One Night with her Bachelor(11)

She nodded and got to work, grateful for something to take her mind off all the horrifying images crowing for her attention.

Josh, broken and bloody.

Josh, already gone.

Josh, buried.

Gabriel’s hand landed on her shoulder. “Molly, I’m going to do everything I can. Trust me.”

She gritted her teeth and forced herself not to be sick.

*

Molly looked traumatized, but Gabriel had to shift his focus away from her to Josh. He scanned the area around the hole. There were trees all around, a damn good thing because the area around the hole was now type-B soil and likely to cave in even more if he stepped on it. He needed edge protection, and he knew how to create it.

Doubts tried to eat away at his concentration. He hadn’t done anything like this since the explosion. Would his leg hold his weight? Or would it betray him and send him falling into the hole?

No time to worry about it. He had to find a way in there that relied mostly on his upper body and right leg. Then he had to find Josh.

He hustled over to a tree, dug his right toes into a gap and hoisted himself up. He couldn’t trust his left leg to work properly, so he let it dangle as he wrapped climbing webbing around the trunk a few feet above his head. He clipped a carabiner into the webbing and attached one end of his rope, tying a figure eight on a bite.

He jumped down, landing on his good foot. Keeping well clear of the disturbed soil, he hurried to the other side of the hole. He took his knife from his bag and gritted it in his teeth as he climbed a couple feet up a tree. He repeated the process, tying a trucker’s hitch and finishing it with a half hitch to secure it. Then he used the knife to saw off the excess rope.

His good leg burned, and his bad one rubbed him raw. A year ago, this kind of activity wouldn’t have fazed him. He was out of practice, out of shape.

He’d be damned if he failed, though. Quitting wasn’t an option. It was never an option.

The rope stretched tight between the two trees, about eight feet over the hole and the unstable ground around it. He quickly shrugged into his climbing harness and slipped his rucksack onto his back. Then he hoisted himself up the tree again, put a pulley on the tight rope and attached the pulley to his harness with a carabiner. Now he dangled from the tension line so he wouldn’t touch the ground.

“How’s the stretcher coming?” he called over to Molly.

“Finished!” She stood and took a step toward him.

“No closer! Stay with Jake. I’ll bring Josh back soon.”

Her body looked even tenser than his rope. Her face contorted with agony, but she nodded and stood back against the tree. He pulled himself hand-over-hand, sliding along the rope until he hovered over the center of the mine shaft. It was so dark he couldn’t see the bottom—but he could see a pale body crumpled on a ledge about fifty feet down. “Josh! Can you hear me?”

He held his breath. Molly’s terror reached across the clearing, wrapping around him.

A movement. Josh’s arm reached up.

“He’s alive!”

Molly let out a noise of unimaginable relief.

He took his extra rope from his bag and attached it to the tension line and his harness. When it was securely knotted, he detached himself from the tension line and rappelled straight down into the center of the mine shaft until he was right next to Josh.

The boy blinked at him, showing few signs of awareness. He was pale, bloody, and lying at an awkward angle.

“Hey, buddy,” Gabriel said, keeping his voice light and reassuring. “We’re going to get you out of here, all right?”

The ground rumbled, and rocks skittered down from above. Gabriel shielded Josh from the mini landslide and bit back a curse. He didn’t have the medical equipment he’d been trained to use. He didn’t have a team. Even if Molly had been able to ride for help on the dirt bike he’d modified to compensate for his bad leg, the help would’ve arrived too late. He only had himself and his climbing gear. He couldn’t treat Josh’s injuries right now. His priority was getting him out of the mine before the whole thing collapsed.

“I’m going to make a harness for you, and we’ll climb back up to the top,” he said, trying to help Josh stay conscious as he wrapped webbing around his chest and shoulders. The movement seemed to jar Josh’s injuries, and the boy cried out.

“Josh!” Molly’s voice echoed down the hole.

“Mom?” he whispered.

“She’s up there waiting for you. She can’t wait to see you. Let’s go see her, huh?” When Josh’s makeshift chest harness was secure, Gabriel attached it to his so the boy hung from his chest. “We’ll get you out of here.”

He needed Josh to stay calm. If he panicked, they could both plummet God only knew how far.

Working swiftly, he pulled some cord from his bag and cut it in half. Making both halves into loops, he tied them to the rappelling rope with a triple sliding hitch. Normally he would be able to climb up the rope by putting a foot into one of the loops, sliding the other loop up the rope, then putting his other foot into it and hoisting himself up. But he didn’t trust his left leg to hold if he put that kind of pressure on it.

Never quit.

He wrapped one of the loops around his bad thigh. It would be like trying to climb stairs with his right foot and left knee—in other words, really damn inefficient. But it was the only way.