Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume

couldn't see.
    Going up was easy at first. Going around was a little harder, then I hit the underhang. Good thing— I could see Brad some ten feet below me. Bad thing— I was on a cliff beyond my skill, and a good thirteen feet of far-too-smooth rock still separated me from his rope. I found a grip for two fingers on my right hand and a vertical crack to wedge my toe into and crept on. Brad stopped his half-hearted efforts to swing to the rock and watched me.
    "Swing!" Janelle called from the bottom. "You can get it!"
    "I already had one damn cam walk out!"
    Crap. Cams would do that, if you didn't set them right. Probably in a hurry, trying to beat me and Alan to the top though their route was harder…
    Forget that. I focused on the rock, on the holds, on setting my own protection and reaching the rope holding a man above two hundred feet of empty air.
    At least I knew Janelle would hold. My first club climb, some ditz had dropped the damn rope when he pinched his hand in the belay plate. Janelle and I had knocked helmets grabbing it, and though I had it too, she hadn't let go till the kid was back on the ground and reaming his friend.
    If Brad's protection would hold as well as his girlfriend did, he could have hung there till someone got up the cliff and abseiled down to him. Based on the placement though, I suspected he hung from a cam, and if he'd already lost one due to bad setting… I crept sideways another two inches. I'd found a tiny ledge for my toes, but it was thin and I didn't want to lift a foot from it for fear my weight on the other would crumble it. No matter how slowly I moved, the line fed out just right, never slack or inhibiting even though— I looked back, and saw Alan leaning out from the side of the Duck, anchored to it and perpendicular to the cliff again. He scowled when he saw me looking.
    The perfect partner. He existed. I wanted to climb every rock in the world with—
    "Watch yourself not me, you idiot!"
    Focus on the rock, Lukas Walker Blake you idiot. I slid along the ledge until it melted into smooth rock and I couldn't see anywhere else to go.
    Stuck. At a dead end, and Brad's rope was a foot beyond the end of my grasping fingers. I couldn't see a single hold to get me closer. The entire world fell silent and still while I looked. My left hand, behind me, was in a lovely solid crack, but forward— nothing. I backed up. Alan pulled in the four inches of slack I created doing so.
    "You can't leave him!" Janelle yelped.
    "He's not!" Alan snapped as I set my biggest hex in the crack. I yanked at it good and hard, both out and down, made sure—
    "Lukas," Janelle called, "do something!"
    I snapped my longest extender on the hex. "Falling!" I warned Alan, and lunged. The clip snapped on Brad's rope, connecting him to my hex; I swung back at the cliff. Maybe twelve feet I fell, to hang from the last pro I'd placed for myself.
    "Got you!" Alan called though I already felt it. I let him hold me a moment, leaned my forehead on my rope and took a deep breath. Done. That hex would hold as long as the cliff did; Brad was safe until we could get him down.
    "Swing, Brad!" Janelle called.
    Brad tried air-swimming. At me, not the cliff. I got a foot on the wall to swing away from him as Alan cursed.
    "Leave him be, you fool, or I'll sic the Morrigan and the Wild Hunt on you!"
    "You idiot, they're not even the same myth— BRAD!"
    The cam gave. Brad shot down with a scream, jerked, fell again, then something down-cliff sproinged, and he halted, hanging from my hex.
    "Got you!" Janelle called. "I've got you, Brad, and the rope's not bound."
    He'd fallen maybe thirty feet, but he hadn't hit anything. Brad spun slowly fifty feet below me, clinging to the rope with his head bowed. Scared, and who wouldn't be? But he was safe. I could hang half the Pittsburgh Steelers off that hex and trust it to hold. Between that and Janelle, he was fine until we could get him down. I let myself swing to the wall and grabbed a handhold to work my way back to Alan. Janelle talked to Brad, gentle and matter of fact.
    "We're heading up," I told her. "We'll get the club over here to help."
    She jerked her head at the top, still talking to Brad. I inched my way back to my side of the buttress, making a note to get another large hex if mine didn't get back to me.
    The climb back was just as hard, but I made it okay. I was safe behind the Duck, trying to anchor myself to the sling when I started shaking. Alan pressed his