9. Sawyer #2
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Ellen says, still suspended in her harness a few feet away.
She points down below us. “See that aerial lift coming up? That’s my partner, Mike.
He’s got the rescue platform…the bucket.
He’s going to position it right next to you and get as close as possible.
Then he’ll secure safety harnesses on both of you and help you step across into the platform. You’ll all ride down together.”
I follow her pointing finger until I see the fire truck below with its massive arm moving upward. There’s a bucket at the end with a firefighter inside. It’s rising toward us, getting closer and closer.
“I’m staying right here to coordinate,” Ellen continues. “Mike’s done this a hundred times. You’re in good hands. Just do exactly what he tells you.”
The bucket rises steadily, and as it gets closer, I can see the firefighter inside more clearly.
He’s a big guy, probably in his forties, with a weathered face and kind eyes.
The bucket looks small for all of us. I start to panic as he positions it close to our car, but there’s still a gap, enough space that something could go wrong.
“Hey, folks,” he calls out. “I’m Mike. I’m going to get you out of here. What are your names?”
We tell him, and he continues.
“First thing, I need to put safety harnesses on both of you while you’re still in your seats. These are backups in case anything goes wrong during the transfer. Okay?”
We both nod.
Mike maneuvers the bucket slightly closer and reaches across the gap. “Sawyer, right? I’m going to start with you. Just stay very still.”
He works quickly, somehow strapping the harness around my torso while I’m still locked in the restraint. He clips it to a line attached to the bucket’s railing. “This is your safety line. If you slip during the transfer, this catches you. You will not fall. Understand?”
I nod, swallowing hard.
He does the same for Knox, and it’s surreal to see someone so calm in this situation.
“Good,” Mike says. “Now, I need to be straight with you. The structure is very unstable. We need to do this quickly but carefully. Sawyer, you’re going first.”
“Not without him,” I cry, gripping Knox’s hand with everything I have left. “I can’t let go.”
“It’ll be alright, Miss. Nothing will happen to him. You have my word.”
Knox unfurls his hand from mine. “You have to go. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Okay.” I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this, but I nod anyway. “Okay.”
Mike positions the bucket even closer, but slightly below us.
“Listen carefully, Sawyer. When I release your restraint, gravity’s going to pull you forward.
Your body’s going to want to fall toward me.
That’s okay, that’s what we want. I’m going to catch you and pull you into the bucket.
All you need to do is not fight me. Don’t try to stand, don’t try to help. Just let me pull you across. Alright?”
“I—What?” There’s too many words. I can’t take them all in. “I can’t just—”
“Your legs aren’t going to work right,” he says patiently. “You’ve been stuck at this angle too long. The blood hasn’t been circulating properly. If you try to stand on your own, you could compromise the car. So I need you to trust me to catch you and pull you across. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Good. I’m going to count down from three. On one, the restraint releases. You’re going to fall forward and I’m going to catch you. Ready?”
I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready. But I nod anyway.
“Three.”
I try to brace myself, try to prepare for what’s about to happen.
“Two.”
Knox’s hand finds mine one more time and he squeezes hard.
“One.”
The restraint releases.
And I fall.
He was right, gravity pitches me forward and my legs are completely numb beneath me. I couldn’t stand if I wanted to. His hands grip my arms and he pulls me into the bucket, where I collapse into a heap on the metal floor.
I’m gasping, trying to catch my breath from the adrenaline, and my legs are experiencing painful pins and needles as blood rushes back into them. Mike moves me to sit against the side of the bucket, and I grip the rail with shaking hands.
“Stay right there,” he says. “Don’t try to stand. Just hold on.”
Then he turns to Knox.
“Your turn, buddy. Same thing. Don’t try to help, just let me pull you in.”
Knox shakes his head. “I can stand. I can help.”
Stubborn ass, like always.
“No.” Mike’s tone is assertive. The car groans and shifts slightly like it’s punctuating Mike’s orders. “We don’t have time to argue about this. On three, I release the restraint and you fall forward into my arms. Understand?”
“Okay,” he says quietly. “Okay.”
“Three. Two. One.”
I grip the railing, holding my breath, as Knox falls forward. For a moment, I think Mike won’t be able to catch him. Knox is too big, what if he lands wrong, or if the car breaks away or—
Mike grabs hold of him and hauls him in front of me. Knox tries to stand, but stumbles, until Mike steadies him with a hand on his shoulder. “Sit. Both of you, stay down.”
Knox collapses next to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. With a ragged breath, he says my name, and I lean in closer, letting him hold me.
“Hold on tight,” Mike says, turning to work the controls. “We’re going down.”
The bucket starts to descend and Knox tenses beside me as we watch the car we were just in sway above us. The structure groans again, like it’s aware we’ve made it out and it’s not pleased.
“Don’t look up,” Mike says.
But we both do. I can’t help it.
Above us, I hear Ellen’s voice on the radio. “We need another platform up here NOW. Row four is still occupied and we’re losing structural integrity.”
Please let them be okay.
We finally touch down and it’s a whirlwind.
Paramedics lift us out of the bucket, and they move me directly onto a gurney.
I keep insisting I’m fine. I can stand…but I know that even if the pins and needles were gone, my legs wouldn’t carry me.
I’m shaking and now the pain is starting to come through.
I search through the crowd of people, realizing that they took Knox. “No,” I say to the paramedic trying to fit an oxygen mask over my face. “I need to be with Knox. Where is he?”
Someone speaks in a soothing tone, but I can’t make out their words. I need Knox.
They’re wheeling me toward an ambulance and I finally see him. He’s on a gurney too, heading into the ambulance next to mine. Intense relief crashes through me.
“Knox!”
“I’m here, Thorne. I’m right here.”
But they’re loading him in and loading me in and the ambulances are right next to each other but it feels like miles apart. What if this is the last time I see him?
The thought is irrational. We’re both going to the hospital, we’re both alive, we’ll see each other soon but I can’t shake it. What if something happens? What if they take him somewhere else? What if in all this chaos, we get separated and I never see him again?
And then I remember he was going to say something to me. As we reached the first drop. Whatever it was looked serious and then everything happened and Owen. Oh God.
“Wait!” I yell like my life depends on it, shocking the paramedic so bad he freezes.
I adjust myself so I can see Knox through his open ambulance door.
They have him inside, medics around him taking his vitals.
“Knox!” I call out. “Before, on the ride, you were going to tell me something. Right before we dropped. What was it?”
He turns his head to meet my eyes and I see him fully for the first time tonight. His tanned skin covered in blood, the exhaustion in his dark eyes, his hair matted from tears and sweat. I want to go to him, to hold him and try to offer any comfort I can, even though I’m as ruined as he is.
The way he’s staring at me, it makes everything around us fade. It’s so intense, so unreadable, my skin prickles.
His mouth opens.
Then closes. His lips form a tight line.
“Knox?”
He swallows hard. “It doesn’t matter now. It was nothing.”
“But—”
“It was nothing, Sawyer.” He looks away, fixing his gaze somewhere above him. “Just...forget it.”
My ambulance doors start to close but I’m still staring at the gap, watching the last slivers of him until they shut completely and he’s gone.
And now I’m alone with strangers in white uniforms and beeping equipment with oxygen masks and blood pressure cuffs and all I want is to sleep.
Maybe when I wake, this will all have been a nightmare.
The paramedic is talking to me, asking questions.
“Can you tell me your name?”
“Do you know what day it is?”
“Where does it hurt?”
But I can barely hear her over the ringing in my ears and my hammering heart.
He was lying. I know it in my bones.
It wasn’t nothing. Whatever he was going to say on that ride, while we were suspended at the top of the world with the sun on our faces and everything still okay…it wasn’t nothing.
But maybe some things are better left unsaid.
Maybe some things died up there along with Owen.
The ambulance jolts into motion with its sirens wailing, and I close my eyes and try to breathe through the oxygen mask.
If I focus on the physical pain—the ache in my shoulders, the burning in my ribs, the sharp sting on my forehead, the pins and needles in my legs—then maybe the other kind of pain won’t push its way through.
The kind of pain that I can’t put a name to yet but it feels like it’ll tear my insides to pieces.
Owen is dead.
Knox will push me away again.
And somehow, I survived something that shouldn’t have been survivable.
None of it makes sense.
None of it feels real.
But the pain…that’s real. The cold is real. The tremors and the throbbing and the dizziness, all real.
Which means this nightmare is just beginning.