Chapter 16
Emma
My fingers are so cold they barely feel like mine as I fumble with the torch on my phone. I manage to switch it on and lift it, waving it weakly through the thick air. For a moment the beam cuts through the gloom and I let out a shaky breath, hoping Alex sees it.
But then my hand jerks with the wind. My grip slips. The phone skids across my palm, bounces off a rock and tumbles down the slope.
“No!” My voice cracks as the tiny light vanishes into the mist below.
Panic explodes in my chest. The phone was my lifeline. My only way of—
I scramble after it before I can think better of it.
I plant one foot down the slope, reaching for anything, everything, but the moment my boot touches the wet grass it slides.
My legs shoot out from under me and I slam onto my hip.
Instinct makes me claw at the ground. My fingers dig desperately into the cold, wiry grass, stopping me only because I happen to grab a tuft thick enough to hold my weight.
My whole body trembles. Not from the cold, though that’s brutal too. From the terror.
I can’t move. I don’t dare. If I try to stand, I’ll slide again, and I don’t know what’s below me. It feels steep. Exposed. Wrong.
Hot tears spill over my cheeks, instantly chilled by the wind. I curl myself tighter against the earth, pressing my forehead into my arm as though that might steady the shaking inside me.
Get a grip. Get a grip. Get a grip.
But I can’t. I’m frozen and I’m terrified and every horrible voice I’ve ever heard is suddenly shouting over the storm.
You’re such an idiot. You can’t do anything right. Always making a mess, always needing saving.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to breathe past the knot in my throat. Alex told me to stay put. Alex told me he was coming. I have nothing left but those two facts, but right now they’re everything.
Stay. Put.
I force myself to lean back ever so slightly until I’m wedged against what might be a lump of rock. My fingers throb from gripping the grass so hard. My legs ache from holding still. Time stretches strangely up here. It feels like minutes and hours at the same time.
The wind whistles over the ridge and every sound makes me flinch. I strain to listen for anything human. Footsteps. A voice. The scrape of boots on stone. Anything.
Nothing.
More tears spill, hot and frightened. I try to swallow them, but they keep coming.
Alex is coming. Alex will find me. Alex promised.
I cling to that thought until the storm almost drowns it out.
Then, faint through the roar of the wind, I hear it.
“Emma!”
My heart jerks so hard it hurts. I lift my head. My breath catches.
“Emma! Can you hear me?”
I choke on a sob, relief crashing through me so fast it steals my breath.
“Alex!” I scream back into the darkness. “Alex, I’m here!”
Finally, finally, he heard me. And the moment I shout his name, the terror gripping my chest loosens, just a fraction.
He’s here.
He’s here and he’s coming for me.
For the first time since the phone slipped from my fingers, I believe I might actually make it out of this alive.
A shape appears through the mist. A dark blur at first, then a form, then Alex, picking his way down the slope with careful, deliberate steps.
There’s a rope secured around his waist, the other end disappearing up into the clouds behind him.
He looks like something carved out of the storm itself, steady and unshakeable.
When he finally reaches me, he drops to his knees, breath coming hard, eyes scanning every inch of me.
“Emma.” His voice cracks around the edges. “Are you hurt?”
I shake my head, then nod, then shake it again because I don’t even know. My whole body is trembling, and my fingers are numb and all I can manage is, “I dropped the phone. I’m cold.” My voice breaks, humiliatingly fragile. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He’s already shrugging off his pack. “Don’t apologise. You did exactly the right thing staying put.”
I want to tell him I didn’t stay put, that I nearly slid straight off the hillside, that I’m the reason I’m in this mess, but the words knot in my throat.
Tears spill again, hot and sudden. I hate it.
I hate that I’m crying, that I look helpless, that I feel like a damsel in every terrible sense of the word.
He presses a warm, gloved hand to my cheek, gentle despite the cold rain lashing both of us. “Hey. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
Something inside me gives way at that. A soft, stunned collapse.
He pulls a short rope from his kit, looping it around my hips with practiced movements, creating a makeshift harness.
His fingers move quickly but carefully, checking and double-checking the knots even as the wind shoves at us.
He ties the free end to his own waist and gives the connection a firm tug to test it.
“Right,” he says, meeting my eyes. “We’re connected now. You’re not going anywhere without me.”
The words hit deeper than he probably means them to.
He shifts closer, bracing himself on the slope. “I’m going to help you up. Slow steps. You don’t need to look behind you. Just look at me.”
I nod, though my throat is tight and my legs feel like jelly. He slides one arm around my waist and the other under my elbow, lifting gently until my boots find purchase. My body shakes with the effort, but he’s solid beside me, every movement sure, deliberate, protective without caging me in.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “You’re doing perfectly.”
A ridiculous, watery laugh bubbles out of me at that. “Perfect isn’t exactly how I’d describe me right now.”
He gives me a look that warms me even through the storm. “Perfect is exactly how I’d describe you right now.”
My breath catches. Another wave of tears threatens but these are different. Softer. Less panicked.
Step by step we climb, the rope between us taut and reassuring. He shields me from the worst of the wind with his body, guiding me with small touches at my back, my elbow, my hand. The mist thins just enough to reveal a shape above us.
A man, tall and broad-shouldered, bracing himself against the gusts.
Alex lifts his voice. “Emma, that’s Nick. He’s with my team.”
Nick crouches as we reach him, taking the weight of the rope. His hand lands lightly on my arm to steady me. His hood is soaked through, rain dripping off the edge.
“Good to finally meet you,” he says. Even through the storm, there’s a wry smile in his voice. “Let me radio Tommy.”
He steps aside, unclipping his radio. “Tommy, we’ve got her. All fine. Stroll successful.”
Static crackles, then Tommy’s voice cuts through. “Copy that. Unit Five is almost on the ridge. Weather’s worsening. Keep moving.”
Before we start again, Alex slips off his pack and rummages inside.
“Emms, you’re shaking. Here.” He pulls out a spare insulated jacket.
Proper mountain rescue kit. He helps me into it, but when I try to zip it up the fabric strains awkwardly across my chest and hips.
The zip refuses to meet in the middle. Men’s clothes and women’s hips aren’t meant for each other at the best of times, but when I am definitely a lot bigger than him, there is no chance in hell that this will fit me.
Mortification rushes up my throat. “It’s fine,” I mumble quickly. “Really. I’m fine.”
Alex frowns and tries again, gentle but impossibly sincere, as though the problem is the jacket and not me. When the zip still won’t budge, he stops, meeting my eyes instead of the fabric. “Right. Warm is more important than zipped,” he says softly. “We’ll sort something else.”
Nick rummages in his bag and produces a bright orange poncho. “This will keep the worst of the weather off her,” he says. “Not glamorous, but it works.”
I pull it on, grateful for the curtain of waterproof fabric shielding me from their view and the wind. The second it’s over my head, Alex crouches beside me.
“Emms… your top is soaked.” His voice is low but firm. “If you stay in wet layers, you’ll go hypothermic. You need something dry under there.”
A lump lodges in my throat. “I can’t exactly… change.”
“You can,” he says, steady as bedrock. He looks at Nick. “Eyes elsewhere. Now.”
Nick turns his back immediately. “Not a problem.”
Alex stays facing me, close enough to help but not crowding. “I’m right here. If you get stuck, tell me.”
Changing under a poncho in the wind is about as graceful as wrestling an octopus. Fabric sticks to my damp skin. My arms tangle. The poncho whips around my face. I swear under my breath as I fight my wet T-shirt over my head.
“I’ve got you,” Alex murmurs and holds the poncho down on one side so the wind stops trying to turn me into a kite. Once I pass him my wet shirt and cardigan, he hands me a dry T-shirt of his.
Eventually I wriggle into the T-shirt. It clings to me like a second skin and I am sure it is loose on Alex, but it’s dry and warm and right now that’s all that matters.
“You good?” he asks.
“Mostly,” I say, breathless as I slip the FMR jacket on over the T-shirt but under my shield—the orange rain poncho.
He adjusts the flapping fabric so it covers me properly. “Better,” he says softly. Not in a judging way. In a relieved way. “Much better.”
Nick glances over his shoulder only when Alex says, “Alright.” He tugs the hood forward to shield my face. “Let’s get you off the mountain before this turns biblical.”
We start upward again, and it becomes painfully obvious that I’m slowing them down.
My legs feel like wet sandbags. My lungs burn from crying, from fear, from climbing far higher than I meant to.
Every few steps I stumble, and each time Alex is there instantly, anchoring me with a touch to my back or a hand around my elbow.
Nick adjusts the rope behind us without a single complaint, shortening it whenever I falter. “Take your time,” he calls over the wind. “No medals for sprinting.”
The encouragement helps, but the climb still feels endless. The wind howls across the slope, battering us sideways. My boots slip on wet rock more than once. Both men hover close enough that I never actually fall.
At last, the angle of the ground softens. The ridge. Shapes materialise through the fog ahead like ghosts rising from the mountain. The distinctive headlamps of more mountain rescuers cut thin, bright beams through the storm.
One of them strides towards us, rain streaming off his jacket. His gaze sweeps over me in a professional assessment. “No helicopter in this. Gusts are too strong. Can you walk, or do you need a stretcher?”
The humiliation hits instantly. The idea of being carried makes my stomach twist. “I can walk,” I say too quickly, fighting to keep my voice steady. “Really. I’m okay.”
Alex rests a warm, steady hand on my back. “Gerald, thanks for coming mate. She’ll be fine walking,” he says, gentle but firm. “We’ll go slow.”
Gerald nods and gestures for a pair of rescuers to lead the way.
The descent begins, and it’s slow. Painfully slow. I’m tired, shaking, and the wind feels determined to shove me right off the ridge. But Alex never leaves my side. Every stumble, every wobble, every gust that knocks me sideways—his hand is already there, bracing me before I even lose balance.
Nick walks a little behind us, rope still in hand, ready if I falter again. Not impatient. Not mocking. Just steady. I’m not even sure if I even need to be on the rope anymore—nobody else is—but I also don’t have any energy to question it.
I hate that I caused all this. Hate that these people are out here because of me. But every time I glance at Alex, soaked through, focused entirely on me, something settles inside me.
I’m not a burden.
Not to him.
Not tonight, not here, not when it mattered.