I forced air into my lungs. It burned, but it came. I nodded once, jerkily.
"Okay," I whispered. "Okay. Keep going."
We kept going.
The ranger called into her radio. No sign of the girl at the lower trailheads. No response to the searchers' calls. The news hit Cole like physical blows; I watched his stride lengthen with desperate urgency.
"Sarah!" he called again, his voice fraying at the edges. "SARAH, CAN YOU HEAR ME?"
Silence. The mountain absorbed his voice and gave nothing back.
We reached the creek clearing after forty-five minutes of hard climbing. It was beautiful—a small bowl of moss and ferns,the creek chuckling over smooth stones, the last light of day painting everything in shades of gold and shadow.
It was also empty.
"She's not here," Cole said, the words hollow. "Oh God, she's not here."
"The overlook," I said. "You said there's an overlook above this."
"Quarter mile up. The trail's rough, more of a game path?—"
"Then let's go."
We scrambled up the steep, barely-there trail, branches scratching at our arms, loose rocks sliding under our feet. My lungs burned. My legs screamed. I didn't care. Sarah was up here somewhere, alone and scared, and I would climb until my heart gave out if that's what it took.
Cole called her name every thirty seconds. His voice was hoarse now, cracking. Each unanswered cry carved new lines of terror into his face.
I was starting to pray, incoherently and desperately, to any deity that listened, when Cole suddenly stopped.
"Wait." He held up a hand, his head tilted. "Did you hear that?"
I froze, straining to listen. Wind in the trees. My own ragged breathing. Nothing else.
"I don't?—"
"Shh." He closed his eyes, concentrating with an intensity that shut out the world.
And then I heard it.
Faint. So faint I thought I was imagining it. A small voice, carrying on the breeze. Singing. A tuneless, warbling melody that rose and fell with the wind.
"That's her," Cole breathed, and his face transformed, terror giving way to something like wild, desperate hope. "That song—I taught her to sing it if she ever got lost. So I could find her. So I'd know it was her."
He didn't wait for the ranger. He took off up the trail, scrambling over rocks and roots with a speed born of pure adrenaline. I followed, lungs screaming, legs burning, heart pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.
The game trail opened onto a rocky outcrop, a flat shelf of stone jutting out from the hillside. The view was staggering, endless peaks rolling toward the horizon, painted in the dying colors of sunset, the first stars pricking through the darkening sky.
And there, huddled on the far edge of the rock, her pink jacket bright against the gray stone, was Sarah.
She was small and alone and singing to herself, her arms wrapped around her knees, tears tracking clean lines through the dirt on her cheeks.
"Sarah!" Cole's voice cracked on her name.
She turned. Her face crumpled the moment she saw him and me running up.
"Uncle C!" She was on her feet and running, stumbling across the uneven rock. "Emma!"
Cole caught her in three strides, sweeping her up, crushing her against his chest. His shoulders shook. His voice broke on words that weren't quite words, just sounds of relief and terror and overwhelming love.
