Page 35 of No Hope of Rescue

She lifts her head. “I thought you were gone. They said you went into the gorge.”

I wave to Ross and Riley, slip my leg into the grip, and wrap my arms around her, and then grasp the cable after giving a thumbs-up.

The winch starts and we begin to lift, swinging dangerously close to the rockface. Ross adjusts, but he has to remain at more or less a hover or we’ll be in the trees. Codie still talks to herself. The cable twists and we spin higher.

“Look at me,” I yell at her.

She won’t. She just stares at the ground beneath us. She’s not afraid of heights but being forty feet in the air is different than climbing a rock.

“Codie! Eyes on me,” I say. This is a directive from when she was just a kid.

Her gaze locks on to mine, but her mouth trembles.

“What am I going to do?” she says again and, in that moment, her eyes lose their focus. We’re right underneath the belly of the chopper and the hatch opens.

Riley reaches down, grabs Codie’s arm, and starts to haul her in. I grab the handle and lift myself over the lip while Riley unclips her and hands me a tether line.

A wave of nausea and despair churns in my gut. What am I going to do now? And that thought keeps worming its way into my brain: Did they rape her?

The whole craft shifts as I climb on board and clip myself to the tether. Codie sinks to her knees.

“Get on the gurney,” I shout at her. Riley’s already spreading a mylar wrap down and has two wool blankets ready to go.

There’s no response from Codie. I pick her up, lay her down, and Riley stretches her legs out.

Together, we get Codie under blankets and make sure she’s strapped in tight. Sometimes, when people are in shock, just having the straps around them makes them feel better. I keep rubbing Codie’s forehead with my hand.

“I’m right here,” I say.

She keeps mumbling something, but I can’t hear what she’s saying. I glance at Riley, but she just shrugs. She secures the winch even as Ross speeds up.

The helicopter lurches up and to the south. We’re off and heading back toward Echo Mountain.

Codie’s eyes go wide, and she shakes her head as Riley radios the hospital in Morrison. I’m crouched down, squatting. “Are you sure they didn’t touch you?”

“Yeah,” she says, but her eyes still can’t focus. It’s like she’s here but not here.

I don’t know what to believe.

The dark blue-green of the evergreen trees below us smears together as Ross speeds and skims across the tops of mountains trying to get us to lower elevations anywhere he can so we can make better time.

I have a question. “Carter, Ryan, and Jace?”

“They’re meeting you at the hospital with your mom,” he shouts back.

A very cold bare hand touches my face, and I glance back down.

“I saw you go over, and they said you went down the river.” The hysterical sobbing just sort of turns into weeping. It’s silent, but with a hot, steady stream of tears running down her temples into her hair.

Leaning over, I whisper in her ear, “Shh. Everything’s going to be okay.” I reach over and hold her head in my arms. It’s all I can gather up of her when she’s strapped to the gurney.

“I’m sorry,” she says. Her hand drops from the back of my neck. Her face is suddenly slack. Then I see it in her eyes.

She’s not with us anymore. Her blues eyes are wide, but she’s not seeing anything, not even listening to some internal chatter.

We have to move fast.

“Get her on her side!” I yell. Instantly, Riley has the emergency releases engaged, and I’m rolling Codie to her side just as she starts to stiffen and shake. Her head arches back as her whole body begins one long trembling spasm.