Blind Trust (12 page)

Chapter 12

THE MORNING BROUGHT with it more of the white stuff. After next to
no sleep, I found myself on the driveway shoveling long before anyone else had
tumbled out of bed. Renee seemed to be one of those people blessed with an
internal alarm clock. No matter what situation we were in, come seven o’clock
there would be a smell of cooking and the clinking of plates.

I finished up my morning’s work and spread some salt over the top
to make doubly sure no tiny paws skidded. I felt Renee’s presence behind me.

“Morning,” I said, enjoying the sounds of a mountain forest in
full song.

Renee chuckled and I turned to find her leaning against the
doorjamb, two steaming cups in hand.

“It’s funny. I got so used to you knowing I was around that going
back to reality . . .” She chuckled again. “People must have thought I was
odd.”

“You expecting them to sense you?” I asked.

“Yes and no.” She stepped forward and handed me a cup. “I found it
hard readjusting to people not seeing inside me.”

I took the steaming offering and drained it in one gulp. By now
Renee was used to this and handed me the second cup. “Maybe that’s ’cause you
didn’t want them to?”

Renee smiled. “Not everyone
wants
to, like you, Aeron.” She
stood beside me as we looked out at the snowy wilderness. “I can’t think of
many people who would have come back last night.”

“Good thing I ain’t just people then,” I answered, then drained
the second cup.

The birds whistled out their calls. The tree tops were lost
beneath the white mist. It was so peaceful here.

“You don’t seem as scared as you did last night,” I said, glancing
at her. The fear cloud was paler this morning for sure.

“Daylight tends to bring back my sanity,” she said.

Two birds chased each other through the trees, then came to land
on the snow and bobbed about. They looked like they didn’t have a care in the
world. I smiled down at them, thankful for that reminder of simple joy.

“Aeron . . . the scars . . .” Renee sighed, walked to the
banister, and leaned over it. Her gaze locked on the birds, she seemed paler
somehow. Like she was attempting, at least mentally, to camouflage herself with
the snow. “I can’t let them hurt you too.”

So this was the dark stretch that Nan was talking about. “I don’t
know what happened to you.” I went to her side and rested my hip against the
wood. “And you don’t have to tell me nothin’—”

“I
want
to,” she whispered. Again, her intensity shot like
firecrackers from her. Her profiled features almost glowed white in the
reflected light from the snow. “But what I
want
and what is best are two
different things.” She dropped her chin almost to her chest.

I looked back at the bobbing buddies. They had found the path and
were attempting to hack at it with their beaks. I walked to a box next to the
wall and pulled out a bag of seeds. I scattered a handful over the pathway
before hanging the bag inside the feeder.

Renee watched me as I headed back to her and reached out to touch
my arm. “I need you to know that no matter how far I have to separate myself
from you . . .”

Her pale grey eyes gazed up at me, the cyan rims caught in the
light. I could see her forcing every wall she had down.

“I meant what I said back in Oppidum. I am not playing with you
like Sam was and I
do
care about you.” The truth glistened as it fell
from her lips.

Knowing that her words were genuine eased the tension from my
muscles and I let out a huge sigh of relief. Renee smiled and squeezed my arm.
She did care. She really did care.

I wanted to say something, to tell her that it meant everything.
To tell her that I didn’t know how the heck to operate without her being
around. They seemed like dumb things to say. Things that, no doubt, she would
have guessed and tolerated. There were times when I felt like a six-foot-five
puppy dog following her about.

Before I could find a way to look as dumb as I felt, a little face
appeared in the doorway.

Renee looked at Zack and smiled at him. “You hungry?”

Zack nodded and looked at me, he wanted a hug or as we sometimes
called them back in Oppidum, a
cwtch
. I went to him and hoisted him up
till he was perched on my hip. I carried him into the kitchen as Renee set to
work concocting us breakfast.

“Waffles sound good?” she asked as she whipped around the kitchen
like some top chef. I would have asked her if she’d ever been a chef during the
course of her CIG career but I knew she wouldn’t appreciate too many questions
in front of the little guy.

Zack nodded. Then he started to move his hands around like he was
rubbing his stomach.

“You okay?” I asked. “You got pain?”

Renee looked up from her task and smiled and flicked her finger
out from her nose at him. Now, I ain’t completely simple but I was lost and
they both knew it from the laughter that greeted me.

“Zack uses sign language,” Renee explained. She rubbed her stomach
in different directions like he had. “This means thank you.” Then she flicked
her finger at me. “That’s ‘true’ but is used as a way of saying, ‘You’re
welcome.’”

“I suck at things like this,” I confessed to Zack. “I’ll stick to
the flashes.”

He beamed at me and Renee raised her eyebrows. “Flashes?” She was
only half concentrating on her task and half on me.

“Sure. Zack sends out his thought and I pick up on it.” Before Renee
could start her scowling, I lifted my hands up. “It just happened and I needed
to know his name.”

“Was he injured?” she asked.

“Don’t think so,” I said. “Why?”

Renee went back to her task of cooking, and I could see her
thoughts whirring around. “It’s like when you really need something from me and
you think it.”

She froze and I rolled my eyes in Zack’s direction. “I freak her
out.”

He nodded.

“Need something?” She wasn’t facing me but the careful, considered
tone gave away that she was panicking about something. She gave me a stomach
ache just watching her sometimes.

“Like now, you
really
want me to tell you I can’t read you
at all.” I leaned on the counter.

Her shoulders slumped.

“It’s only when you want me to read it,” I reassured her. Not that
I knew that for a fact.

If it was anyone else I’d find it real easy to delve into their
thoughts if I wanted to. Most folks’ thoughts were connected to their feelings
but there were some, like Renee, who could block my prying. Not that I ever
pried voluntarily, I had enough junk in my own head.

“So what am I thinking now?” she asked, again that careful tone,
that cautious timber.

“Your aura is all pink and wavy,” I told her. “Apart from that, I
ain’t got a clue.”

Renee mumbled something under her breath too quiet for me to
understand and I looked at Zack who had been closer.

He shot her words into my head. “
Can’t see anything to do with
herself.”

“Nope,” I answered, shooting Zack a grin. “But then I told you
that already.”

Shocked, she turned around, nearly knocking the waffles on the
floor.

“How did you—?” She looked at Zack and put her hands on her hips.
“I guess I know whose side you are on.”

Her chastising was playful but Zack bolted toward me and attached
himself, limpet-like, to me.

With her looking at me for an explanation, I cuddled Zack and
lowered my voice. “He had some nasty things happen in front of him.”

Renee walked to Zack and took his hands. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,”
she said, her tone as soft as I’d ever heard it. “I’ll never hurt you, okay?”

“She’s a hero,” I told him, grinning. “She should even have her
own cloak.”

Renee put her hands on her hips. She could be a lot like Nan
sometimes. “Aeron—”

“She saved me once from a really bad person . . . she just sweeps
in and—”

“Aeron!” Renee snapped and I stopped my babbling.

“What?”

I heard Martha opening the door behind me and swallowed hard. “Uh
. . . lucky escape, huh?”

Instead of being mad at me like I was expecting, Renee’s eyes
twinkled and she winked at Zack before heading back to rescue the waffles. Zack
hugged me tighter and I almost heard his sweet voice in my head.

“
She’s a hero like you,”
he said and his face set with
steely determination. “
I like her.”

“Wait till you taste her cooking,” I mumbled. “Then you’ll really
be a goner.”

Chapter 13

THE MORNING MOVED quicker than I had expected after we dropped off
Zack to Martha and headed with the rescue team back down to the avalanche
scene. Sheriff McKinley led most of the operations now that he was all fixed up
but it was a thankless task. Most of the folks who had been in the vehicles had
been swept from the road down the steep cliff side.

By the afternoon we had started rappelling down the snowy drop,
searching what areas we could reach. I didn’t hold out high hopes for survivors
as the hollowness of lost lives hung so thick in the air that I was sure even
the least sensitive soul was aware of it.

Renee marshaled the afternoon by whispering at me until I was
pretty sure that her voice was a constant track replaying over and over. It got
to the point where Mark asked me if I wanted a hot drink and I stood waiting
for Renee to give me the answer. It took a while for me to notice that both he
and Renee were looking at me and by that time there was no way I could get out
of the situation without seeming deaf, crazy, or just plain dumb.

“I . . . sure. Thanks,” I answered, making a show of staring down
the snowy slopes.

“We did the best we could,” he said and I felt a hand squeeze my
shoulder. “We all appreciate that you guys are working with us.” He cleared his
throat as he stood next to me. “Not a lot of people would spend so much time
trying to help strangers.”

“I think you’d be surprised there.” I smiled at Renee and my words
brought a flush of color to her cheeks. “You see, some folks will put their
life’s dream on the line for someone, even when the odds say that it’s a
hopeless case.”

Mark raised his eyebrows and the skeptical glazing of his eyes
made me smile. “Can’t imagine anyone doing that for me. But then, I can’t
imagine doing that for anyone.”

“Some folks are just heroes,” I said.

Renee fiddled with her coat sleeve.

“I just hope someday I can be like her,” I whispered, more a
thought to myself than out loud. Renee had given me freedom from a place I
thought I’d never be released from, she’d stuck by me and the minute she was
going through hell, what was I doing?

“You’re more hero than I am,” Renee whispered as Mark wandered
back to the group. I guessed he was confused by my mutterings.

“Uh uh,” I said. “I can’t shoot like you. I can’t protect people
like you and I sure as heck can’t organize a rescue operation like you.”

“I spent my life in training to do it,” Renee said, nudging me to
tell me to keep my voice down. “With training you’d be better.”

“You think I’m going anywhere near a gun?”

Renee smiled. “Maybe not the sharp-shooting—”

“Maybe nothin’,” I said. “I ain’t touching the things.”

I expected some kind of protest, some reason why I should. I was
prepared for some explanation that, with the right amount of cajoling by some
stern-looking shooting coach, I’d be as good as she was or as willing.

Instead, Renee stood smiling at me like I’d just told her the best
piece of news she’d heard all day. I shrugged, not knowing how else to respond.
I stared down at my feet, shuffling them. She reached out for my arm.

“Aeron, I—” 

“Help!”

My head filled with a blasting voice which rattled through my
skull. I gripped my head.

“Help me . . . God, please help me!”

“Aeron what’s—?”

“Someone’s down there!” My voice sounded shrill to my own ears. It
rose above the clanging din of the pleading voice. I looked down. I had the
harness on and was sliding my way down the slope, Renee next to me.

“Where. I need a direction.” Renee’s eyes tracked over the shards
of glass, debris, and spear-like tree remains littering our way.

“Oh Lord . . . Help!”

I scanned the route, listening for something to tell me where the
survivor was. The smell of gasoline registered and I searched for any kind of
vehicle, crushed or otherwise.

“Gas,” I told Renee. “Anything, anywhere you can see it?”

Her grey eyes almost sparkled as the low setting sun washed
everything in pinks and oranges like it was painting the deep blue. Those rich
eyes travelled every inch of the ground as I watched her, the desperation
thudded through my veins. She would know. She was the hero.

Her gaze halted and her eyes narrowed. “There’s two trees bent
over. Glass debris . . . it rolled.” She looked at me. “It’s our best bet.”

“Anything?” one of the rescue team yelled down to us.

I nodded at Renee. “Lead the way.”

“West of us,” Renee called up, her focus solely on the task,
Commander Black roaring to the surface. I felt tingles just watching her.

“Heading down there. Be ready,” she called up to the team.

“You got it!” Mark yelled back.

She looked at me and shrugged. “It’s quicker.”

Her feet glided over the surface like she had been born to hang on
the end of a rope. Her instructions to me, although quiet, were filled with
confidence. This was her element, right here, the precipice between life and
death where all heroes thrive.

Me, on the other hand, heck, I must have looked like a demolition
ball as I fumbled after her. She was cat like, I was more like a buffalo
attempting to ice skate.

“You getting anything?” she asked as she cleared a mean-looking
shard of metal out of the way. “Any closer to them?”

The voice was quiet, my own heart had replaced the alarmed
begging. “I can’t hear anything.” I could hear myself panting.

We had to find them
. Please let us find them
.

“Focus,” Renee said. “Close your eyes. You did it with Charlie.”

That was true. I had. “But I don’t know their name,” I said,
opening my eyes. “I called out his name.”

A hand touched my own and Renee’s steely determination blasted
from her like a howling gale. “You can do this. I believe in you.”

Gripping her hand, I closed my eyes. I had never been taught how
to use my burdens and I’d spent my whole life trying to block everything out. I
knew about jewelry guiding me and now names, but how did I find this person.

“Concentrate on what you heard,” Renee said. “You smelled gas. Did
you hear anything?”

I tried to recall the voice. “Some kinda bird. Like a
shak,
shak, shak
sound.”

Renee squeezed my arm, and I opened my eyes. “Steller’s jay.” She
headed to the place she’d picked out. “Thank God for Welcome Wagons.”

“Welcome—”

“Little picnic robbing thieves,” she said with a grin. “Where
there’s food . . .”

I scrambled after her to keep up. The snow and ice made its way
into my boots. I promised myself that the next chattering bird I saw, I’d give
it a bag of the nicest seeds I could find.

“Please . . . please . . .”

“They’re fading fast. Can you see anything?” The panic shot
through me like a bullet. I gripped hold of her. Yanked her backward. A blast
of wind. Something heavy swished past us. Renee panted hard as she gripped onto
me.

“Thanks,” she managed as she looked upward.

I said nothing. I was too busy watching the massive chunk of tree
take out everything it hit below us.

“Safe?” she asked.

“Think so.” In truth, I didn’t know what to think. I was close to
just clinging to the mountain and staying there until everything thawed out. “I
ain’t liking snow all that much.”

We moved over to the mound of trees and Renee held out her arm to
stop me. “The trees are acting like a safety net.”

A loud cracking sound echoed around us. I jumped and gripped her
arm, making her yelp.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I guess we gotta move quick?”

Renee sighed. I didn’t like the sound of it, not one bit. “I think
we have to weigh the odds here.”

She silenced me with her hand on my mouth as I mumbled an
argument.

“Aeron, I know you don’t want to hear this but that is all about
to go crashing down.” She looked into my eyes, hers open and imploring. “You
remember what you said about Nan making sure you survived?”

I nodded.

“There’s a reason. You have a lot to do. I can’t risk that by
letting you go near those trees.”

I knew she was talking sense, but it didn’t matter. “I’m not just
going to stand—”

“So you will wait here,” she said. “I’m going in.”

“What? No.” I put my hand out to stop her but she shot me a smile
as she darted out of reach.

“Some of us have less to lose,” she said.

“There’s not much hope for me anyway.”

Renee had started to navigate her way into the trees by the time I
realized the last words had not come from her lips.

What did she mean not much hope?

The jay continued to sound his alarm as I watched Renee. The
rescuers up top waved and yelled at me. Their frantic warnings jarred my
senses. Renee had disappeared from sight, the cracking and groaning grew
louder.

Had my mother seen something and told her? Why did Renee think
there was no hope?

I knew that I should be paying attention. I knew that in those
branches was somebody who needed my help. I knew that the rescuers were trying to
alert me to the fact that a wreck of a car above was going to come sliding down
our way pretty soon.

None of it came close to shaking me free of my daze, why did Renee
think she had no hope?

A rumbling pile of rocks tumbled past my shoulder as the sun was
starting to dip her head behind the mountains opposite us. The smell of
gasoline filled my nostrils. The cold, wet slosh of snow in my boots. I
shivered, tired and confused.

Renee was the kind of woman who always pulled through. She was a
hero, heroes didn’t get squashed or lose hope.

Crack
.

My body pulsed into life before I realized I was moving. The trees
were bent past their breaking point as I clambered into them. I felt a sharp
pain on my right arm and prickled burning. I didn’t care. She was all that
mattered.

“Renee?” I called out. “Renee?”

“Aeron!” Her voice was part terror, part angry, part relief. “I
told you—”

“Quit whining,” I muttered. “Where are they?”

Renee was perched precariously on top of a car which was being
held in place by the tree branches jutting through the rear window. She was
attempting to haul a man upward through the passenger side.

“If I’m good for one thing,” I told her as I hauled myself upward
until I was straddling two tree branches like a ski jumper. “It’s heavy lifting.”

“There’s a woman inside too,” Renee told me. “I think her leg is
trapped.”

Renee had already made the smashed glass as safe as she could. All
I had to do was yank him out. I could do that.

“Stand over there,” I told her, pointing to a sturdier patch of
trees.

“Aeron, I can’t let you—”

I gripped hold of the guy’s arms. “If I’m so damn important, then
I’ll be just fine. Now get.”

Renee did as she was told. I focused on the guy. “One lift and
I’ll have you out, okay?”

He nodded.

With a nice clean motion, I pulled him out and laid him on the
strongest branches I could find. “Thank God for Franken-Frei and her
punishments,” I mumbled to myself.

“My wife,” he managed to slur. “Pregnant.”

“Renee take him out of the trees,” I said. “Get a rope around
him.”

With him no longer a dead weight, Renee got the rope around him
and managed to haul him out through the trees. Another loud crack rippled
through the darkening air. My heart was so loud that I was pretty sure it was
gonna burst from me at any second.

“Can you hear me?” I asked the limp form of the woman. “Can you
move?”

I was pretty sure she was gone until a quiet groan fell from her
lips. I heard a rustling to my left and saw Renee staggering back, clambering
over the sharp branches and trunks.

“She’s alive,” I said. “Just.”

Renee didn’t say a word but got up on the car in front of me and
climbed down into the vehicle.

“Her legs aren’t trapped,” she called up after a few seconds.

Crack.

“Renee, we gotta move.” I looked all around us. The whole thing was
about to plummet.

“Cutting the seat belt.”

Crack.

Crack
.

The tree to my left snapped completely and took a large chunk of
debris bouncing into the darkness.

“Renee,” I squeaked. “Hurry.”

“I’m going as fast as I can.”

The creaking under my right foot made me wobble.