When they reached the crevasse, Zach’s leopard was growling deep in his chest. He was overwhelmed by a wave of fierce protectiveness—a need to protect his pack, his family. Surely that meant Joel was nearby.
Forgetting that anyone else was around, his leopard driving him forward, Zach stepped up to the edge, where the snowy slope just fell off in a sheer, icy drop. A hand closed around his collar, and he glanced back—Grey had his jacket in a hard grip.
“Just in case,” Grey said quietly.
Zach nodded, and crouched down to look over the edge. He couldn’t see anything, but the visibility wasn’t good at all—the chasm fell down at an angle, and twisted and turned off to the sides. He took a deep breath.
“Joel!”
It was the same voice he’d always used to yell after his thirteen-year-old little brother when he vanished into the woods. A get-your-ass-back-here! voice. A you-better-listen-to-me-or-else! voice.
Thirteen-year-old Joel had gotten pretty good at ignoring Zach when he yelled, but he’d always at least jerked up at the sound of that tone. Even if he straightened his shoulders and glared defiantly at Zach before stomping off on his own, he never just ignored it.
And sure enough, after a
second, he heard a faint, echoing, “Down here!”
Zach straightened up and looked back at the others, a relieved grin spreading across his face. “He’s here.”
Cal took charge, then, marshaling the group in the direction Joel’s voice had come from. When they’d gone a hundred yards, he motioned to Zach. “Call again.”
Zach shouted again, and Joel’s voice came echoing back, and they used the call-and-response to zero in on his location. Soon, Zach was leaning over the edge of the crevasse—Grey’s hand latched firmly onto his jacket—and hearing Joel call up from directly below.
“We’re here!” he shouted. “Do you have the kid?”
“Got him!” Joel yelled up. “We’re okay!”
Something inside of Zach relaxed at that. Even knowing Joel was alive, he’d been terrified that he’d be badly hurt, maybe even injured too severely for shifter healing to fix.
“We’re sending down a rope,” Zach called back, and turned to where the others had already started setting up the equipment—picks, rope, a harness, all specifically designed to pull someone up a slope when they were stuck and couldn’t manage it themselves.
And Zach had spent enough time by now staring down the crevasse. Its sides were mirror-bright slick sheets of ice. Even in leopard form, with claws to dig in and climb with, Joel would’ve been taking a big risk to try to scale the walls, and that wasn’t considering the child he was with.
They lowered the harness quickly, the ropes firmly anchored in the icy ground. After several minutes, Joel yelled, “Pull it up!” and they hauled it up more slowly, careful not to jerk it or let it swing. Joel would be sending the kid up first, and the last thing they wanted was for him to get hurt by slamming against the sides of the crevasse on the way up.
Zach was closest to the edge, and he was watching as the harness came into view, holding a small body wearing a bright red parka and a knit hat. The kid looked up, craning his neck to see, and Zach waved at him. One puffy-gloved hand waved back.
As soon as the kid was in range, Zach reached down and took his hand, more for reassurance than as any added force, since everyone else was manning the ropes and hauling him up easily. The kid clutched at him, clearly welcoming the contact, and when Zach finally hauled him over the edge, he pulled him into a hug before doing anything else.
“Hey, Andy,” he said. “You’re safe now. We’re going to get you back to your parents as soon as we can. Can you tell me, are you hurt anywhere?”
The kid shook his head, sniffling a little, and Zach pulled back to get the harness off and look him over. Jeff came over to crouch next to him, and Zach glanced over at him. Jeff nodded—the kid looked fine. Rosy cheeks, no stiffness or suggestion that he was in pain, no obvious hypothermia.
“Hey, can I take these off for a sec?” Jeff asked with a friendly smile.
The kid nodded, and Jeff tugged off his gloves. “Your fingers look just fine,” he said after a second. “I guess Joel took good care of you down there, huh?”
“Yeah,” said the kid. “He taught me all sorts of stuff, about how to stay warm in the cold and how to stay safe while you’re hiking alone, and...”
Jeff tugged the kid back away from the edge, making encouraging noises, and Zach adjusted the harness so it would fit a large adult man instead of an eight-year-old, and tossed it back over the side.
It was only a few minutes later that Joel’s head appeared, and Zach watched him slowly rise up the crevasse with his heartbeat thundering in his ears and his leopard growling protectively. The second Joel was in reach, Zach grabbed at his hands and pulled him up over the edge and into an embrace.
Joel hugged him back, laughing a little when Zach wouldn’t let go. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said into Zach’s ear. “I’m not going to fall again if you give me a chance to breathe.”
Zach forced himself to let go of his brother and step back. Joel looked all right—no obvious injuries, skin reddened with the cold instead of dangerously white, giving Zach a tolerantly exasperated look. Overall, he seemed perfectly healthy.
"What the hell were you thinking?" Zach burst out.