Chapter 21 #2
“I said try, Blur. I’m not promising this will work. But I don’t see any better options. Do you?” Eddie’s tone carried something uncharacteristic—pleading, almost—for Tobin’s support.
Tobin didn’t hesitate. Eddie was right; they didn’t have a better alternative. And Tobin trusted her—Eddie’s instinct, her skill. If anyone could make this work, it was her.
“Leeward fucking vacuum!” Tobin shouted into the box office. “Yep,” Eddie deadpanned. “Let’s go!”
Together, they eased the chopper just off the cliff ’s edge, gambling that the slope’s natural shape might provide enough of a buffer to create a small, sweet spot of calm. If they could find that spot, they could nestle into it—hovering just long enough to drop the basket and retrieve the hiker.
Tobin held her breath as Eddie angled the bird nearly parallel to the cliff. The helicopter shuddered, bracketed by the gush of wind that rolled off the rock face. Eddie crept lower.
“Just a little… bit… more,” she strained into the mic.
There was a moment of intensified thunder as they skimmed the cliff face and the wind pummeled the fuselage with an ambivalent fury.
Then, the air slackened—turbulence fading just enough to hold steady. Only the whir of the rotors and the familiar hum of the instruments remained.
“Now, Mike!” Eddie commanded.
Jada’s sure, steady voice came through the mics. “Deploying.
Victim visualized. Stand by.”
Less than a minute later, her voice returned. “Stabilized. Victim identified as Howard, male, forty-five. Appears unharmed aside from multiple abrasions and a two-inch laceration above his right brow that will likely need sutures.”
Tobin felt Eddie sigh in tandem with her. From the cabin, Mike’s ecstatic “Ten-four!” crackled through the comms.
“Victim secured. Pull us up, Mike.”
Tobin immediately recognized the shift in weight as the winch engaged and began hauling the loaded basket toward them. She felt Eddie subtly compensate, adjusting the collective and cyclic in careful increments to maintain their balance.
Without warning, a burst of wind assaulted them from above, forcing them lower and compelling Eddie to rapidly correct their altitude.
Tobin silently applauded the deft recovery and steady hand as Eddie eased them back into that fragile pocket of calm.
But their relief was brief.
Jada’s scream pierced their comms, slicing the air and alerting them to the chaos literally swinging beneath them. The basket hadn’t recovered as well as the helicopter—it hadn’t recovered at all. It was whipping haphazardly below, arcing like a loose pendulum and spinning on its own axis.
Tobin heard it first before she saw it—the sickening grate of the metal cable straining against the winch. Then Mike’s curse cut through the noise.
“What’s going on back there?” she demanded, already running through counteractions in her mind.
“The cable jumped the winch!” Mike yelled. “I can’t get it to engage—I can’t pull them up.”
“Fuck,” Eddie muttered, locking eyes with her.
There was only one option: raise the bird enough to drop the basket onto the cliff—then land long enough to get Jada and Howard into the cabin.
Tobin met Eddie’s gaze. She caught the flicker of trepidation crossing her friend’s face—replaced instantly by that resolute calm Eddie always summoned in the face of danger.
A familiar glint sparked in her gray eyes: they would not lose this fight.
They would best this wind. They would save their victim.
“Jada, the winch is compromised,” Tobin said into the mic, her voice even and deliberate. “We’re going to rise and set you down on top. Once you’re out of the vacuum, the basket will be at the mercy of the wind. We’ll have to move fast. It’s going to be a rough landing—secure yourselves.”
Jada’s voice crackled back in confirmation, and Tobin gave Eddie a single nod. She faced forward, bracing herself for the inevitable blast of wind as they rose out of the vacuum.
The gust hit with feral intent. Together, Tobin and Eddie fought it, countering each violent push and coaxing the helicopter to hold steady. They ascended, inch by inch. For a heart-stopping moment, the basket swayed—but then it leveled, staying mercifully stable beneath them.
As soon as the basket breached the cliff ’s edge, Eddie carefully rotated their position and lowered it to the ground.
“Basket released. Victim stable. Awaiting landing,” Jada confirmed from the ground.
Their collective exhale of relief barely lasted a second. The moment Jada reported detachment, the wind retaliated—whipping the loose cable into a frenzied arc.
“Mike, can you pull the cable in manually?” Eddie’s voice was tight with urgency.
“I’m trying! Without the winch, every time I get a foot in, the wind yanks it back out.” The strain in his voice was concerning—but not as concerning as the cadence of fear in his inflection.
“Shit,” Tobin hissed.
“We don’t have time,” Eddie snapped.
“Put us down, Eddie,” Tobin urged. “We can gather the cable from the ground.”
“Mike, forget the cable and strap in. Prepare for a rough landing,” Eddie barked into the mic.
But the wind had other plans. A brutal gust spun them westward, throwing them thirty yards from Jada’s location. Eddie countered hard on the cyclic, fighting to steady the rotation and begin a cautious but urgent descent.
The cable, however, arced in one final, terrible display of freedom and power—and landed directly in the rotors.
If the sound of the wind had been deafening, the cable colliding with the spinning blades was deadening.
“Crash landing in ten seconds! Strap in—feet flat, heads down!” Eddie screamed.
Tobin didn’t think—she reacted. Her movements were second nature—practiced and controlled from years of training. Feet planted. Head down. Inhale. Exhale.
And just before everything went black, one name cut through the chaos—clean, anchoring, absolute.
Grier.
Hours later, Tobin was safe in the bunk room at the hangar.
Erik had responded to their mayday and successfully extracted them from the cliff.
The downed helicopter had to be left behind—Eddie would have it recovered after the windstorm and returned to the hangar for repairs.
While they waited for Erik, Mike and Jada patched up Howard, who was later released to the ambulance for hospital transport to treat the gash above his brow.
After the crash landing, Tobin was flooded with memories of her accident. She managed to stave off a full-blown panic attack, but the anxiety still surged inside her. Her heart rate remained elevated, despite her current safety.
All she could think about was Grier.
All she wanted was to be in Grier’s arms—the safest place she could imagine.
All she needed was Grier’s soothing words, her strong shoulders wrapped around her like a security blanket.
Who was she becoming?
How had Grier infiltrated her so thoroughly, superseding her fear of abandonment with something louder, stronger—this desperate need for survival rooted not just in staying alive, but in reunion?
She’d called Grier the moment she returned. Eddie hadn’t dared stop her—knowing the post-rescue debrief could wait until Tobin had heard her voice. Until she had calmed.
Eddie needed Tobin to make peace with her past—and run towards her future—as much as Tobin did.
Grier had responded immaculately. Tobin had to convince her not to leave work and rush to the hangar.
She heard it in her voice— the need to take her into her arms, to prove to herself that Tobin was as okay as she promised.
But more than that, Tobin felt the pull in Grier’s voice—the quiet urgency to be with her, to simply show up.
To be there, in all the ways that Talia never had.
Grier was not Talia.
No—she was a fucking ampersand.
Everything Tobin had wanted. And needed. And hadn’t known how to dream.
Grier ran toward her when times were tough.
Grier stayed.
Tobin laughed as she watched a pair of three-month-old puppies wrestle in the pen she’d set up at the farmer’s market.
Anchor had texted yesterday, asking for help after her roommate, Devon, had a last-minute schedule change and couldn’t work the market with her.
It had been an easy yes for Tobin—she was already planning to meet Grier.
After the week she’d had, a little extra oxytocin courtesy of puppy snuggles was exactly what she needed.
She caught herself smiling, remembering how Grier had met her at the hangar following the mudslide rescue.
They’d spent some time wrapped in each other’s arms on the hangar couch, surrounded by Eddie, Jada, and Mike, as they recounted the tale of their harrowing rescue.
But they hadn’t stayed long—their need to bring their bodies together propelled them toward the privacy of Tobin’s bedroom.
They’d rushed back to her place, startling the hell out of Harrow, who’d been working in the living room when they stumbled in—a tangled mess of arms and lips, half-dressed and wholly focused on finding each other’s skin.
The memory made her grin now as Anchor handed her a rope toy and passed by with the last load of necessities from the van. They’d arrived early to give the dogs time to play and settle in before the crowds showed up.
“I really appreciate you filling in for Devon this morning,” Anchor said, a little out of breath from hauling crates. “She had a client pull a last-minute schedule change for a shoot and couldn’t get out of it. Thanks again.”
Tobin handed her a bottle of water. “No problem. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these with you.” She started filling water bowls for the dogs, then added “Besides, I’m meeting someone here later. Figured I might as well help out beforehand.”
“Oh, great! What time are you meeting them? Devon said she should be here around eleven—you’re more than welcome to duck out after that.”