Page 29 of The Firefighter's Angel
I’m moving before he completes the sentence.
“Radio me if you see her,” Ben calls after me. But I’m already sprinting into the trees.
She’s out there. Scared. Hurt. Alone. And I swear, if anything happens to her…
No way in hell. I’m going to find her, even if I have to tear this entire forest apart to do it.
***
An hour later and I still haven’t seen a trace of her. The forest is slick with rain. My veins are pulsing with frustration, mud clinging to my boots. Every step is a calculated risk, every bushor broken branch a possible clue. The chill is settling in now, turning my soaked shirt cold against my skin. But I don’t care.
I’d take a hundred more storms if it means I find her.
“Cindy!” I call, my voice cutting through the trees. “Cindy, baby, can you hear me?”
Nothing but the hiss of rain through pine needles.
We need this rain, I know. It’s good for the land. Good for the fight we’ve been waging all season.
But damn it…it’s hell on tracking.
Every trail is washed out. Every footprint erased. Every snapped twig soaked and sagging. It’s like the forest is trying to swallow her whole.
I check every ridge, every drop, every hollow. My flashlight beam dances over moss and rocks and glistening leaves.
Then a scrap of pink…something. My body tenses, my heart hammering. It’s caught on a low branch, half-soaked and clinging like a flag. I move toward it slowly, carefully. It’s the same color as the shirt she was wearing when I dropped her off.
“Cindy?” I call again, softer this time, like I’m speaking into the wind. “You out here, baby?”
No answer.
But when I kneel beside the fabric and look closer, I see it, just past the tree line. A faint trail. I follow it, my boots sinking into the soft earth. It leads me along a slick embankment, and then just like that…it disappears, vanishing into nothing.
I slow to a crawl, heart thudding as I realize the slope drops off sharply. A steep hill plunges down toward the river below.
No. Please no.
I creep to the edge and peer over, and…there. A flash of pink among the brush, barely visible from above.
My whole body freezes.
I grab the radio, slowly raising it to my mouth. “This is Foster. I’ve got something. Possible visual. Steep drop off the north ridge, about a hundred yards from the fire trail.”
There’s no time to wait. I scramble down, hands digging into wet soil, boots skidding against the slick terrain. Branches whip my face, rain pelts my back, but I don’t stop until I reach her.
She’s curled near the bottom of the embankment, half-covered in mud, her ankle twisted and swollen, one arm draped limply across her body.
“Cindy!” I drop to my knees beside her.
Her eyes flutter open slowly, lips blue, skin pale and soaked. “Daniel…”
Relief crashes through me so hard it nearly knocks me over. I cup her face gently and pull her against me.
“Jesus, baby girl,” I breathe. “You scared the hell out of me.”
Her arms wrap weakly around my neck, and she buries her face in my shoulder. “I didn’t mean to…I just wanted to get away.”
“I know, I know,” I whisper into her hair. “You did good. You stayed strong.”
