Page 116 of Intrepid

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” the operator on the other end answered.

“I … I need some help … um …” I couldn’t tell them about Ty. Putting him on their radar might just be throwing him into the mouth of the beast, if they happened to deepen their investigations. He could be dead before they arrived, anyway. The average police response time in the city was thirty minutes on a good day. No, saving Ty would have to be up to me. “There were … uh, some gunshots … and I think my father might be dead!”

“Okay, stay on the phone with me, okay? Where are you now?”

“I’m at the Free Press building. On West Lafayette.” The small bit of light from the phone propped at my chin provided only a faint haze in the obscure surroundings, just enough for me to not kill myself by tripping over something along the way.

“The building? On Lafayette?”

“That’s correct.”

“Okay, and you think your father might’ve been shot there?” the dispatcher continued.

“Um. We’re … my ex-boyfriend kidnapped me. They were … fighting. And I heard gunshots, so I ran.” The maddening part of talking to her was knowing every word I said would be recorded. That, when the police called me in for questioning, as they invariably would, they would have already studied every word of my call.

“Are you injured?”

Sinking deeper into the dark stairwell, I breathed hard through my nose, and took agile steps, avoiding the crumbling bits of concrete. Good thing I’d thrown on boots, or my feet would’ve been torn up by the broken glass and splintered wood lying about. “No. I’m okay.”

“Is your father still conscious? Is he breathing, at all?”

Who the hell knew? I hadn’t bothered to check, but he looked pretty dead.

“I ran as soon as I heard the gunshots. I don’t know, for sure.”

The rest of the conversation felt robotic, just providing small details, while praying the cable connected to Ty’s cage would hold just a little longer. Rounding the stairwell some fourteen-odd floors felt as if it’d taken a lifetime. When I finally reached the bottom, I shoved the phone into my robe’s pocket, and completely out of breath, I raced across the construction site toward the crane. My throat burned. The air had thickened. Only sheer adrenaline kept me going.

Hand over hand, I climbed the ladder in the center of the tower, grateful for the occasional landing which broke up each level. My robe fluttered around my knees, but I didn’t bother with it, mostly because I couldn’t bring myself to tear my gaze from the rungs in front of me.

Don’t look down, Sera. For chrissakes, don’t look down.

Floodlights from nearby buildings provided enough illumination to carry out my crazy mission and remind me how stupid I was for doing it. I told myself the workers climbed the ladder every day, and if they could do it for something as mundane as a job, I could do it to save Ty from falling to his death. Granted, their underwear probably wasn’t hanging out during their climbs, but who the hell cared?

Hair whipped around my face, creating an annoyance as I focused my attention on the placement of my hands. Fire licked my palms with every pull up the rungs, but I ignored it. I ignored the ache in my hand, and the throb in my jaw from grinding my teeth. I also ignored the way the ladder rocked and rattled, assuring me that I was no longer standing on solid ground.

Ten minutes must’ve passed before I reached the crane’s cab, over two-hundred feet in the air, though I didn’t look down to confirm that. Only the shadowy edge of the adjacent Free Press building sitting slightly below me gave any indication of the tower’s height. My palms had stiffened from the climb and the unrelenting fear of slipping. I threw back the cab’s door, taking note of the empty ignition on the control panel, and searched for a key. Fucking hell, I hoped Dane didn’t have it on him.

The city’s streetlights and nearby lit buildings shone through the cab’s window as nothing but a speckled blur, and I zoned them out for the task at hand.

“It’s not in there!” Ty called out from the opposite end of the crane’s arm. “Sera, get out of here!”

“Where’s the key, Ty?” I yelled back.

“On the catwalk! About halfway between us.”

Dizziness swept over me as acids climbed my throat.

“Sera, it’s okay! Just go!” The whipping wind added an irritating buffer to his voice, but the anger in his shouts was unmistakable.

“I’m not letting you die! I won’t.”

“I won’t let you die for me, either.”

“Well, too fucking bad! You don’t get to decide that!”

Knees shaking, I pushed out onto the jib, eyeing the narrow catwalk that separated me from a two-hundred foot drop into the blackness below. The twinkling lights and moving cars along Lafayette offered just enough indication of height to send a cold shudder through my chest.

“Fucking hell. Fucking hell!”