Page 61 of Fire & Ice

Of course, now that he couldusesome quiet—or at least some easy-to-deal-with bullshit—things go haywire. Tripp barely has his fingers wrapped around his phone in his pocket when Fifteen’s tones drop over the radio, and their activation comes alongside the station that houses the city’s high-angle rescue truck.

A ladder truck is a ladder truck and a heavy rescue is a heavy rescue, but the city is lucky enough($$$)to have a special, well-equipped technical rescue unit that’s built specifically for certain extreme situations. It’s not tapped for action very often, and usually only by officer request, so the dispatch itself has Tripp sitting up ramrod-straight and listening intently to what comes over his headset.

“...for a rescue, caller states the victim fell approximately twenty feet over the cliff side and has a visible broken leg. Victim is conscious, unable to move, EMS has been dispatched.”

Tripp exchanges an excited glance with Max—this is definitely the real deal. As their lights and sirens activate, he mentally switches gears, putting the rehearsal completely out of his mind. Instead of evening plans, Tripp’s immediately running through various protocols for high-angle rescue, adjusted for the need to backboard or for the victim’s inability to assist due to major injury.

Since he’s trained as an EMT and has high-angle certification, it’s a near-certainty that Tripp will be one of likely two responders that will be rappelling down to rescue this person. The other will probably be from Station Ten, where the technical rescue is housed and coming from.

Just like that, all thoughts of Lee and checking his phone are shoved unceremoniously to the backburner. He’s not worried—Lee will understand, Tripp knows because their positions have been reversed more than once.

The engine carrying Gunnar, Tripp, and the rest of his crew comes to a stop on the shoulder of the highway that borders the southern side of the city. Just ahead, the roadway passes over a river that’s bordered by steep rock face on both shores. On the brush side of the shoulder’s guardrail, there’s a wide dirt strip and a path of trampled-down weeds that leads offinto the woods. From experience, Tripp knows that beyond the treeline, the path runs directly adjacent and over fifty feet above the river.

In the summertime, the cops are constantly chasing kids away from this place. There’s an overlook further down that’s hidden from view of the highway, a place where teenagers like to gather and hang out, to do whatever it is kids do when no one’s watching. Drink, get high, have sex, whatever. That part isn’t so troublesome and problematic—hey, Tripp was young once, too—it’s what they tend to do with the river itself that’s worrying.

At the edge of that favored clearing sits an outcropping of rock that juts out over the river, and it’s become somewhat of a magnetic draw for daredevils to treat like a diving board. If Tripp had a nickel for every water rescue he’s been forced into because someone jumped into that river in the wrong spot and got fucked, he could pay for Bozo’s wedding. So many things can go wrong: getting sucked into the current at the bottom, breaking a leg by jumping onto a submerged rock, even hitting your head on the water and getting knocked unconscious—surface tension is hard as concrete from that height.

Hell, he’s even seen his fair share of idiots who didn’t realize they’d have toswimonce they jumped in. Always interesting.

What anyone’s doing out here on a day like today, though, is beyond Tripp. Jumping would be suicidal—the water’s fast-moving so it doesn’t ice, but it’s dangerously cold, colder than the air. Anyone feeling froggy enough to jump would be paralyzed as soon as they plunged in—like a thousand knives stabbing you all over, the shock alone might take someone out. Tripp’s been in the river at this time of year exactly once before—in adrysuit, of course—out of necessity, and he wouldn’t wish the experience on his worst enemy.

Well, maybe Christian.

As their crew gathers equipment and makes their way down to the scene, the situation becomes clear pretty quickly. Tripp hikes his way down the dirt path as fast as his boots will carry him, emerging from some brush out into the clearing to find a sobbing teenage girl, still clutching her cell phone to her ear.

“Yes, they’re here now. Thank you. Thank you,” the girl cries, presumably to the 911 dispatcher doing their best to keep her calm.

“What happened?” Tripp asks, though when he looks around, it’s obvious.

“It broke!” The girl replies tearfully, right before dissolving into full-fledged sobs again, anything said after that indiscernible to Tripp’s ear. He pats her on the shoulder and moves closer to the cliff’s edge. Sometime between last summer and now, the city must have tried installing a railing, thinking it would curb the jumping. It’s a good thought and Tripp approves, except whoever installed it didn’t do the greatest job. From where Tripp’s standing, it kind of looks like the thing gave way under the slightest pressure. Poor kid probably leaned against it and went right over, never stood a chance.

Yikes. No fuckin’ way this isn’t gonna end up in court,Tripp thinks, dropping to his hands and knees before peering over the edge.

About twenty feet below, a teenage boy lays moaning and terrified, sprawled on his back across a perilously small outcropping of rock. Belowhim,at least twenty additional feet down, the river rushes mercilessly, white-capped and threatening. It evenlookscold, gray and sharp as it is, cuttingaround the rocks that crop up in its way. Despite himself, Tripp shivers.

Evaluate the scene,he reminds himself, forcing his mind back onto the task at hand.

The boy is wearing a bright orange puffy vest and jeans that are splattered with blood, ripped straight through just below the knee by a bone that’s no longer inside his lower leg where it belongs. Cringing, Tripp suppresses his instinctual repulsion by putting himself in the kid’s shoes—don’t make this about you, asshole.

“Hey!” he calls out. “Hey, buddy! Can you hear me?” In response, the kid just moans and nods. “Can you tell me your name, bud?” There’s no reply—the kid just squeezes his eyes shut and cries out in pain, lolling his head against the rock face, which is concerning. Tripp can’t be sure that he didn’t smack his dome, that he isn’t altered and out of it. On the positive side, the break in his legcouldbe in a worse location. The kid definitely got lucky there, but this rescue needs to get a move on.

“Okay,” he calls out again. “That’s okay, you’re okay. Just stay still, stay real still. I’m coming to get you.”

Tripp confers quickly with Gunnar, but they’re already on the same page. The technical rescue is pulling off of the road and onto the site, firefighters cutting down brush with chainsaws to make way for it to pull as closely as possible to the edge. That’s great, but Tripp can’t imagine they’re going to be able to work it close enough to use for leverage. He pulls a hand over his mouth, relieved to see Jesse Martinez hopping down from the passenger’s side of the cab while the truck is still moving, nodding at Tripp and making a beeline in his direction.

As soon as he’s close enough, Jesse grabs Tripp’s hand and yanks him into a back-clapping hug. “Was hoping it’d be you,” he says gratefully. “We doin’ this?”

“Harness up,” Tripp says in agreement, filling Jesse in on the scene that awaits them while Jesse grabs his harness from the truck and fits it around his own waist. Without asking (and while multitasking, nodding along to Tripp’s words), he steps in to check the fit of the one Tripp’s donned, and he’s grateful for it. Tripp may have his certification, but Jesse is the expert, and he’s happy to defer. No dick-measuring contests on scenes like this, especially not when someone is literally about to throw themselves over a cliff.

Practiced and proficient, Jesse’s team works together flawlessly, anchoring ropes to trees and to each other before clipping first Tripp and then Jesse himself into the knots using carabiners. The plan is for the two of them to rappel down, splint the kid’s leg, address any other life-threatening issues that can’t be seen from twenty feet up, then roll him carefully onto a backboard. Once he’s secure, they’ll clip the backboard itself to even more ropes, and then it’ll be a coordinated effort between Tripp, Jesse, and the crews above to raise the board, followed by the two of them. Climbing will most definitely be involved.

Just before they drop over the edge, Jesse reaches out with his fist, Tripp bumping it with a lot more confidence than he feels. As he arranges his ropes, Tripp looks up to find Chloe hovering near the treeline, watching intently.

“Don’t you dare tell your uncle what I’m doing,” he calls out to her, even as he’s bracing his feet against the crumbling edge and leaning back into open air. The rushing water is loud below.

Chloe’s eyes widen comically. “Like hell I want to deal with that,” she yells back. “But he’s probably listening to this cluster over the radio. Echo said he was at the station when the ladder got back.” Something about Chloe’s tone pricks at Tripp’s spidey senses, but he simply doesn’t have the bandwidth to sort it out at the moment, being halfway over a cliff and all.

“Great,” Tripp mutters to himself. Leehateswhen he puts himself in ‘unnecessary’ danger, and most definitely will have something to say about Tripp volunteering for this particular gig. Somehow he doubts, “Comes with the territory, Lee,” will be an adequate response. That’s a problem for future Tripp, though. Present Tripp is busy not careening to his death in the wild and freezing river forty feet due south.

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