Page 33 of Mountain Target

High up on the ledge, Ren whimpered.

Shit.

The girl wouldn’t survive a second earthquake standing there. He had to get her down now.

Beau passed his neck and arm through the small length of rope he had.

“Keep the light on Ren,” he instructed Valentina. “So I can see where I’m going.”

“You’re going up there?” Valentina asked shakily. Her hand reached out to grasp his sleeve. “Are you sure?”

He disengaged her hand carefully, giving her what he hoped was a gentle squeeze.

“It’s going to be fine, Valentina. This is what I do. Keep the light on her, okay?”

Without waiting for her response, he strode carefully through the earthquake debris, stepping over rocks the size of a man’s head, knowing any one of them could have killed Ren.

And there might still be others above her, waiting to fall.

He forced his fear back. He had to treat this like any other rescue, or else he wouldn’t be able to do what needed to be done.

The rock was cold to the touch, and thankfully not too smooth. He wrapped his fingers around the first obvious holds and began pulling himself up the wall.

Despite his reassurance to Valentina, Beau wasn’t a great climber. Even before his knee injury, he’d always known his physique wasn’t made for climbing. He was too large and too thickly muscled, where the best climbers looked more like Lorenz, or Gael, from Damien’s team. They were the guys you sent up a wall, knowing they’d get up without even breaking a sweat.

Beau wished he had some of that lean strength, now. But wishing wasn’t going to get him up that wall.

You don’t need to be a climber.

You just need to fucking climb.

He clenched his teeth as his knee jarred. He tensed, overcompensating with his stronger leg, and waited—if his knee failed him … then a moment later breathed a sigh of relief. The throbbing he could cope with, as long as the joint held.

He didn’t need to look down to know a fall from this height could be deadly. He knew better than to look down, so he kept his gaze on Ren, whose body was illuminated by Valentina’s light.

He counted himself lucky that it hadn’t rained recently—that meant the rock was dry. Even so, twice his boots slipped, and he was left hanging precariously from the handholds before he could find purchase again, his heart beating furiously against his chest.

And then, finally, he was close enough to see Ren’s shoes—a pair of trainers that would have been appropriate for school but had no place up here in the mountains.

When she was safe, they were going to have a talk about preparedness.

When she’s safe.

“Beau,” Ren cried out.

Beau took a deep breath. As he exhaled, he pulled his stronger left leg up to the edge, digging his heel in and pushing until he got his center of gravity past the lip.

Hell.

Ignoring the hammering in his knee, he picked himself up, and inched his way to where Ren was standing, grateful she’d had the sense to stand flush against the wall.

Clever girl.

“Ren. You okay?”

“Everything was moving,” she whispered. Her entire body shook like a leaf. “Everything was moving, and I thought I was going to—“

“Hey,” Beau said, pulling her shaking body into his arms. “It’s going to be okay. We just need to get down to Valentina.”