Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
HOLLY
My hands tremble as I snap my medical kit closed. Not from fear—from pure, unbridled excitement. I’ve waited months for this moment. A real wilderness rescue. Not another case of poison ivy or a twisted ankle from some tourist who wandered off the marked trail in tennis shoes.
“You’re vibrating,” Noah says, glancing over at me from the driver’s seat of the clinic’s rescue truck. His lips twitch with barely concealed amusement. “If you bounce any harder, you’re going to activate the airbag.”
“I am not,” I protest, though I immediately force myself to stop jiggling my leg. “I’m just…eager to get there.”
Noah chuckles, the sound warming something deep in my chest. Ever since our pack arrangement solidified last night, he’s been different—lighter, more prone to these small moments of humor. The bond between us pulses gently, a steady reassurance I’m still getting used to feeling.
I’ve deliberately tamped down on the logical part of my mind that demands to know how these men will fit into my long-term plans. I have no idea what is going to happen when this rotation ends and I’m supposed to go back to New York.
I don’t want to put this new and fragile peace we’ve established by asking questions that I’m not sure have answers I want to hear.
“So what are the details again?” I ask, unable to stop myself.
Noah raises an eyebrow. “This is the fourth time you’ve asked me that. I’ve never known you to need patient details repeated even once.”
Heat creeps up my neck. “I just want to be thorough.”
“Uh-huh.” His knowing smirk makes me want to simultaneously kiss and bite him.
“Amateur caver stuck in one of the hydrothermal caves on the eastern slope. Those caves are popular in summer, but winter’s a different story.
Snowpack blocks the established routes, confuses people who don’t know what they’re doing. ”
I nod, mentally reviewing the equipment I packed. “Any reported injuries?”
“Nothing specific. All we were told is that the patient is stuck and in distress. Could mean anything from mild claustrophobia to crush injuries.”
The truck bounces over a particularly deep rut in the mountain road, and I grab the dashboard to steady myself.
Noah navigates the terrain with practiced ease, his large hands confident on the wheel.
I find myself watching those hands, remembering how they felt against my skin just this morning when—
Focus, Holly. People in danger. Medical emergency.
“As much as I don’t want anyone to be hurt,” I admit, “I’m excited to finally see something more challenging than strep throat and broken ankles.”
Noah’s expression sobers. “Just remember these calls can go either way. Might be nothing, might be pulling a dead body out of the rocks.”
The stark reminder should dampen my enthusiasm, but instead, it only sharpens my focus. This is why I chose emergency medicine—the knife’s edge between life and death where quick thinking and steady hands make all the difference.
“Look behind us,” Noah says, nodding toward the rearview mirror.
I twist in my seat to see a fire truck following, lights flashing and sirens wailing.
“They always bring both rescue and recovery equipment,” he explains. “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”
The weight of what we might face settles over me, not extinguishing my excitement but tempering it with purpose. This is what I’ve trained for. What I’ve fought for, hiding my designation and pushing through barriers that would have stopped most omegas from even attempting this career path.
“So what got you into wilderness trekking in the first place?” Noah asks, breaking the momentary silence. “Most medical students I know barely have time to hit the gym, let alone scale mountains. And I can’t imagine you’ve had that much more personal time in residency.”
The question catches me off guard. It’s personal in a way our conversations usually aren’t, at least not without the buffer of Kai’s jokes or Grayson’s quiet intensity.
“I started going into the woods as a kid,” I say after a moment. “To escape.”
“Escape what?”
I stare out the window at the passing trees, memories surfacing that I usually keep buried. “Neighborhood bullies, mostly. They thought I was weird.”
“Weird how?”
I shrug. “Too quiet. Too serious. Too...everything. My mother wouldn’t let me play indoors with omega girls—she was afraid I’d pick up bad habits. And the rougher kids running around neighborhood, alphas and older betas mostly, wanted absolutely nothing to do with me.”
Noah frowns. “So you went into the wilderness alone? As a child?”
“The loneliness felt less like a problem when I could convince myself it was self-inflicted,” I explain. “And the silence became...peace, I guess. No one telling me how to act or what to be.”
I don’t mention how I’d sit for hours identifying plants from a field guide I checked out from the library, or how I learned to track animals by following their prints in mud.
How the woods became the one place where my designation didn’t matter, where I could just exist without constantly policing my behavior.
“The wilderness is dangerous,” Noah says quietly.
“So is everything else.” I turn to face him directly. “I’ve never had the luxury of waiting around for someone to save me. I see no reason to start now.”
Something flickers across his face—respect, maybe, or concern. Before he can respond, we round a bend and the rescue site comes into view. A cluster of emergency vehicles creates a perimeter around a rocky outcropping, their lights painting the snow in alternating red and blue.
“We’re here,” Noah says unnecessarily, pulling the truck to a stop beside an ambulance. “Ready for your first wilderness rescue, Dr. Chang?”
I grab my kit and jump out before he’s even killed the engine. “Born ready.”
The scene is organized chaos. Firefighters in heavy gear confer over equipment while EMTs prepare a treatment area near the ambulance. A small crowd of onlookers has gathered despite the cold, held back by yellow tape and a harried-looking sheriff’s deputy.
Noah finds the incident commander, a weathered man with a salt-and-pepper beard who introduces himself as Captain Reeves. I hang back slightly, taking in the situation while they talk.
“Patient is a twenty-six-year-old male, Derek Lawson,” Reeves explains, pointing to a narrow opening in the rocks partially obscured by snow. “Amateur caver, came up from Fairbanks with some buddies. They were exploring when he got stuck in a tight passage about forty feet in.”
“Position?” Noah asks.
“That’s the problem. He’s wedged head-down in a vertical chimney. Tried to go through head-first, got stuck, then slipped further in trying to free himself. Now he’s completely inverted with limited mobility.”
My stomach tightens. Inverted position means increased intracranial pressure, respiratory compromise, potential for crush syndrome if he’s been there long.
“How long has he been trapped?” I ask.
Reeves glances at me, seeming to notice me for the first time. “Going on five hours. Friends called it in about two hours ago when they couldn’t get him out themselves.”
“Medical status?” Noah prompts.
“Conscious but increasingly distressed. We’ve got a rope system set up to try and pull him out, but it’s tricky. The passage narrows right where he’s stuck.”
I scan the scene, noting the complex pulley system the rescue team has rigged up. It looks solid, but I can see the worry in the rescuers’ faces. This isn’t going to be simple.
“We’re ready to make the attempt,” Reeves says, gesturing toward the cave entrance. “If we can get him out, he’s all yours.”
Noah and I follow him to the edge of the opening, where several firefighters are manning the rope system.
I peer into the darkness, trying to visualize the trapped caver’s position based on Reeves’ description.
If he’s truly inverted in a narrow passage then he won’t last long if the rescue team can’t get him out.
“Beginning extraction,” one of the firefighters calls out. “Tension on the line.”
The team works in coordinated movements, gradually taking up slack in the rope. I can hear faint sounds from within the cave—a man’s voice, strained and fearful.
“I’ve got good tension,” the lead rescuer reports. “Starting the pull on three. One... two... three!”
The team heaves in unison. For a moment, it seems to be working—there’s movement on the line, a cry from inside the cave that might be pain or hope.
Then comes the sound no one wants to hear: a sharp snap as the rope breaks under tension.
A scream echoes from the cave, raw with agony. “I’m falling! I’m falling! Help me!”
“Shit!” Reeves strides forward to join his team at the cave mouth as they assess the situation. “That’s no fucking good.”
“What happened?” Noah demands, medical bag already in hand.
One of the rescuers emerges from the cave entrance, face grim. “Rope snapped. He’s slipped deeper into the chimney. Maybe another three feet down.”
“His position?” I ask.
“Still inverted, but now he’s compressed even tighter. And he’s screaming about not being able to breathe.”
My heart races as I process this information. Increased compression, respiratory distress, prolonged inversion—this has just gone from bad to critical.
The rescue team huddles, discussing how to rig a new pulley system. I catch fragments of their conversation—“different angle…might need to widen the passage…could take hours.”
Hours this man doesn’t have.
“He needs medical assessment now,” I interject, stepping into their circle.
Reeves shakes his head. “We tried. The way he’s positioned, there’s barely any room to maneuver. We could only reach his legs, so we set up an IV and pushed pain meds. But we can’t get to his torso or head to properly assess.”
A younger firefighter looks me up and down, eyes lingering on my small frame. “You might fit,” he says thoughtfully.
Before I can respond, Noah’s hand clamps around my arm. “Absolutely not.”