Cut and Run 2 - Sticks and Stones

lost his balance on the slight rise of the embankment, toppling over as his father caught him. He rolled to his back, knowing with a certainty that came with encroaching death that he would not be getting back up under his own power.
    “They’re coming for us,” Earl assured him as he pulled Ty into his arms and sank slowly to the ground along with him. “I can hear ’em now, boy, just stay with us.”
    In the floating distance, he could hear shouts, but Ty found that he couldn’t move. He fought to stay conscious. Shame washed through him, just as painful as the fever that ravished him. He had failed spectacularly in front of the only person he’d ever wanted to make proud of him. But even that shame wasn’t powerful enough now to get him to his feet.
    “Stay with us, son,” Earl murmured into his ear pleadingly. “Hold on.”
    “Grady, don’t you fucking dare give up after I dug you out of that basement,” Zane growled from somewhere close. “You didn’t give up then, and you won’t give up now.”
    Ty’s eyes fluttered open, searching for Zane’s eyes. Above him, the sky was a startling blue. The scrub pine was a bright, almost neon green, and the few trees in view boasted brilliant leaves of orange and yellow and red. Ty had never seen such colors in his life. It was beautiful. The faces looking down on him looked like airbrushed photos, taken and perfected and stylized until the colors were stark contrasts of highlights and lowlights, making them look ethereal.
    He met Zane’s dark eyes, the eyes he’d been searching for. “Zane,” he managed to gasp. He tried to think of something to say, an apology for dragging the man up here and thanks for all he’d done. I love you . But nothing came to his lips. He just closed his eyes, seeing Zane’s face imprinted in the darkness. He held to the material of Earl’s coat, trying to keep himself from spinning and swaying on the ground. “Mountain’s moving,” he told them all in alarm, the words slurred horribly.
    “Ty,” Zane barked, his voice a mixture of anger and desperation. “Open your eyes,” he ordered. “Get up!”
    Ty did open his eyes, but when he tried to sit up, his limbs wouldn’t cooperate. He put every ounce of his energy and will into getting off the ground, but he realized with a sinking sensation that he hadn’t even managed to lift his head.
    “Get up, Beaumont, it ain’t your time yet!” Earl called to him, sounding far away and gauzy.
    He was dying. After all the things he’d been through that could and probably should have killed him, he had to go and get attacked by a goddamn mountain lion. Someone somewhere was going to find that funny.
    Ty’s eyes focused on the impossibly blue sky overhead as he felt himself slipping away, and the pain faded too. He idly thought that angel wings sounded a whole lot like the rotors of a chopper, and he’d really have liked the chance to tell Zane that.

Chapter 16

    Z ANE reflected on the past painful twelve hours as he walked tiredly down the long, door-lined hall. Mara Grady, with an assist from Chester, had lit a fire under the local search-and-rescue people as soon as they hadn’t shown up on the day they’d planned—she’d actually mentioned a bad feeling; Zane was pitifully glad that she hadn’t ignored it—and several rangers with dogs had found them on the mountain just as Ty collapsed. A rescue helicopter had been in their wake, and Ty had been airlifted off the mountain to this hospital in Charleston.
    He’d barely made it.
    The doctors assured Earl and Mara that Ty was now out of danger. He’d woken once so far to be told what had happened, only to immediately fall back into unconsciousness.
    Zane turned the corner at the end of the hall and slowed as he saw Earl outside the door to Ty’s hospital room. To Zane’s eyes and satisfaction, Earl Grady seemed to be agonizing over the state of his son. The elder Grady stood with his arms crossed and his head down as he rubbed at his newly shaved chin and frowned, looking into the room where his son slept. He hadn’t gone too far from the room, but he hadn’t gone inside much, either. It was like he couldn’t make up his mind. As far as Zane was concerned, he could stay outside. He wasn’t feeling too charitable toward Earl Grady. If the man hadn’t gone overboard insulting Ty—and fuck, Earl couldn’t have thought of a worse thing to call Ty than a coward—then his son, Zane’s partner, wouldn’t