Jonas (Minnesota Marshalls #2)(3)
Author: Susan May Warren

 

Then the cable area ended, and a trail led down the slope spotted with snow and shale and death. Probably it hadn’t been a great idea to rope up together, but she wasn’t going to let her friend tumble down the mountain.

 

Alone.

 

Although, maybe, if she’d let Ina go, Sibba would have been able to get help. As it was, she and Ina had worked together to slow themselves in the slick shale and snow and had ended up winded on a sharp plane of rock jutting out into a black abyss.

 

Frodo and Samwise watching the world shatter around them.

 

Occasionally, thunder rumbled, and a splatter of lightning would crack open the sky, illuminating the thousand-foot drop below.

 

So yes, this was exactly what Sibba needed after the summer she’d endured.

 

“I’m sorry,” Ina said now, her teeth chattering.

 

Sibba still wore her backpack and now pulled it off, holding it between her knees, and grabbed her torch. The light shone on Ina’s torn leggings and the swelling ankle. “It wasn’t your fault.”

 

“I will walk before I let us perish out here.”

 

Attagirl. But what did she expect? Ina was a fellow soldier—had done a decade in the Slovenian military, and had endured the same brutal summer that Sibba had.

 

“We should have listened to that guy.”

 

Sibba knew exactly to whom Ina was referring, thank you, because he’d sorta gotten under her skin with his know-it-all American tone. She’d been around enough Yanks to spot them, all arrogant and bossy and—

 

“How long do you think we’ve been off-trail?”

 

They’d slid quite a bit before they’d worked themselves to this place, and then there was the matter of getting Ina settled as well as straightening out her leg and—“Maybe a half hour?”

 

“How far are we from the mountain hut?”

 

“I don’t know. Two hundred meters, probably? Not far.”

 

“Get me up. I can do this.”

 

Now Sibba shone the light at her friend. Ina winced and held up her hand. Sibba flicked the torch away from her face so her expression hovered just in the glow. “The shale is slippery. And yes, I think I could carry you up, or at least help you…in the daylight. But without knowing where I’m going…we could take a header off this mountain.”

 

“Then you should go, without me.”

 

Sibba focused the light up, just to give their terrain another look-see. “I don’t love the idea of staying here all night, but I don’t want to leave you, either.”

 

“Give me a sleeping bag.”

 

“I didn’t bring one.”

 

Ina looked at her. “What’s in your pack?”

 

“Listen, you said you booked us at the hut. I brought water and some food and—”

 

“Your glider.”

 

Sibba lifted a shoulder. “I thought, if it was nice out—”

 

“Fine. Okay. I have a space blanket. And water. Leave me and go get help.”

 

Sibba shook her head. “I don’t…I’m not…” She looked up. “It’s too dangerous.”

 

Ina grabbed her hand. “Think this out like you would a minefield. You can see the dangers, but you can also see the way through, right?”

 

“I’m not superman. I can’t see in the dark. And I can’t fly.”

 

“Most of the time.”

 

“Ha. But especially not in the rain. This could go very wrong.”

 

“Fine. I’ll share my blanket with you. But it’s going to get cold.”

 

It was going to get cold. Sibba had been on top of Triglav plenty of times when the air turned her fingers into blocks of ice even when the sun was shining.

 

She leaned back and snuggled in with Ina as she unfolded her thin blanket. “Next time you want me to get my mind off…um, things, maybe just suggest a nice outing for gelato.”

 

“Don’t talk about gelato when I’m freezing.”

 

“Hello? Hello down there?”

 

The voice made her lean up, and there, some seven meters up on the trail, was a man waving a torch.

 

“Down here!” she said in Slovenian, but then realized the man had spoken English.

 

Oh, wait—

 

“I’m coming down to you!”

 

Perfect. Now some impulsive bloke would careen down the hill and land on them, or worse, knock them off their perch into the abyss below. “Stay there! It’s too slippery!”

 

Of course the man ignored her. She barely made him out in the dim light of her headlamp as he moved down the slope, working his way from one craggy outcropping to another, like Spiderman.

 

Or like he might be going through a minefield.

 

So, maybe she’d been a little hasty in her judgment. Still…please don’t kill us…

 

Another man moved behind him, his headlamp catching the orange jacket of the first.

 

Yep. Mr. America.

 

But a couple of trapped, injured people on a ledge couldn’t exactly complain who their rescuers might be, right?

 

“Over here!”

 

Spidey worked his way down to them, taking his time, and finally slid down to the ledge. Truth was, the grade wasn’t as steep as it was fast, and the ledge was large enough to pitch a tent, maybe host dinner for a futbol team, so now she felt a little silly when he looked at her, breathing hard, and said, “You okay?”

 

“We’re fine. My friend tripped, and—”

 

“Oh, wow. That’s bad.” He’d crouched and now gently touched Ina’s ankle. “Do you have anything to splint it with?”

 

Ina moved his hands from her ankle. “I think I can walk on it.”

 

He gave her the same look that Sibba probably had.

 

The other man landed behind him. Tall and dark, she also remembered him from the summit. “Good thing you had your light on. It’s so dark up here we might have missed you.”

 

“I can’t believe you came out in this storm,” Ina said, a little bit of emotion in her voice.

 

“Glad to help,” said the first man. “My name is Jonas.”