Chapter 15
Alex
By the time I’ve showered and dragged myself back into the rescue centre kitchen, the adrenaline has worn off and the tiredness has set in properly.
My muscles ache, my eyes feel gritty, and my stomach is basically gnawing on itself.
Phil and I had planned to grab breakfast together, but the moment he stepped out of the changing room his phone rang.
Something about a burst pipe at the National Trust property.
He mouthed “sorry” at me and sprinted off like he was chasing an escaped sheep. So much for breakfast.
I rummage through the small fridge and find a lonely yoghurt pot shoved behind a crate of milk.
Blueberry. Slightly questionable. I check the date.
Only yesterday. That counts as fresh in this place.
I grab a spoon, peel back the lid and shovel in the first mouthful like a man on the verge of starvation.
I’m halfway through scraping the sides when the kitchen door opens and Nick strolls in. The smirk he wore earlier is gone. He looks… unsettled. Almost sheepish. Which is a first.
He opens his mouth. I hold up a yoghurt-coated spoon before he can get a syllable out.
“Not now,” I say through a mouthful. “I’ve had four hours of sleep and a morning of idiots on hills. Whatever you’re about to say, save it.”
He shuts his mouth. Clears his throat. Tries again. “Alex, I—”
I cut him off with another spoon-wave. “Mate. Seriously. Later.”
He actually obeys. Which is frankly terrifying. He leans back against the counter and stares at the floor as though he’s rehearsing an apology in his head. I’m trying to decide whether this makes me more suspicious or less when my phone rings.
I glance at the screen and can’t stop the smile that jumps into my chest like someone’s flicked on a light. Emma. I’ve barely stopped thinking about her since last night.
I swipe to answer, already softening. “Morning, gorgeous.”
There’s a pause. Not long, but long enough to feel… off.
“Hi,” she says, and the cheer in my chest falters. Her voice is thin around the edges, stretched tight.
Everything in me sharpens, but I keep my tone easy. “You alright?”
“Yeah. Yes. Completely fine. I just—” Another small pause. “How, um… how would someone get down from the Ambleside Horseshoe? In theory.”
A slow, cold thread winds down my spine.
“In theory?” I repeat, still gentle. Still giving her every chance to tell me she’s actually calling from her sofa with a cup of tea.
She exhales, shaky. “In theory… if someone went for a walk. And didn’t end up quite where they meant to.”
My fingers tighten around the phone. But my voice stays calm. Measured. Soft enough not to scare her. “Emms. Tell me exactly where you are.”
She tries to sound breezy and fails. “I can’t see the path. Or… much of anything, really.”
The bottom drops out of my stomach.
“Send me your location through WhatsApp,” I say, keeping my voice low and steady. “Tap the paperclip, then ‘Location’. Don’t move until I tell you.”
“Alright,” she says, trying to sound calm. She doesn’t succeed. I hear wind rushing over the microphone. Too strong for where she should be.
My phone pings.
I open the map immediately. The moment the coordinates appear, Nick is suddenly right beside me, shoulder to shoulder, peering at the screen.
He inhales sharply. “She’s just short of Angel’s Wall.”
Cold slides through my chest. Angel’s Wall isn’t just a wall. It’s a fifty-metre sheer drop into the valley. One wrong step and she’d vanish.
I grip the phone tighter. “Emma? You stay exactly where you are. Promise me.”
“I’m not moving,” she whispers, breath catching as the wind roars again down the line.
Nick steps to the window, squinting up at the sky. “Clouds are low. Really low. That’s going to close in fast.”
Tommy, who’d paused in the doorway when he heard my tone, joins us fully now. His expression shifts into full operational mode. “They forecast a storm rolling in from the west. Strong gusts, heavy rain, poor visibility.”
I feel my pulse hammer once, hard, like my body’s trying to punch me into motion.
“Emma,” I say, forcing my voice steady, “it’s alright. You’ve done the right thing calling. I’m with you. How much battery have you got on your phone?”
A rustle, a shaky inhale. “Twenty-three percent.”
“And what are you wearing?” Her answer causes another rush of panic to sweep through me.
“Okay. Stay on the line with me a moment. Just breathe.” I cover the mic with my thumb and turn to the others. “Cardigan. Jeans. Twenty-three percent battery.”
Nick swears quietly. Tommy’s expression tightens. We all know what that combination means if the weather breaks hard.
Nick looks at the GPS pin again, jaw clenching. “She can’t move on her own. We need to get—”
I don’t need him to finish. He’s right.
Before Tommy can speak, Nick grabs his pack off the hook. “We need gear. Now.”
Tommy lifts a hand, moving after us as we head for the gear room. “Protocol says only teams of six deploy. Unit Five is on the way. We do not run half-crewed rescues.”
Nick barks a humourless laugh. “By the time the team is here, kitted, and up the track, she could be hypothermic or worse. Storm’s moving fast.”
I’m already shrugging into my rescue jacket, phone still pressed to my ear, heart battering my ribs. Emma is trying to keep her breathing even on the other end, and every tremor in her voice tightens the knots in my stomach.
Tommy follows us into the gear corridor. “Alex. Nick. Don’t make me write you both up for this.”
Nick throws a glance over his shoulder, sharp and focused. “Call your full team. Do everything by the book. But Alex and I are going for a stroll.”
It hits me then. For the first time in all the years I’ve known him, Nick isn’t getting in my way. He’s standing with me. Not as a rival, not as a nuisance. As someone who understands exactly what’s at stake.
I lift the phone back to my ear. “Emma? I’m coming to you. Don’t move, don’t try to go up or down. Stay exactly where you are.”
A shaky breath crackles through the line. “Okay. I… Alex, I’m scared.”
“I know. But you’re not alone. Keep your phone tucked into your clothes to shield it from the wind, but leave it on loud. I’ll call you again when we’re close.” I force my voice to stay calm, steady, the way I do on every rescue. “You’re going to be alright. I promise you.”
There’s a soft sound from her, almost a sob she tries to swallow. It twists something deep in my chest.
I hover over the end-call button. I don’t want to hang up. The idea of leaving her alone with the wind roaring around her makes my stomach flip. My thumb hesitates.
Nick reaches over and presses the red icon himself. “She needs the battery,” he mutters. “We’ll talk to her again soon.”
I bite back a surge of gratitude mixed with panic. He’s right. And I hate that he’s right.
Tommy appears at the end of the corridor and tosses something underarm. I catch it by instinct. Car keys. “Take my BMW,” he says. “It’ll get you further up the service track than anything except the Rovers, and Unit Five will need those.”
He hands us each a radio next. “Channel three. Give me regular updates on how your stroll is going.”
Nick clips the radio to his backpack. “Aye aye, boss.”
I’m already moving, boots pounding the concrete floor as we head for the exit. The air outside is shifting, wind beginning to curl through the valley in those sharp, early gusts that warn of trouble coming.
Hold on, Emms. I’m coming.
The higher we climb, the worse the weather gets. The wind barrels down the ridge in violent bursts that shove at our bodies, and the rain feels sharp enough to sting through my jacket. Clouds have sunk so low they move like a living thing across the rock, thick and cold and blinding.
We reach the point on the GPS where she should be close. Too close to the Angel’s Wall for comfort.
I cup my hands around my mouth and shout her name. “Emma!”
The sound is swallowed instantly, ripped away by the wind like it never existed. Nick tries too, his voice deeper, louder, but the ridge snatches his call as well.
We walk on, careful, deliberate steps, boots searching for stable ground beneath the slick rock and grass. The path isn’t really a path anymore. It’s guesswork. Instinct. Familiarity with a ridge that doesn’t care how many times you’ve walked it.
When the slope begins to tilt beneath our feet, dropping away into something steeper and far more dangerous, Nick reaches for the coil of rope strapped to his pack.
“We’re roping up,” he shouts over the roar of the wind.
For once, I don’t argue with him. We clip in quickly, hands practised even in the vicious weather and check each other’s knots with grim efficiency. The rain is pouring hard enough now that it runs off my face in sheets. Visibility’s down to maybe ten metres on a good gust, five on a bad one.
We press forward again, moving as one. The ridge narrows. My stomach tightens. If she’s anywhere near the Angel’s Wall, she could be sitting a few metres from a fifty-metre drop she can’t even see.
Nick leans close so he doesn’t have to shout. “Call her,” he says. “Try again.”
I nod, pull out my phone, shield it under my jacket from the rain, and hit her name with a thumb that’s shaking despite every effort to keep it steady.
Come on, Emms. Pick up.
She answers on the second ring.
“Alex?” Her voice is thin, shaking, edged with cold. The sound goes straight through me.
“I’m here,” I say, trying to keep my own voice steady enough to hold her together. “You’re doing well. Listen… if you’ve still got enough battery, can you switch on your torch and wave it a little? Not too hard, just enough for us to catch it.”
“O-okay.” There’s rustling, a sharp breath, then, “It’s on.”
Nick jerks beside me, pointing through the sheet of rain. “There. Left. I saw something.”
I squint into the murk, heart hammering. For half a second, a tiny flare of light cuts through the grey. Then, just as quickly, there’s a piercing scream through the phone, high and terrified, and the call snaps dead. The light vanishes.
“Emma!” Her name tears out of me before I even know I’m shouting it. Panic slams into my chest like a punch. I lunge forward, fighting against the rope, instinct screaming to run, to cover the distance in seconds, to get to her before—
Nick grabs my jacket and yanks hard. “Alex! Slow down. You sprint and you’ll go over that edge too.”
“I heard her—” My throat is tight. “Nick, that sounded like—”
“I know what it sounded like,” he says, voice taut but controlled. “But you don’t help her by dying next to her. We move. Together. Now.”
I force air into my lungs, try to pull myself back from the edge of pure, blinding terror. The rope between us is tight, our boots braced against the slick ground as we push forward into the storm.
If she fell…
No. No. No. She can’t have. She can’t.
Nick keeps his body angled toward the drop, watching every step we take. “The light came from just ahead,” he shouts over the wind. “She’s close.”
I can barely hear him. All I can hear is that scream, tearing through my head, over and over.
Please be alive, Emms. Please.