Part 2
Ethan did not ask who Ash was.
“He’s here,” he said, keeping his voice steady. “We’re going to get you out.”
Behind him, Maya turned toward the wolf. The animal stood on the rise with wind moving through his coat, his attention fixed on the hole Ethan had opened.
Rescuers widened the passage from the forest side. They worked with shovels, gloved hands, and a compact saw, careful not to bring down the shelf of snow and lake ice over the cavity.
“Don’t move toward us yet,” Ethan called. “Let us clear the entrance.”
“I can’t,” Leah answered.
“Are you trapped?”
“My ankle. And the snow came down.”
Her words faded into a cough.
Wade slid a small light through the opening. Its beam revealed a space no higher than three feet, formed where a granite slab leaned away from the bank. Wind-packed snow sealed the outer gap, but the floor remained mostly dry above the waterline.
Leah lay inside a silver emergency bivy. Frost covered her hat and eyelashes. One boot had been removed, and her ankle was wrapped in a torn wool shirt. Beside her sat an empty thermos, two protein-bar wrappers, a foam field pad, and several used chemical hand warmers.
The contents of a winter survival pack had bought her time.
Not comfort. Not safety.
Time.
Ethan crawled into the opening while Wade and Maya held the safety line. The air inside smelled of wet wool, stone, and the faint metallic odor of blood.
Leah’s eyes followed him. They were unfocused but alert enough to understand.
“My dad,” she whispered.
“We found the truck.”
“He’s still inside.”
“The dive team is coming.”
She closed her eyes. The movement looked less like relief than surrender.
Ethan checked her breathing, covered her head with an insulated hood, and secured her in a flexible rescue litter. The extraction took nearly twenty minutes because they could not straighten her injured leg.
As they pulled her into daylight, the wolf came down from the rise.
Several deputies raised their arms and shouted. Ethan ordered them to stop.
Ash remained thirty yards away. His body was tense, but he did not advance. Leah turned her head toward him from inside the warming bag.
“There you are,” she said.
The wolf’s ears lifted at the sound of her voice.
For two seconds, animal and girl looked across the trampled snow at one another. Then the paramedics closed the insulated cover over Leah’s face and carried her toward the rescue sled.
A sharp crack rolled beneath the lake.
Everyone froze.
The newly formed ice above the truck split along the edge of the original hole. Dark water pushed up through the fracture. Wade shouted for the crew to move back, and the rescuers withdrew to shore before the truck could shift farther into the lake.
Ash bounded uphill at the sound, stumbled on his wounded paw, and regained his balance. He stopped beneath the spruce rather than disappearing into the forest.
Leah was transferred to a heated ambulance at the staging road two miles away. From there, a medical helicopter would carry her south to a regional hospital.
Before they loaded her, she caught Ethan’s sleeve.
“Ash stayed every night,” she said.
“Save your strength.”
“You need to understand.”
Her fingers tightened despite the tremor in her hand.
“I was there the first time he almost died…”
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