No one even discussed the possibility of her being dead. She was Pack. She’d be brought back, no matter what. “Let’s go,” Indigo said, and it was the first words any of them had spoken since she’d shared the details of the accident. Now they ran together, the location being impossible to reach by even the most rugged of vehicles.
Every second that passed brought Silvia closer to death, so they pushed and made it in under half the usual time. Dropping the gear she’d carried in a pile a little ways back from the cliff edge, Indigo belly-crawled to the part that had crumbled until she could peer over it. Her eyesight was changeling keen, but Brace had been right. She could only just see the pale blue of Silvia’s jeans, the red of her cardigan as she lay crumpled on a ledge at least a hundred meters down, one hand outflung. Her legs appeared to be twisted under her body in a way that they simply shouldn’t have been.
Aware of Drew crawling up beside her, she turned her head. “What do you think?” She’d done more than one climb with him, knew he was highly skilled.
“One of us will have to rappel down,” he said and glanced over his shoulder, pointing to a sturdy pine. “We can use that tree to rig up the main anchor, set up a belay line for backup.”
Indigo agreed. Waiting until they’d both drawn back from the edge, she nodded at Sing-Liu to bring her the harness. “I’ll—”
Drew put a hand on her arm. “That’s one hell of a dangerous cliff face. I’ll go—I’ve got more experience.”
That first sentence irritated her, but she shrugged it off to focus on the practical reason why she was the better choice for the descent. “If something goes wrong, it’ll be easier for the people up here to handle someone of my weight than yours.”
“Not with Tai’s strength added to yours and Sing-Liu’s—and if Silvia needs to be stabilized, I’ve had more medical training than you.”
Indigo had forgotten about the modules he’d done with Lara. Added to the fact that he was the more experienced climber, it tipped the scales in favor of his descent. She was about to say so when he shook his head and said, “We can’t waste time arguing, Indy. Sing-Liu, give me the harness.”
It was a slap that made her head ring. “I’m the lieutenant,” she reminded him with ice in her tone. “I give the commands.” Hell, she thought even as the words spilled out, she’d deal with his actions later. Right now, Silvia needed them. “Here’s what—”
Drew got in her face before she could finish. “You might be the lieutenant,” he bit out, “but I’m a senior member of the pack, and you’ve got no cause to fucking ignore my opinion just because you insist on seeing me as a less dominant young male to the exclusion of all else.”
Indigo was damned if she was going to have this fight in public. Grabbing the harness, she slammed it onto his chest. “Gear up.”
He began to do so, moving at high speed, but his temper continued to flash. “If we weren’t sleeping together,” he muttered, “you would’ve listened to me from the word go, instead of trying to go in half-assed because you think you have something to prove.”
Indigo’s hold on her own temper snapped, a snarl burning its way out of her throat even as her claws sliced out. That was when Hawke appeared out of the trees. “Enough.” It was a snapped order. “Drew, check your harness. Indigo, do you need to take a walk?”
Only a lifetime of control allowed her to rein back the wolf, to say, “I’m fine. I’ll organize things on this end.” As she spoke, she realized Lara and Brace had also arrived. The fact that they’d witnessed Hawke slapping her down further increased her icy rage, but she kept it in ruthless check.
Drew didn’t say a word as he double-checked everything and slipped a listening device in his ear while Sing-Liu clipped a mike to the collar of his tee. “I’m ready.”
“So are we.” Indigo had set up the anchor using the tree as a base, but she and the others would manually control the backup; they couldn’t be too careful with two lives at stake. “Go.”
Hooking himself up, Drew disappeared over the edge of the cliff, and Indigo’s heart slammed bruisingly hard against her ribs for a long, still instant. Then the rope went taut and she knew he’d started to rappel down.
Having made the descent faster than would’ve been safe for most, Andrew crouched down beside his fallen packmate, doing a visual check for injuries after he’d ensured her airway was clear and felt for a pulse. “Broken leg, broken ribs, it looks like,” he said into the mike, “severe bruising, a bad gash on the back of her head.” He could feel her blood, wet and sticky. “She’s unconscious, but breathing.”
Lara asked him to assess the breaks more closely. “Do you think you can move her onto a stretcher for us to haul up?”