Dana Mentink - Final Resort

“Luca,” she screamed, her fear magnified by the thin air as she slipped away from him.

All thoughts of caution were gone now as he foundered down the slope, stumbling and falling as he went. At one point he was almost close enough to grab her, his fingertips grazing the slippery fabric of her jacket.

It wasn’t enough. She skidded right through the scant black shrubs that protruded through the frozen layer at the water’s edge and sailed out onto the iced surface of the lake, finally coming to a stop about ten feet out. Mack Dog started to follow her, but Luca grabbed his collar and yanked him to a sitting position.

“Stay.”

Something in Luca’s ferocious tone convinced the dog, and he sat obediently on the snow.

“Ava?” Luca called. For an agonizing moment, she lay still on the ice.

“Ava,” he called again. “Look at me.”

Slowly she raised her head, and his heart resumed beating. The ice held and she was conscious.

“Listen,” he said. “You have to stay completely still.”

She nodded and he put a tentative foot out on the ice. There was an ominous crack, loud as a gunshot. He stepped quickly back and checked his watch. He estimated the time he’d texted Stephanie to be about ten minutes ago. Help would be arriving soon, but he could not count on it. He looked around for a stick long enough to reach out to her and found nothing.

His mind flashed back to the contents of Uncle Paul’s truck and the long tangled rope thrown out upon the snow.

“I’m too heavy to walk out to you. I’m going to go get a rope,” he yelled to her. “Don’t move until I get back.”

She didn’t answer, instead laying her head down on her arm.

The motion caused his heart to pulse with a mixture of emotions he could not decipher.

He wondered as he struggled up the hill, Mack Dog behind him, if she was thinking of her mother then. Luca suppressed a surge of anger at the woman who had cut Ava’s heart to ribbons. How could anyone kill themselves and leave a vulnerable teen behind?

His muscles protested as he cleared the slope and ran up the iced road. He wanted to take out his phone and reassure himself that Stephanie was on the way but he could not do it, so strong was the rising tension inside him. Ava was petite. He could recall with ridiculous clarity how her slender wrist fit easily in the circle of his fingers when they would conduct arm wrestling contests. Delicate, but so was the ice that was the last barricade between her and a slow death by drowning.

He was sprinting now, the snow increasing from trickles to torrents, obscuring his vision momentarily as he paused to wipe his eyes. The truck swam into view, drifts of snow collected across the bed and partially concealing the contents strewn on the ground. He found the trail of rope, its end poking up just enough for him to grab hold. As he pulled it up, he noticed tiny metallic circles, like bits of confetti, slowly being swallowed up by the falling snow. He snatched one up and stowed it in his pocket before taking a quick look in the truck.

As he’d suspected. No keys, but he did find a leash which he clipped on the excited Mack Dog.

They took off running back to the lake, both Luca and the dog alternately stumbling on the slick ground. He tied Mack Dog to the fender of Ava’s car, eliciting a bark of outrage.

“Sorry, can’t have you adding any weight to the ice.” He raced to the edge of the slope, immensely relieved to see Ava still lying there.

“I’m coming down,” he called.

She didn’t move.

Quickly he tied the rope around the sturdy trunk of a pine that stood sentry over the valley below. He unrolled it as he plunged back down the slope, praying it would be long enough to reach her. He made it to the water’s edge with a good fifteen feet to spare.

Enough.

Barely.

“I’m going to throw you the rope. Grab an end and I’ll haul you in.”

No answer.

“Ava,” he shouted, startling a bird in the nearby shrubs. “You’ve got to get the rope.”

With no response from her, the feeling of dread in his gut increased. He knew that head injuries were silent killers. Her progress down the hill had been bumpy. Pulling his phone out with fingers gone numb from the biting cold, he saw the message.

SOS rec’d. 911 en route.

Stephanie didn’t waste time asking superfluous questions. She was on her way with the ski patrol, he was sure.

But how long?

The snow was falling fast now. Ava’s jacket was already covered in powder, flakes plastering her hair. How long before her body became hypothermic? “Ava, wake up,” he shouted again, his strident tone ringing across the ice.

Something in her unconscious brain must have heard him, because she stirred.

“That’s it,” he called again. “Wake up. Open your eyes. I’m going to throw you the rope.”

She raised her head, expression confused.

Breathing hard, he forced his tone from commanding to something calmer. “Here,” he said. “I’m right here. You need to reach out your hand and get the rope, okay?”

She blinked and her blue eyes rapidly widened, a look of panic setting in.

Two seconds later he figured out why as the ice under her body broke, sending out splintering cracks in all directions.

THREE

Ava’s stomach lurched in terror as she felt her legs drop through the ice and into the frigid water below. The breath was driven from her lungs. She’d thought she was numb from lying there for so long, but the cold was like an electric shock, jolting her body to the core. Arms scrambling, she tried to grab on to something, but her fingers raked through loose snow without finding a handhold. Inexorably she was sliding toward the exposed depths of the lake. Her feet splashed into the water.

“Luca,” she screamed.

His body stiffened, mouth open.

Nothing she did slowed her progress. Just before her torso slipped in, she managed to hook her hands into a crack, holding the frozen mass to her body like a bizarre icy life preserver. Her legs remained submerged, but her head and shoulders were above water, at least for the moment.

Luca was shouting something, but the thundering of her heart drowned out his cries. She felt as if the lake was some live thing, sucking her down to the bottom, like it had done to her mother. In a few moments, her body would be claimed by it.

Ava felt the spark of anger light in her belly. Her mother had willingly offered herself up to death, walked into those dark waters and left her sixteen-year-old daughter behind with only an unpredictable uncle and a wounded father to care for her. She chose the lake, she chose her own drowning.

Why? Ava felt the puzzle rise again in spite of the horror of her situation.

Her mind circled the question that she’d wondered about countless times before.

Why did you choose these frigid waters over me?

Ava felt that old pain lance through her, through her frozen legs and into her heart, right up to her fingertips which were rapidly becoming too numb to maintain their grip.

I won’t give up.

Ever.

I won’t make the same choice you did, Mom.

She tried to hug the ice more tightly, but the strength seemed to be leaching out into the water that surrounded her. She kicked her legs to keep the circulation going, but they felt like two pieces of wood.

Luca tossed something at her. A rope, she finally realized. A spark of hope thrilled inside her as it slithered across the ice.

She tried to grab for it, but the motion almost cost her her grip on the ice. The rope fell away and disappeared into the water between two floating pieces. She did not dare let go of the ice to fish around for it.

“I can’t,” she said, breathless.

“Yes, you can,” Luca shouted, enraged. He reeled in the coil and tried again.