Chapter 2

I held her tighter, feeling the last bit of warmth leave her body.

"No. They just didn't hear us. They didn't hear Mommy and Chessie calling for help."

To save my daughter, I grabbed a piece of rock and slammed it against the wall beside us in the narrow gap.

The next second, the entire rescue team froze.

"Captain Mercer, I think we just heard someone calling for help."

"What sound? You must be hearing things." Vanessa immediately cut in.

Then, catching herself, she changed her tune at once.

"What I mean is, listen carefully. Rescue resources are limited. We can't afford to waste them."

But the teammate who'd spoken first pointed straight at the spot where my daughter and I were trapped.

"The sound came from over there."

The others immediately moved toward the spot., until Vanessa cried out and twisted her ankle.

Mom and Dad were around her in a heartbeat. "Nessa, are you all right?"

Vanessa said she was fine, but three times she tried and couldn't get up off the ground.

Caleb crouched down on his own. "Get on my back. I'll carry you."

Vanessa refused.

"The trail's rough, and your leg still hasn't fully recovered from that injury. If you carry me down, what happens to your leg?"

Mom and Dad backed her up. "It's safer to carry her out on a stretcher."

But the rescue team was only four people.

Two people would have to stay behind to carry the stretcher, leaving only two rescuers to handle the search.

Someone offered a compromise.

"Captain Mercer, how about we go check first? Confirm there's no one, then withdraw?"

"If the people in there really are your wife and Chessie, at least we won't have to live with the regret."

But Vanessa grabbed her ankle, even though there wasn't a trace of swelling.

Seeing the pain written across her face, Caleb refused without a moment's hesitation.

"You heard wrong. No one's calling for help."

The teammate argued. "But I clearly heard someone striking the rock wall with a stone."

Caleb denied it. "That was rocks falling from above."

"It's only been ten days since the mudslide. The ground is still unstable. Loose rock coming down and hitting the wall, there's nothing strange about that."

I'd been trapped ten days. My entire body had already gone numb from the cold.

And still I felt a dull, grinding ache in my chest.

Vanessa's parents had died saving my mom and dad.

So my parents had always favored Vanessa. I could understand that.

But Caleb was different. He was the first one who, after seeing how my parents treated Vanessa and me so differently, said it was unfair, and stood up for me.

He said that from then on he would protect me, that he would never let anyone hurt me again, not even in the smallest way.

And now, for Vanessa's sake, he was insisting he hadn't heard me calling for help.

I didn't have time to wonder when everything had changed. My daughter's small hands, looped around my neck, were slowly losing their grip.

"Mommy, I'm so sleepy."

Feeling her cold little hand, I patted her cheek, begging her to stay awake.

And at the same time, risking a second collapse that could bury us both, I struck the stone wall again and sent the sound echoing through the rocks

"Captain Mercer! Listen! We're not imagining it, there really is a sound!"

"And it's steady, with a pattern to it. It sounds a lot like the international distress signal for someone who's trapped!"

"I remember your wife took a course on emergency signals in college. What if the people trapped in there are her and Chessie?"

The teammate spoke with sudden hope. But Vanessa muttered under her breath.

"Bri graduated years ago. How would she still remember something like that?"

"And would it really be that much of a coincidence? We've searched for over ten days and found nothing, and now, right when we're about to leave, suddenly there's a sound?"

"If anything, I'd say it sounds more like the ground shifting right before signs of another landslide are about to happen..."