I’m out of the truck and running before Noah puts the vehicle in park, following a cleared path toward the house. I jog through the yard, focusing on my footing as best as I can. I know they’re okay—or as okay as they can be, given the situation. I just need to see it with my own eyes.
“Mercer? Ty?”
I slow as I approach the porch.
“We’re here. In the hole,” a phantom voice replies. Ty.
“Don’t you dare set foot on this porch,” Mercer growls. “Wait for Noah.”
I roll my eyes and lift one hand to my chest. Bold of him to assume Noah’s not with me—but he’s not wrong.
Heart hammering, I look over my shoulder. When I discover that Noah is just a few paces away, relief hits me.
“What do we need?” I pant, my lungs seizing from exertion and anxiety.
Noah meets my gaze, his stare hollow.
“Noah?”
He shakes his head and blinks several times, then looks past me to the decimated porch. He looks haunted, his face suddenly ashen.
“If you can find a step stool or something sturdy for us to climb on, we can get out ourselves. I would have hoisted Mercer up already if I didn’t think I’d make my own injuries worse.”
Spinning, I pin Noah with a look. “Is there a step stool in the house?”
Finally, he snaps out of it, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Yeah. I should use the back door. It’ll set the alarm off, but it’s safer that way. Can I trust you to stay put if I go in to grab it?”
Pressing my lips together, I nod. Then I spin and shout to the guys again. “Noah’s going to get a step stool. I’m waiting here. We’ll get you out as quickly as we can, I promise.”
Quiet settles around me then, the silence only amplified by the snow. A shiver rolls through me that has little to do with the cold. I’m anxious and feeling useless, shifting from foot to foot, waiting for Noah to return.
A blaring alarm pierces the silence, the sound so jarring I instantly cuff my ears.
“Sawyer?” Ty calls out, panic lacing his tone.
“It’s okay! It’s just the house alarm,” I tell him, keeping my hands over my ears. “Noah went through the back door.”
Tears well in my eyes, my vision blurring with every second I’m stuck here waiting.
Finally, the alarm stops. Then the front door swings open and Noah emerges, holding a two-step stool.
Pointing at me, he says, “If I fall in, back away from this house and call 911. Do you understand?”
I glare at him, but I know better than to argue. “Yes. I understand.”
He kneels on the porch floor, then crawls toward the hole. In slow motion, he lowers the step stool, murmuring instructions to Ty and Mercer I can’t make out.
Still swamped with a sense of uselessness, I shuffle closer. I want to help. But the second I step onto the first stair, Noah senses it, freezes, and pins me with a look.
Holding up my hands, I back away so he can focus on the task.
Mercer emerges first.
“Jesus H,” he hisses, clinging to Noah’s neck with one arm while he holds the other against his body.
The tears are running down my cheeks now, the cold burning my damp skin. Shit. It’s killing me not to go to him.
I stay rooted in place, cracking my knuckles and reminding myself to breathe.
