Chapter 22

chapter

twenty-two

Sawyer saw her running toward him, her momentum enough to kick his brain into gear. She was all wide, panicked eyes and loose flying hair, and still, she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. He braced for the impact, but instead of throwing herself into his arms as he thought, she grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him away from the edge.

He stumbled backward, caught off guard by her force.

"Are you fucking insane?" she gasped out, clutching tightly to his shirt.

Shocked, he could only blink at her. "I… uh…"

"You could've slipped. You could've fallen. You're already a giant bruise. You want to add broken bones to your list of injuries? God!" She grabbed his face and pulled him down for a kiss. It was hard and fast and tasted of relief and fear. And it was over too fast, leaving him breathless and mute.

"Don't scare me like that again." She hugged him fiercely then, as if afraid he'd disappear, and he felt tears soaking into his shirt.

He momentarily forgot about the phone and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair. "Hey, I'm okay."

She smacked his chest. "What are you doing up here?"

"I got a signal."

She made a surprised sound and jerked back. He imagined she was staring at him in disbelief. "You… what?"

He grinned and held the phone up again. "I couldn't sleep, and I heard one of the phones beep. When I figured out which one it was, I tinkered with it and… I got a signal."

She grabbed it from him. "This is Bea's phone." Then, after an extended silence, she whispered, "Holy shit. We have four bars."

The phone spoke in a fast, robotic voice as she repeatedly jabbed the call icon: "Phone. Three of four. Double tap to open. Phone. Phone. Phone. Three of four. Double tap to open."

She growled softly. "It's glitching."

He chuckled and held out a hand. "No, it's not. I turned on VoiceOver. It uses different gestures and takes some getting used to. Here." When she handed him the phone, he navigated to the right spot and felt her lean in to watch as he tapped out a phone number by heart.

"How can you understand what it's saying? It's so fast."

He lifted a shoulder. "Sounds normal to me." He tapped the call icon, then put it on speaker.

Lucy sucked in a sharp breath as it rang and grabbed his wrist. "Oh my God, it's working. Who are you calling?"

"Zak. I figure 911 is overwhelmed, and we'll have a better chance at reaching?—"

"Hello?" Zak answered with an edge of suspicion in his voice.

"Zak—"

"Holy fucking hell!" Zak exclaimed, then shouted to someone off the line: "I got him! It's Sawyer!" Then he came back. "Where the fuck are you? Are you safe? Are Pierce and Raszta with—" There was a staticky moment and Zak's voice cut out.

He tightened his grip on the phone, willing the signal to hold out. "Come on. Come on."

"—injured?" Zak finished.

Sawyer lifted the phone toward his mouth and hoped the connection was strong enough that Zak could hear him through the static. "I'm on the mountain with Lucy Harper. Pierce isn't here. We're about…" He trailed off, unsure exactly where they were.

"Five miles east of Blue Mountain Fire Lookout," Lucy finished for him. "I had a tour group with me when the earthquake hit, and we've picked up a few others since. We have four adult males, one adult female, and one juvenile male with a broken leg. We left them all at the lookout to find help."

Static snapped and popped over the line. "Veronica and Conn—Blue—ower—was?—"

Sawyer shook his head in frustration and raised the phone to his mouth again. "Bad copy. Say again, Zak."

"Veronica and Connelly just flew up to Blue Mountain," Zak repeated. "The tower was abandoned."

Lucy's grip on his arm loosened in shock. "Impossible," she whispered. "Joel can't walk. Where would they go?"

"We expected to find you there, Sawyer," Zak said, and even through the static, Sawyer heard the emotion choking his voice. "Ash said you radioed him from there, but all they found was a woman's body."

Sawyer swore. If they had stayed put, Lucy would be safe now. Or… maybe they would be dead like Maya, victims of the killer.

Where the hell was everyone?

Why would they risk leaving the tower?

"I wasn't sure Ash heard me," he said into the phone. "And then our radio died, so we hiked toward the nearest cell phone tower to try and get a signal."

Zak's sigh was explosive. "Okay. All right. I'm going to reroute Vee and Connelly to the cell tower. Do you have anything to signal them?"

"I have a flare," Lucy said. "Hopefully it still works after our swim in the river yesterday."

"Jesus," Zak muttered. "Okay, hunker down. No more dips in the river. We're coming for you. As soon as you hear the rotor—" Static cut him off and the line went dead.

"Fuck." Sawyer tried calling again, but the phone had stopped responding to his touch. "Is the screen black?"

"Yes," Lucy said with a heavy sigh. "The battery must have died. It didn't have much left when I looked at it yesterday. But at least we got through. They know where we are and they're on their way."

"One problem." He looked toward her voice and hated to extinguish the hope he heard there. "The moment we set off that flare—if it works—we pinpoint our location."

"Isn't that the point?"

"Yes, but more than Veronica and Connelly will be able to find us."

"Oh," she said softly, and he heard her drop onto a nearby boulder as the realization hit. "Oh, shit. The shooter."