Fourteen
Trevor tore through the woods, heart pounding, lungs burning in the crisp mountain air.
His boots crunched over fallen branches and pine needles, each step a harsh reminder of the seconds slipping away.
Lark was a few feet ahead, weaving through the underbrush with a determined focus, nose to the ground, her sleek form darting through the trees.
Trevor whispered, “Lark, find her.”
Lark’s ears shot up, and without hesitation, she veered right.
Trevor followed, adrenaline thrumming through his veins.
He dropped to one knee, fingers brushing a snapped branch still oozing sap, then a streak of fresh blood smeared against a low-hanging pine limb.
He prayed it was from Helena tripping and falling and not something more nefarious.
Trevor’s pulse pounded in his ears. “Helena!” he called, his voice hoarse. He stood and followed Lark, who had darted ahead, weaving through the thick underbrush, pausing only to confirm the trail before surging ahead again.
They crossed a narrow creek, water splashing against his boots, the chill biting through the leather.
Lark barely hesitated, her paws hitting the far bank with a spray of wet mud.
She darted left, following a steep incline covered in slick, moss-covered stones.
Trevor pushed harder, knowing every second mattered.
As they crested the rise, Lark let out an urgent bark.
Trevor stumbled to a halt, his heart clenching as he reached the edge of a steep drop-off.
A sheer cliff face stretched below, jagged rocks and gnarled roots clinging to its side.
And there, at a narrow outcrop, he saw several footprints. Bigger and smaller.
No. Trevor’s blood ran cold. He looked over his shoulder, every muscle in his body coiled tight, ready to spring. She wasn’t there. But she’d stumbled or she’d been pushed.
No, his heart cried as Lark stood over the precipice, barking. Was she at the bottom of the cliff, broken and bleeding? Alive or dead? Was she buried under the brush below? And was Rick still out here too?
Lark spun in a tight circle.
He couldn’t guess Helena was dead and leave her. He also couldn’t drive down the mountain. Time would be lost. She could be injured, bleeding out. He refused to believe she was dead even if all the evidence pointed to that very horrifying scenario.
He had no choice. No gear. He had to go down the mountain on his own and pray God would help him. “Lark, stay.” He didn’t need her falling to her death, too.
Trevor’s boots pounded against the rocky trail, each step sending loose terrain skittering down the steep incline. The bite of smoke hit him first, stinging his nose and seizing his lungs. His heart lurched, a primal fear clawing its way up his throat.
Fire.
He forced himself to breathe, to focus, even as old memories flickered like embers at the edges of his mind. The crackle of burning wood, the suffocating heat, the choking black smoke that had once filled his childhood nightmares.
Lark barked above him, her nose to the wind, a low, growl rumbling in her throat. She’d sensed it, too, the danger, the way the air had grown thicker, hotter. She’d disobeyed him! She’d never done that before.
But his steady companion wasn’t going to leave him as she hobbled and slipped on rock, terrifying him, and yet her presence brought him comfort and hope, as if God Himself had sent her along anyway to be his companion, his champion, his cheerleader in furry form.
“Be careful, girl.” Where was Helena? Rick? “Helena!” he shouted, his voice ragged, the sound ripped away by the gusting wind. Rick might be out here, too, but if Helena had a way to scream and aid him in finding her, he didn’t care.
An orange glow licked through the trees below, devouring the underbrush with a terrifying hunger. She must have fallen and Rick, in his wicked ways, had set the wildfire to ensure her death.
She was down there, somewhere in that choking, blistering chaos, and every instinct screamed at him to turn back, to wait for backup, to do something other than hurl himself into the maw of a fiery pit. But he couldn’t. Not when it was Helena.
He would face and conquer his fear. Lark barked to urge him on, as if she was encouraging him and reminding him that he was stronger than his fear. Tougher than his trepidation.
The slope grew steeper, the rocks looser, each step a dangerous gamble.
He skidded on a patch of dry pine needles, his heart lurching as he caught himself against a jagged boulder.
The heat grew worse, the air blistering his exposed skin, sweat pouring down his back.
Smoke stung his eyes, blurred his vision, but he kept going.
Lark lunged ahead, her body low to the ground, every muscle taut with purpose.
She barked again, more urgently this time, her head snapping toward a break in the trail where the earth dropped away abruptly.
That wasn’t an encouragement. She’d alerted. That was her alert. She detected accelerant—proof a fire had been set. And obviously by Rick.
Suddenly, a weak, desperate cry, carried to him on a swirl of scorching air.
Helena.
Trevor stumbled, adrenaline flooding his veins as he reached the edge and looked down. She clung to a narrow ledge about twenty feet below, her fingers gripping the crumbling rock, ash streaking her bloody face. Relief and terror crashed over him in equal measure.
“Helena! Hold on!” he shouted as he frantically scanned the cliffside for a safe path down.
There wasn’t one.
The flames crackled closer, the heat blistering now, and he had seconds, maybe less, to make a choice. He dropped to his knees. The ledge she clung to was too far, too unstable, and she looked up at him, her eyes wide, terrified, and filled with a fierce, desperate will to live.
“I can’t—” she gasped, her fingers slipping, a small cascade of rocks tumbling into the abyss below. Trevor’s heart seized, every primal instinct screaming at him to pull back, to avoid the flames, but he shoved it down, the thought of losing her more terrifying than the wildfire.
“Hang on, Helena! I’m coming to you!” He shoved his fear deep, and scrambled over the edge, the loose rock cutting into his palms as he lowered himself, every inch closer to her and a battle against gravity and panic.
Lark barked frantically from above, her yelps blending with the sizzle of burning branches and the roar of the encroaching fire.
He dropped the final few feet, landing hard beside her on the slender ledge. Helena’s eyes locked onto his, wide and brimming with tears. He grabbed her arm, his grip iron-tight, as he pulled her into his chest.
“We can’t go up,” she choked out. “But we may not make it out if we keep going down.”
Trevor’s pulse thundered in his ears. He glanced up at the cliffside, the thick smoke rolling over the edge like an engulfing wave. She was right. They’d never make it back up. The only way out was down, through the flames.
Terror filled his bones, and he prayed for protection and wisdom. Guidance out of this inferno.
“We have to try,” he said, his voice shaking but firm. “Do you trust me, Helena?”
She nodded. “Yes. I trust you…and I love you.”
His lungs squeezed. But he had no time to discuss this incredible news. “I love you, too. I won’t freeze this time. We’ll make it.”
“Whatever happens, we’ll be in it together.”
If Helena didn’t have the hope or faith he did at the moment, in her weakness, he’d have it for them both. “Together. But we have to go right now. And fast.”
He hooked his arm around her waist, pulling her tight against his side as he eyed the slope below.
It was steep, unstable with burning branches, the air so thick with smoke, he could barely see ten feet ahead, but it was their only shot.
“Stay with me, Helena. We’re getting out of this.
” He glanced at his furry companion; her white fur now turned a sooty black. “All of us.”
He took a step forward, the ledge crumbling beneath their combined weight, and they half stumbled, half slid down the jagged rock face.
Trevor’s heart pounded, his pulse a frantic drumbeat in his ears as he held Helena close.
Every instinct screamed at him to pull back, to turn around, to escape the heat that seared his skin, but he forced himself onward, one shaky, stumbling step at a time, his only focus keeping her upright, alive.
The fire raged closer, the heat now a living, breathing thing against their backs, and the fine hairs on his arms singeing, the thick stench of burning pine filling his nose. His mind flickered back to that long-ago night, the house ablaze, his sister still inside and Mom running back for her.
The fear had rooted itself deep, like a splinter in his soul, but Helena’s whimpers and whispered prayers pulled him back to the present, to the single, brutal truth that he would not let the fire win this time.
Lark barked her encouragement and stayed low to the mountain, moving ahead of them as if to show them the way.
They broke through the final line of trees, the searing heat giving way to cooler, cleaner air as the ground leveled out.
He collapsed to his knees, pulling Helena down with him, his chest heaving, sweat and smoke streaking his face.
He clutched her to him, the tremble in his hands betraying the fear he’d refused to let slow him down.
She was alive.
They’d made it.
And for now, that was all that mattered.
* * *
The world smelled like smoke.
But she was alive. Trevor had found her.
Saved her. Rescued her. And she thanked God for using him and sweet Lark to find her.
She knelt and hugged the furry heroine’s neck and scratched her ears, still hot from the fire’s heat.
“You are such a good girl.” She kissed her head and hugged her tighter, the spaniel leaning into her for more affection.
“Hey, I helped, too. Any kisses left for me?” Trevor teased.