Luca had no thought of giving chase as he scrambled to the edge of the slope where he saw Ava rolling helplessly, like a tumbling rag doll. He crashed down the hill after her, trying to calculate in his mind how it would end.
Would she stop before she reached the edge of the lake?
He remembered his early days apprenticing on a Life Flight helicopter. The horrifying call on that crisp February morning; a child wandered out on the ice, fallen through. A father heedless of his own safety following his boy into the same deadly snare. That day it had switched from a rescue to a recovery and the anguish of it clung to him even after so many years. Luca blinked away the thought.
Ava would stop her desperate roll before she got to the water; she had to. He floundered through a deep pocket of snow, the cold seeping into his clothing and making his eyes tear. He flailed out of the depression in time to see Ava’s jacket snag on a root thrust through the winter ice.
Her head bounced against the ground as she came to a stop, jacket precariously held in place by the small piece of wood.
Luca muttered a prayer of heartfelt thanks as his mind ran through options. Poised as she was only six feet above the lake, he would be able to reach her and drag her back up hill. The farther away from the water, the better.
Heart still pounding with exertion and adrenaline, he saw her eyes fixed on his.
“My uncle,” she called to him. “I’m okay. Go help him. Please.”
His heart skipped a beat at the raw emotion in her face. “Help is coming,” he said, easing toward her down the slope. He placed each boot with care, trying not to dislodge the crusts of snow that might knock her loose from her perch.
“Luca, please go after Uncle Paul.” She was nearly shouting now, tears trickling from her eyes and etching her face in frozen trails. “I’ll climb back up in a minute. As soon as I get my breath. Please.”
She was begging. He could not stand it. He spoke soothingly, a tone borne of many harrowing experiences in the fire service. “We’ll get you away from the water. Then we’ll find your uncle.”
Her answer was lost in a churning of snow as Mack Dog appeared at the edge of the road where the snowmobile had made its risky maneuver around the car. When he caught sight of them down below, his tail began to whisk in excited circles and he charged down to meet them.
“Stay, dog, for once in your life,” Luca thundered.
The dog paid no heed, pulling even with him. Luca reached out a hand to grab the jingling collar. Mack Dog moved toward Luca until he caught sight of Ava down below. He abruptly turned and plowed toward her, throwing frozen bits into the air.
“No, Mack Dog. Come here,” Luca tried again.
Mack Dog trotted downslope and shoved his face into Ava’s, nose first. She jerked back in surprise and the tiny movement was enough. The twig on which her jacket was snagged gave way and Ava slid like a human toboggan toward the lake.
“Luca,” she screamed, her fear magnified by the thin air as she slipped away from him.
All thoughts of caution were gone now as he foundered down the slope, stumbling and falling as he went. At one point he was almost close enough to grab her, his fingertips grazing the slippery fabric of her jacket.
It wasn’t enough. She skidded right through the scant black shrubs that protruded through the frozen layer at the water’s edge and sailed out onto the iced surface of the lake, finally coming to a stop about ten feet out. Mack Dog started to follow her, but Luca grabbed his collar and yanked him to a sitting position.
“Stay.”
Something in Luca’s ferocious tone convinced the dog, and he sat obediently on the snow.
“Ava?” Luca called. For an agonizing moment, she lay still on the ice.
“Ava,” he called again. “Look at me.”
Slowly she raised her head, and his heart resumed beating. The ice held and she was conscious.
“Listen,” he said. “You have to stay completely still.”
She nodded and he put a tentative foot out on the ice. There was an ominous crack, loud as a gunshot. He stepped quickly back and checked his watch. He estimated the time he’d texted Stephanie to be about ten minutes ago. Help would be arriving soon, but he could not count on it. He looked around for a stick long enough to reach out to her and found nothing.
His mind flashed back to the contents of Uncle Paul’s truck and the long tangled rope thrown out upon the snow.
“I’m too heavy to walk out to you. I’m going to go get a rope,” he yelled to her. “Don’t move until I get back.”
She didn’t answer, instead laying her head down on her arm.
The motion caused his heart to pulse with a mixture of emotions he could not decipher.
He wondered as he struggled up the hill, Mack Dog behind him, if she was thinking of her mother then. Luca suppressed a surge of anger at the woman who had cut Ava’s heart to ribbons. How could anyone kill themselves and leave a vulnerable teen behind?
His muscles protested as he cleared the slope and ran up the iced road. He wanted to take out his phone and reassure himself that Stephanie was on the way but he could not do it, so strong was the rising tension inside him. Ava was petite. He could recall with ridiculous clarity how her slender wrist fit easily in the circle of his fingers when they would conduct arm wrestling contests. Delicate, but so was the ice that was the last barricade between her and a slow death by drowning.
He was sprinting now, the snow increasing from trickles to torrents, obscuring his vision momentarily as he paused to wipe his eyes. The truck swam into view, drifts of snow collected across the bed and partially concealing the contents strewn on the ground. He found the trail of rope, its end poking up just enough for him to grab hold. As he pulled it up, he noticed tiny metallic circles, like bits of confetti, slowly being swallowed up by the falling snow. He snatched one up and stowed it in his pocket before taking a quick look in the truck.
As he’d suspected. No keys, but he did find a leash which he clipped on the excited Mack Dog.
They took off running back to the lake, both Luca and the dog alternately stumbling on the slick ground. He tied Mack Dog to the fender of Ava’s car, eliciting a bark of outrage.
“Sorry, can’t have you adding any weight to the ice.” He raced to the edge of the slope, immensely relieved to see Ava still lying there.
“I’m coming down,” he called.
She didn’t move.
Quickly he tied the rope around the sturdy trunk of a pine that stood sentry over the valley below. He unrolled it as he plunged back down the slope, praying it would be long enough to reach her. He made it to the water’s edge with a good fifteen feet to spare.
Enough.
Barely.
“I’m going to throw you the rope. Grab an end and I’ll haul you in.”
No answer.
“Ava,” he shouted, startling a bird in the nearby shrubs. “You’ve got to get the rope.”
With no response from her, the feeling of dread in his gut increased. He knew that head injuries were silent killers. Her progress down the hill had been bumpy. Pulling his phone out with fingers gone numb from the biting cold, he saw the message.
SOS rec’d. 911 en route.
Stephanie didn’t waste time asking superfluous questions. She was on her way with the ski patrol, he was sure.
But how long?
The snow was falling fast now. Ava’s jacket was already covered in powder, flakes plastering her hair. How long before her body became hypothermic? “Ava, wake up,” he shouted again, his strident tone