skies. No wildlife was never a good sign.
“There!” Landry pointed.
Under a craggy outcropping, huddled and afraid, we saw them.
* * *
“Vitals are steady, brain function is high. His GCS is still concerning, however.”
“With his MRI results, his GCS is abnormal. He should be at least semi-lucid. I want to call in a consultation from Virginia Mason Hospital.”
“I’ll arrange for it right away.”
“I appreciate you wanting to be a part of this team, Dr. Buchanan. Mr. Fox will enjoy seeing a familiar face when he regains consciousness.”
“Thank you for approving my request, Dr. Simms. I know the protocol doesn’t always allow for a potential conflict of interest.”
“At this point, he needs whatever encouragement he can get. When is the family arriving?”
“His parents and brother are already here. The wife is on her way.”
“As soon as she gets here, let’s put her in his room, have her touch him and speak to him, if she’s able. I want him to know he needs to come back.”
* * *
They were all here, all accounted for. Five kids, ranging in age from fourteen to eighteen, with sweat-and-dirt-streaked faces, deep scratches, and skinned knees and hands between them.
“We left the campsite for a hike and got lost,” one of the older girls told me, tears seeping from her red eyes. “And then we saw the smoke.”
“We’re going to get you guys out of here,” Sloane assured them.
Dempsey passed around canteens while McDaniels and I searched for the best path to lead them out of the valley. The way we had come was steep and too dangerous for these under-dressed, under-experienced hikers. Sloane radioed in to base camp, telling them that we’d secured the group and asking the best way to proceed via information from air support.
“North.” Landry came up behind me.
“We can’t.” The containment line was too far away.
“We have to.” He pointed over his shoulder, and I saw the unmistakeable black billowing cloud rising up from a fresh burn.
* * *
“Fox?”
My lips twitched when I heard her tearful voice call my name.
“Fox, can you hear me?”
“Good, that’s good. Keep talking to him.”
“Fox, I—” The girl’s voice broke slightly.
I struggled, for what felt like the nine hundredth time, to open my eyes. A small slit of light appeared in my darkness, and I barely glimpsed the outline of a woman silhouetted against the sun, her blond hair shining like a halo.
* * *
“You have to keep moving. You can do it.”
The boy looked up at me with huge, scared eyes. He was one of the younger ones, barely fourteen, in the beginning of that awkward phase where you haven’t grown into your limbs quite yet. I reached for him as he stumbled again, slinging an arm around his shoulders to hold him upright.
“I’ve got you.”
The blow-up was chasing us now, licking flames down the sides of the valley as we headed north and into what we hoped would be easier terrain. We’d lost our chance at climbing out of here before things got heavy.
I signaled to Dempsey, who was leading a girl and two boys with McDaniels and Sloane bringing up the rear. Landry was all but carrying the youngest girl, her feet dragging more with each step. The air was thick with smoke and ash, and all of them were coughing frequently despite the makeshift masks we gave them, their bodies growing slow and lethargic.
Our ticking time bomb was about to explode.
* * *
“Any change?”
This new voice sounded like my brother, Lucas. But that couldn’t be right. He was half a world away.
“He, um— he moved his fingers a couple times.” The girl again. She sounded tired, sad. “The nurses said it was probably just a reflex, but I think it’s good.”
“He knows you’re here.”
“I hope so.” I felt pressure on my hand, a soft, warm touch.
“It’s good, Avery. It’s going to be okay.” Lucas’ voice was far away. I tried to hold onto him, to something familiar, but I felt myself slipping away, back to the darkness.
* * *
I could barely see the helicopter overhead through the trees and smoke, which meant they likely couldn’t see us either, but the promise of getting these kids to safety made me push even harder to reach the north-side containment line.
The fire was burning steadily behind us, whipping through trees with the aid of that fickle fucking wind. As ash rained down, I saw fire devils come whirling off the burn whenever a gust enabled it.
“Veer off, we have to get to higher ground so they can see us!” I called to Dempsey.
He looked over his shoulder and nodded, taking in the struggling campers and the ever-encroaching flames. Landry was carrying the little girl now, her body limp, one arm encircling his neck. The boy I held to my side was gasping for every breath. They wouldn’t last much longer in this heat with the poor air quality.
McDaniels and Sloane quickly cut through brush until they reached the rocky hillside. I propped the boy against a tree and took off my pack, reaching in for rope and rappelling gear.
“What happens now?” one of the older boys asked.
I glanced up, pausing as I pulled on my harness. “Now, we climb.”
* * *
“She hasn’t left his side.”
Lucas again, this time his voice was faint and tired.
“What do you expect, dear? Of course she hasn’t.” My mother’s low whisper was unmistakeable. I felt that warm pressure on my other hand and I knew it was her.
“Beckett wouldn’t want her to be suffering like this, not taking care of herself.” Lucas’ tone was frustrated. I imagined his hands raking through his hair in agitation. We both had that habit.
“At least she’s resting.”
“Yeah, in that awful fucking chair.”
“He’s going to wake up, Lucas,” she said gently.
“I know. I know he is. I just want to know when.”
* * *
It only took two tries for me to get the grappling hook secured at the top of the ridge. I pulled myself up as quickly as possible, using my hands and feet as well as the rope to help me climb. McDaniels was right behind me and, after we rigged a pulley harness and two more support ropes, I rappelled back down to help get the campers up from the valley floor.
“Sloane, head up to help McDaniels.”
When he reached the top, we organized the kids. The two older boys went up first, the older girl following them easily enough. I climbed up halfway behind them, assisting as needed, before I came back down. Landry, Dempsey, and the two youngest waited for me at the bottom.
“Let’s send the girl—”
My words were cut off as a tree crashed down in the middle of where we stood, its branches completely consumed by flame, sending sparks into the dry brush all around us.
* * *
“I’ve pushed you, Beckett. There’s no denying that.”
A heavy sigh followed what could only be my father’s voice. The General? Here?
“Every step of your life, I wanted you to be looking ahead to the next goal. Every milestone you hit, I was already past it and onto the future, without acknowledging what you’d accomplished.”
Three heartbeats. Five. Ten.
“If I pushed you to live faster, I’m sorry.”
* * *
“FOX! Are you okay?” Dempsey picked himself up from where I’d shoved him out of the way of the tree’s line and ran over to my side. Dazedly, I looked down at my leg. A gnarled, smoking limb of the fallen tree impaled my thigh at an angle, clear through the rectus femoris muscle. My pants were burned and torn, exposing my skin in many places, and I could see the angry red burn marks starting to form. I waited for the pain, but between the adrenaline and my dulled senses from the acrid, smoke-filled air, I felt nothing.
“Yeah.”
Ripping my belt from its loops, I secured it tightly above the wound and then gritted my teeth and pulled the fallen snag out. A stupid move, definitely, but I had little choice. There was no answering gush of blood, which likely meant no major artery had been hit. If this counted as me being lucky today, I’d take it.
“Thanks, man. That branch would’ve gone straight through my chest.” Dempsey’s eyes were as wide as they could be with all the smoke in the air. I nodded to him, scanning the area. It was too quiet again.
Where was the kid? I spotted him still where I’d left him, propped up against a tree out of the fallen branches’ hot zone. He blanched at the sight of my leg and pointed weakly behind me.
I heard a grunt and a swear, and we looked around quickly for Landry, finding him a couple yards away under a bunch of burning debris. He struggled to straighten and push the tree branches up and off of him, and I heard McDaniels and Sloane yelling from above.
“Landry! Landry!”
It felt like hours before Dempsey and I broke through the smoldering tree limbs to reach him. He’d thrown himself over the girl to protect her from the fire and, when I ripped away the charred wood, his jacket was smoking from the contact, his face scratched and bleeding.
“Are you okay?”
“My ribs… I’m fine.” His face was ashen, his breathing labored. Dempsey picked up the girl, unharmed by the tree. I watched Landry attempt to take a breath, the air rattling as he inhaled. He coughed violently, wetly, and I realized how much more smoke was building due to the brush that was now in hot spots all around us. Another gust of wind could make the entire thing flare up again.
* * *
“He had another restless night.”
“The nurses told me. Interesting,” a man’s voice — Buchanan? — mused. The rustling of paper followed, and a short tearing sound. “I can see it here, too. His brain activity was all over the place. I’ll be sure to show this to Dr. Simms.”
“Thank you.”
The door shut with a barely audible click.
I felt the familiar warmth whenever she was near, especially now as the bed dipped slightly and she hesitantly, gently pressed her body against mine, wrapping an arm carefully around my torso.
“Anytime you’re ready, Fox. I miss you so much.”
* * *
I sent Dempsey up next, to help with the kids already at the top. Sloane and McDaniels had their hands full with all of our ropes.
“Let’s get them out,” I said to Landry. I could feel every beat of my heart in my leg, but I pushed that aside and focused on the job.
“Can we do two at once?” I called up to Sloane, and he nodded. “Let’s go then.”
We strapped the girl into the harness first, noting her rapidly worsening state, then rigged the boy. They would go up, then I’d make Landry go next because I knew he was in pain.
I was about to send them up when a gust of wind blew the embers at my feet into actual fire — not a rager, but too many hot spots for comfort. Reacting automatically, I pulled my arms through the harness and buckled us both in together, with the kid behind me like a backpack, and Landry did the same with the girl. We started to climb in tandem, me ignoring the pain that finally came from my wrecked leg.
“Fox!” Sloane called down to me. “I don’t know if these ropes can take this weight!”
I knew that from the time I sent Dempsey up. The ropes were singed in places and worn in others where they’d repeatedly scraped against the rocks. They weren’t meant for repetitive climbing. I held onto a jutting stone in the side of the ravine, bracing my bad leg against my good one in an attempt to take some of the stress off the lines.
“Landry? You good?”
I snickered as he pointed his middle finger straight up in the air.
“You good, kid?” I asked the boy, craning my head in his direction. I felt him nod weakly, his breathing shallow and delayed. “We’re going to get to the top.”
We didn’t have a choice. The way we had come was not an option.
* * *
I heard her shifting in her chair, the metal legs scraping lightly over the linoleum.
“I can’t take it anymore, Heather. I need to have Annabelle here with me. Can you ask my—”
A pause, a sniffle.
“Thank you so much. I love you.”
* * *
I felt one rope snap and we suddenly dropped six feet, that bitch wind swinging us around like a pendulum, knocking my bad leg repeatedly into the uneven, rocky cliff. I bit my tongue from the pain, tasting blood as I tried to shift so my body took the brunt of the battering, sparing the kid on my back.
“FOX!” Sloane yelled again.
“Throw me another line!”
“Can you climb?”
Blood from my leg smeared all over the side of the ravine’s wall, and in a moment of untimely delusion, I felt satisfied that I’d leave a part of myself here, a sign that showed I was still alive, no matter what Mother Nature tried to throw at us. Dead men didn’t bleed.
Sloane threw down our last rope, a thin woven cord that could hold weight but bit into my skin when I wrapped it around my hand and wrist. I used my other hand and both legs to leverage up slowly, steadily, while my blood dripped out onto the rocky earth.
Landry and the girl were above us now, making steady progress, when I felt the wind shift again and heard the sound I dreaded most — the snapping of more rope. I turned my head just in time to see both of Landry’s lines slip right past me as he and the girl plummeted down to the smoldering ground fifty feet below us.
* * *
“Here, if you won’t eat anything, at least drink this.”
“Thanks.” The girl’s voice sounded tired as she whispered to Lucas.
“You have to go back to the hotel later. Get some real sleep.”
A pause. “I’ll leave when he does.”
Lucas sighed. “He’d kill me for letting you stay here.”
“Good morning, thank you all for coming.” Dr. Simms’ voice interrupted their whispered conversation. “This is Dr. Buchanan, one of our residents and a member of Beckett’s care team. First, I’d like to say that we are pleased with Beckett’s progress. His scans are clean, his organs strong. His body is healing and strength is returning. His comatose state, however, is concerning and at this point, unexplainable.”
“I’m sorry?” My mother’s voice echoed in the silent room.
“Physically, your son is remarkably lucky,” Simms said. “The scope of his injuries are minor considering the type of accident.”
“But?” Lucas asked.
“Head injuries are tricky,” the doctor continued. “Beckett suffered a major blow to his skull, one that probably would’ve killed him instantly had he not been wearing a helmet.”
Dr. Buchanan spoke up. “We expected much more damage when we did the MRI, but aside from a slight bit of swelling, which has already receded, he’s doing incredibly well.”
“Then why isn’t he conscious?” Carter Fox’s voice was gruff, impatient.
“I know this has been a nightmare for you and your family. The short answer is that Beckett will likely awaken on his own, on his own time. As I stated, physically he is more than capable of regaining consciousness at any moment.”
“And the long answer? The worst case?” Lucas demanded.
“The fact that your brother is still comatose — with full brain activity and no debilitating injuries — makes it impossible for me to predict when or even if he will ever fully awaken. His body is healing itself, but his injuries shouldn’t warrant a days-long coma.”
“What does that mean?” The girl finally spoke up.
“It means that now Beckett’s recovery is entirely up to him.”
“So Fox isn’t waking up because… he doesn’t want to?”
A deafening silence, familiar by this point, was the only reply.
* * *
“NO! NO! LANDRY!”
Sloane pulled us up with all his might, and Dempsey barely had a chance to unbuckle the boy from my back before I was rappelling back down to Landry and the little girl. Sloane came down next to me, his harness half on, and as soon as we reached the ground we ran over to where they’d fallen.
My hands shook as I frantically tore at Landry’s Nomex jacket, ripping aside the charred fabric to press my palms against his chest and begin compressions.
Oh fuck, oh no, this isn’t happening. “LANDRY! CAN YOU HEAR ME?”
Sloane was yelling something undecipherable at me, his hands so big on the girl’s small chest, as we tried to bring them back.
“C’MON, LANDRY! BREATHE! BREATHE, DAMN IT! DON’T GIVE UP!”
And then I was climbing again, not of my own volition but at the end of the medevac’s cable. This time I had my friend strapped to me, my friend who wouldn’t breathe when I asked him to, who wouldn’t respond when I pleaded with him, who wouldn’t wake up even when I begged him.
The wind blew us back and forth through the air as the medevac helicopter tried to stay steady, throwing us first one way against the trees and then the other against the rocks… and then everything went dark.
* * *
Something didn’t feel right. Something still nagged at the corner of that day, of that memory, and I tried to push it aside. I didn’t want to know any more or feel anything else. Whatever I’d done in that valley, whatever I’d done right or wrong, didn’t matter worth a damn anymore because the only thing I knew now was this darkness — the darkness that continually blinded and confused me but always welcomed me back like an old friend. And I was starting to think that I liked it.