Final Resort

A wave of unseen energy swept through him. His body tensed and twitched as he went down, unconscious on the snow.

“No,” Ava screamed, scrambling to get to him.

The snowmobile stopped just long enough for the driver to haul Paul’s unconscious body up across his knees, and then the machine lurched forward again, heading straight for Ava.

Her blood turned to ice.

“You’re not taking him,” she yelled. “I won’t let you.”

She had no idea how to stop the assailant. The only notion that thundered through her mind was to somehow slow the person who was going to take away her uncle.

Her body went rigid, bracing for impact as the snowmobile’s skis flew across the ground.

The mirrored visor reflected her terrified face back at her as the driver made the final approach.

She threw up her arms and screamed.

The air was knocked out of her as she was tossed aside, not by the impact of the snowmobile, but by Luca’s body as he crashed into her and sent her sailing into a pile of loose snow. They fell in a tangle of skis and ice particles.

She felt his arms around her, trying to pull her away from the road, but she fought him off in spite of his strength.

“Let go.”

His green eyes flashed behind the swirl of snow. “Stay down.”

“Get off, Luca.” She struggled to her feet and pulled herself free from him and the pile of snow, ignoring his clasping hands. Then she was running, following the ruts of the snowmobile, pushing as fast as she could against the wind.

“Uncle Paul,” she screamed. Mack Dog raced along behind her, barking.

She heard Luca snapping off his skis, getting to his feet, calling out to her.

She ran up the hill and down toward the lake.

The snowmobile was stopped there, idling, the unconscious Paul still lying brokenly across the driver’s lap. She could see the driver considering how to get by her car which was partially blocking the road. Going around would put the machine on unstable ice, possibly causing the skis to founder.

The other side backed to a steep incline covered with loose powder which would undoubtedly ensnare the machine in moments. Ava continued to run as fast as her complaining muscles would allow. His indecision gave her a slim chance. If she could get her uncle off the machine and into the car...

She closed the gap, ten yards, now five.

Reaching forward, lungs burning with the effort, her fingers strained to grasp the metal passenger grip.

Paul stirred, and she thought she could hear him groan.

Almost there. Almost.

As her fingers touched the cold metal of the passenger grip, the driver jerked into action, revving the motor. The snowmobile leaped forward into the pitched snow. For a moment, she thought he would not make it as the skis began to sink into the surface. With a surge of her last bit of energy, she grabbed the bar, clinging there as she was dragged along behind. Her weight unbalanced the machine and it slowed.

She’d done it. He would have to stop.

Then the snowmobile jerked and skidded, throwing her loose and sending her tumbling down the slope toward the lake.

Arms spread, hands clawing, she tried to stop her momentum. Sky blurred with snow as she tumbled toward the glittering oval bowl.

In dizzying glimpses she saw the driver wrestle the machine back up to the road and disappear into the distance as the lake rushed up to meet her.

* * *

Luca finally struggled clear of the snow. He’d seen enough to know that Paul had just been abducted although he did not give himself time to mull over the insane scenario. He texted an SOS with his GPS coordinates quickly to his sister.

She would send help. He took off in the direction the snowmobile had gone, a frantic Ava charging after it.

Doing his best to avoid the slick patches of icy snow, he ran as quickly as he dared until he slid close enough to witness Ava clinging to the back of the snowmobile. He saw her tensed fingers lose their grip on the bar as the machine bucked on the uneven snow. The unconscious body of her uncle Paul would have slipped to the ground as well if it weren’t wedged under the handlebars.

The driver gave only a cursory look behind him as he fled onward, kicking up a cloud of white in his wake, Mack Dog in loud pursuit. 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 ringing across the ice.

Something in her unconscious brain must have heard him, because she stirred.

“That’s it,” he called again. “Wake up. Open your eyes. I’m going to throw you the rope.”

She raised her head, expression confused.

Breathing hard, he forced his tone from commanding to something calmer. “Here,” he said. “I’m right here. You need to reach out your hand and get the rope, okay?”

She blinked and her blue eyes rapidly widened, a look of panic setting in.

Two seconds later he figured out why as the ice under her body broke, sending out splintering cracks in all directions.

THREE

Ava’s stomach lurched in terror as she felt her legs drop through the ice and into the frigid water below. The breath was driven from her lungs. She’d thought she was numb from lying there for so long, but the cold was like an electric shock, jolting her body to the core. Arms scrambling, she tried to grab on to something, but her fingers raked through loose snow without finding a handhold. Inexorably she was sliding toward the exposed depths of the lake. Her feet splashed into the water.

“Luca,” she screamed.

His body stiffened, mouth open.

Nothing she did slowed her progress. Just before her torso slipped in, she managed to hook her hands into a crack, holding the frozen mass to her body like a bizarre icy life preserver. Her legs remained submerged, but her head and shoulders were above water, at least for the moment.

Luca was shouting something, but the thundering of her heart drowned out his cries. She felt as if the lake was some live thing, sucking her down to the bottom, like it had done to her mother. In a few moments, her body would be claimed by it.

Ava felt the spark of anger light in her belly. Her mother had willingly offered herself up to death, walked into those dark waters and left her sixteen-year-old daughter behind with only an unpredictable uncle and a wounded father to care for her. She chose the lake, she chose her own drowning.

Why? Ava felt the puzzle rise again in spite of the horror of her situation.

Her mind circled the question that she’d wondered about countless times before.

Why did you choose these frigid waters over me?

Ava felt that old pain lance through her, through her frozen legs and into her heart, right up to her fingertips which were rapidly becoming too numb to maintain their grip.

I won’t give up.

Ever.

I won’t make the same choice you did, Mom.

She tried to hug the ice more tightly, but the strength seemed to be leaching out into the water that surrounded her. She kicked her legs to keep the circulation going, but they felt like two pieces of wood.

Luca tossed something at her. A rope, she finally realized. A spark of hope thrilled inside her as it slithered across the ice.

She tried to grab for it, but the motion almost cost her her grip on the ice. The rope fell away and disappeared into the water between two floating pieces. She did not dare let go of the ice to fish around for it.

“I can’t,” she said, breathless.

“Yes, you can,” Luca shouted, enraged. He reeled in the coil and tried again.

The rope hit the water just in front of her, splashing her face with stinging droplets. Blinking, she tried again to grab for it. This time the ice broke into several smaller pieces like a frozen jigsaw puzzle. She struggled to keep her grip on the larger of the chunks. Clinging there, breath coming in desperate pants, her body shivered violently.

Luca was furiously gathering in the rope, getting ready to toss it again. She saw him swinging the rope, strong arm tense.

“I can’t get it, Luca,” she called. “I can’t let go.”

She couldn’t tell if he heard her or not. Despair added weight to her sodden clothes and she felt herself sinking lower into the water. Luca dropped his arm and turned away.

She felt oddly relieved. She did not want him to see her desperation, the fear that made her weak. Help would come soon, she knew. The ski patrol would make it on scene quickly enough, but hypothermia would arrive before they did. It could take less than fifteen minutes in freezing water for death to come. She clung tighter to the ice, trying to calculate how long she’d been in the grip of the frozen lake. Her arms were clumsy, fingers nearly useless.

Her gaze went to the road, to the rut marks left by the snowmobile. Who would want to hurt Uncle Paul? Truthfully, many. He’d crossed a number of people, cheated them even. There were plenty of men eager to settle a score.

She heard a noise and saw Luca with a rope tied around his waist, charging out onto the ice. Blinking to be sure she wasn’t hallucinating, she looked again. What was he thinking? His six-foot muscled bulk would break through the ice in a moment and send him into the frozen water right along with her.

“No, Luca,” she called, voice weak as a kitten’s.

He did not alter course, so she tried to yell louder.

“Go back.” Her words were faint but noisy thoughts crowded her mind.

Go back, Luca. Don’t throw away your life for mine.

She felt sick at the thought, but she knew he would probably do the same for any other man, woman or child he found in the same situation, and probably an animal, too. She remembered the bird he’d told her about that he’d retrieved after it had gotten tangled in some old tree netting. People said he was crazy to climb a fifteen-foot pine to free a sparrow. People were right.

With dread, she watched him step onto the slick surface. Ice crackled around her as he planted one foot in front of the other, as if he was navigating some strange tightrope through the water. He moved closer, teetering slightly as he kept his balance. Face fixed in concentration, he moved slowly toward her until he was close enough for her to hear him.

“Hold on, Ava. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Please go back,” she whispered. Please.

She watched through blurry eyes as he stepped onto the chunk of ice near her, amazed that he had not fallen through. Her body shivered so badly she could hardly keep him in her field of vision.

Slowly, kneeling on a shelf of ice, he crouched over to grab for her sleeve. The green of his eyes was the only thing she could see clearly, just as vibrantly green as she remembered. His fingers gripped her wrist and she imagined they must be warm, warmer than hers anyway, but she could not feel anything. She was having a hard time seeing him through her growing cloud of confusion.

“Let go now, Ava.”

She could not force her fingers to relinquish their grip.

Hold on, her mind screamed and her body obeyed, clinging in manic determination to that small hunk of ice.

“Let go,” Luca demanded again.

She closed her eyes and pressed harder against the ice chunk, her limbs like the twisted branches of the trees that ringed Melody Lake.

His grip tightened around her wrist and he began to pry her fingers away from the ice. “Ava, you’re coming with me one way or another.”

She was tired, more tired than she’d ever been. Her body felt suddenly as if it was heating up, warming from the inside. If she didn’t get her jacket off, she thought she would roast.

She wiggled on the ice.

“What are you doing?” Luca said.

“Taking off my jacket. Too hot.”

He grabbed both wrists now. “That’s the hypothermia talking. You’re not hot. You’re cold and we’re getting out of here.”

He hauled her toward him, her legs sliding out of the water.

Her mind whirled from the sudden movement and she closed her eyes to steady herself. When she opened them again, she was looking into Luca’s grave face. He was pulling her up, grabbing on to the front of her jacket, until she felt herself hoisted over his shoulder. She wanted to say something, to force her body to work in some way, but she could not. She found herself slung head down, staring at the milky ice beneath Luca’s feet.

There was a sudden lurch, a cry of surprise from Luca and then the view changed as they both plunged through the ice.

* * *

Luca had the presence of mind to hold his breath when they broke through the crust and splashed into the lake. Frigid water enveloped him and he fought the urge to gasp at the pain of it. Holding as tightly to Ava as he dared, he kicked back to the surface. Shaking water from his eyes he turned her, his arms under her shoulders in the only maneuver that came back to him from his days as a high school lifeguard.

He heard her whimper softly, and the sound gave him renewed courage. There was still life in her, that tenacious spark that would be enough to help her survive this. Fighting against the shudders that shook his body, he freed one hand to find the rope he’d tied around his waist.

He tugged them along, one-handed. Their progress was a series of awkward, lurching moves that brought them incrementally toward shore. Broken ice floated around them, and he did his best to avoid the sharp edges, although he felt something cut into his arm anyway. His biggest concern was his hold on Ava which was weakening as the glacial water robbed him of feeling in his extremities.

The distance to the shore was probably only ten feet, but it may as well have been miles. At first Ava had tried to help, leaning into him and kicking feebly at the sharp bits of ice that crowded them. As time wore on, she had grown progressively more still until she was a deadweight.

“Almost there,” he said. “Stay with me.” He squeezed her as tightly as he could, his arm sinking into the pillowy layer of her jacket.

He pulled them both along, every movement an agony. Slower and slower they moved until his hand slipped off the rope. Fear clawed at his insides as he struggled to keep Ava from floating away while he flailed for the rope.

His fingers would not cooperate. Clumsily he floundered, trying to force his hand to clasp the slick rope again.

Come on, Luca.

Grab it.

He felt his hold on Ava loosening. His choice came down to letting go of her or holding on and giving up on the rope, their only chance. He threw up a silent prayer, channeling his remaining stamina into keeping Ava in his arms.

Vision blurring, he looked in desperation at the shore which seemed to be miles away. Faintly he heard Mack Dog barking excitedly. Dark shadows swam in front of his eyes, and his ears began to play tricks on him. From far away he heard an engine approaching up the road at top speed. He imagined his sister roaring up in typical wild fashion behind the wheel of her Mustang.

It was imagination, purely. The logical side of his brain knew a car could never travel at such speeds on iced-over roads. Unable to muster the strength to attempt a one-armed swim stroke, he could only float, trying to keep Ava’s chin above water.

“Luca.”

The voice came from far away.

A woman’s voice.

“Luca,” the voice came again, louder.

He forced his eyes to focus on the face of his sister waving frantically, a snowmobile parked crookedly nearby. Someone was with her, a man wearing the red-and-black jacket emblazoned with the white cross of the ski patrol. There was a jerk on the line, and he was pulled toward the shore. All he had to do was hold tight to Ava.

It’s almost over.

He forced himself to repeat it, although his body was frozen to a state of near agony. Ava’s eyes were closed now, the white circle of her face just clear of the water, sections of hair floating like a corona in the dark water.

Almost there.

Tate, Stephanie’s husband, pulled up on another snowmobile and hustled to the water’s edge to meet them, his stiff leg making him ungainly.

They were close enough for Luca to see the ski patrol guy tugging madly on the rope, Stephanie assisting. In excruciating increments, they finally drew near enough for hands to grab hold of Ava and haul her out of the water. Tate and Stephanie each took one of Luca’s frozen arms and dragged him out, too, immediately enveloping him in a thin, silver blanket.