‘Okay, on me,’ Axel said, counting down quietly from three. ‘Move.’
Axel and Kipp crept out of the undergrowth and then launched themselves at the two men, immediately knocking the chainsaw out of one of their hands and sending it hurtling through the air.
‘Daddy! Kipp! You’re here!’ Arlo hollered from his position on high.
But Axel didn’t have time to even acknowledge his boy. Despite having dislodged the chainsaw successfully, the element of surprise was now well and truly gone. Axel and Kipp were involved in a fistfight with two soldiers. Things were about to get very ugly.
The brawl was quickly in danger of turning in the soldiers’ favor as their military training began to show. Axel took a double jab to the face and felt his eyes involuntarily fill with water as his nose cracked under the force of a stiff jab.
But as Axel fired back a right hook of his own, he could see that this might not be an impossible task. The soldiers were younger than him and Kipp, but that certainly didn’t mean that they had better endurance.
Axel and Kipp were outdoor men who worked all day, every day. And this meant that their natural stamina reserves were high – as was their raw strength and determination. As thefight wore on, Axel noted the look of disbelief on his opponent’s face as he kept coming back with attack after attack while also eating up his rival’s punches.
‘Now it’s time to finish this,’ Axel roared to Kipp. ‘Use what we learned at the gym. Take them to the ground.’
Axel and Kipp had both been working on their grappling skills at Metal Work Gym and were able to drop their now exhausted opponents to the floor with relative ease.
‘You fucking idiot,’ one of the men seethed, struggling hopelessly to get out of Axel’s rear naked choke hold. ‘You’ll pay for…’
But as Axel squeezed his arm across the man’s neck until he passed out, any and all protests fell silent. And with Kipp having applied the same technique to his opponent, the fight was over.
‘Arlo! Stay calm,’ Axel called out, noticing that the tree was looking extremely precarious at this stage. ‘Don’t make any sudden movements.’
Axel could tell that this was now arguably even more of an emergency situation than it had been when they were dealing with the two men. The tree genuinely looked like it could fall at any moment, and with Arlo very highly placed then that could prove catastrophic.
‘Daddy, I’m going to climb down,’ Arlo hollered, only for him to momentarily lose his grip and end up hanging on for dear life as he swung backward and forward. ‘Daddy!’
‘Arlo!’ Axel shouted, knowing that while now wasn’t the time to panic, there was no use in pretending that this was anythingother than a full scale emergency. ‘Kipp, I’m climbing up to get him.’
‘Axel, it’s not fucking stable enough,’ Kipp pleaded. ‘You could bring the tree down before you’re halfway up. And then that’s both of you gone.’
‘I have to try,’ Axel said, his hearth thumping. ‘Hold on, baby boy. Daddy’s coming.’
‘Hurry! Hurry!’ Arlo squealed, a fear bordering on terror in his voice as he continued to hold his grip around the branch that was saving him from a potentially fatal fall. ‘I can’t keep hanging on.’
‘Well you’re going to have to,’ Axel barked as he began to scale the tree. ‘And that’s Daddy’s Orders.’
The time for talking was over.
Axel knew that it was make or break as he climbed and swung his way up the tree like he’d never done before. Typically Axel would err on the side of caution and use safety ropes too of course. But not this time. Axel had one shot at saving his darling boy, and it was a shot where missing simply was not an option.
‘I’m… I’m… I can’t… hold… on…’ Arlo cried out, the horror in his voice palpable as his grip visibly loosened.
‘Give me ten more seconds, Arlo,’ Axel demanded. ‘I’ll count with you as I climb. Ten… nine… eight…’
‘Seven… s-s-s-s-six… five…’ Arlo hollered back, his grip now almost totally gone and to make matters worse the branch creaking and sounding like it was about to break off the tree at any moment.
Axel was within touching distance of Arlo and hooked his legs around a sturdy branch before just about managing to reach out and drag Arlo toward his body before he fell.
‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, I love you,’ Arlo said, sobbing as he buried his face into Axel’s chest.
‘And I love you too, young man,’ Axel replied. ‘But now isn’t the time for talking. We still need to get our asses down onto safe ground and then get away from this tree. I’ll start working my way down and you follow me. Stay close. And know that if you even come close to slipping, I’ve got your back.’
Arlo wiped the tears from his eyes and nodded.
Axel could tell that while Arlo might just have been through a traumatic episode, his determined expression and keen look in his eyes meant that he was back in the game.
‘Come on, let’s move,’ Axel said, beginning the descent down the tree and duly guiding Arlo as and when he needed it.