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Authors: Jeff Ross

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“How far do these things shoot?” she asked, pulling the flare gun out.

“A long way, I think. It's a flare. You shoot it up, and it explodes.”

“Think you can make it down the hill a bit farther?” Hope asked. “Just down to those other trees. Without being seen?”

“Sure,” I said. Though I was far from certain.

“You get down there, then I'll fire this across the slope. When whoever it is down there looks at it, you tuck down and hit the bank in front of him. Do what you did to Sam.” I squinted at the man and the car and wondered if what she was suggesting was even possible. “Then I'll come down with this, and we wait in the car for the rest of them.”

“You really think that'll work?”

“I don't think we have any other options.” She was right. And if Sam and Dave had made it to the other kidnappers, then they'd all be on their way here.

“All right.” I did a quick turn, knelt down as far as I could and started through the trees.

It still scared me to weave through wooded areas. That hadn't changed. And going through them in a crouch was really difficult. I couldn't see where my line should be. I couldn't even tell if my next turn might be into a tree.

After about two minutes, I cleared the first section of trees and broke into the second. I stopped and waved at Hope. I couldn't see her, but she was up there. Watching. The car was an old Honda Civic, the rear license plate dangling from one screw. A man was leaning against the car, right beside a mass of snow left behind by the avalanche. If I went down just right, I could hit that mound of snow and launch straight into his chest. I wasn't worried about hurting him like I had been with Sam. If I knocked him out, so much the better.

I looked back up the hill just as the flare shot out of the woods. As we expected, the man looked toward the explosion rather than to where it had originated. I pushed hard off a tree and aimed myself directly at him.

He never saw me coming. I hit the mound of snow and went out and up. I grabbed the front of my board right between my feet. When I hit him, it was with the full base of my board on his chest and shoulders. He disappeared beneath me, and I leaned forward to dive across the roof of the car. I came over the other side, spun off and landed hard. It knocked the air out of me, and I lay there for a minute, sucking at nothing and feeling like my chest had collapsed. Everything went white for a minute and then black. I closed my eyes. Had I broken something? I wanted to feel my body, to touch my arms and legs, but I couldn't breathe.

Something inside me didn't seem right. I could feel the cold ground pushing through my snow pants. What a day, I thought. I opened my eyes and looked up at the blue sky. The clouds had parted, but there was a cold wind running down the mountain. Everything rolls down that mountain, I thought. Wind, snow, sunshine, people.

Suddenly Hope's face was over mine.

“You knocked him out cold,” she said. I tried to smile. “You okay?” I widened my eyes at her and continued to try and suck air. “Breathe,” she said. “Inhale, exhale, inhale.” I listened to her voice and tried to do as I was told. I couldn't speak. Couldn't even move. Slowly, I began to feel better. I was able to take a breath and sit up.

“We have to get him in the trunk before he wakes up,” Hope said.

“What?”

“We can't just leave him sitting there. Come on.” She was down on one knee, undoing my bindings.

I stood up, which was a challenge. My legs felt like lead as I followed Hope to the other side of the car. The guy was out cold on the ground. A big purple bruise was starting to spread across the side of his face. Hope grabbed his feet.

“That was awesome, Alex. I've never seen anything like it.” She had already popped the trunk. “Come on, let's get him in. Can you take his arms?” I reached down.

It hurt.

It really hurt. There were flashes of white and big black holes everywhere. “Are you okay?” Hope said.

“I don't know,” I replied. “Something really hurts.”

“Just get him in the trunk, and then you can lie down.” I felt dizzy, but somehow I managed to pick the man up. He was light, which was good, and we didn't have far to carry him. We dropped him in the trunk, and Hope slammed the lid closed.

“Come on, lie down on the backseat.” She helped me into the car. I lay on my back, looking at the peeling material of the ceiling. It smelled like cigarette smoke and greasy fast food. Hope slid into the passenger's seat.

“You don't look so good, Alex,” she said. “Can you hear me?” I nodded. But her voice was coming and going. She turned away. All her movements left a kind of hazy trail behind. The last thing I heard was her yelling, “Drop that gun. Drop it, or I'll blow your head off!” And I thought, Wow, what a crazy girl.

chapter twenty

Hospitals are always so white. Even when they paint the walls, it still
feels
white. Or green. But that sick-looking green.

When I returned to the land of the living, a man in a long white coat had his hand down my top.

“Wow!” I said, inhaling hard. Which I shouldn't have. Because inhaling hurt. “Why does that hurt so much?” I asked. The man in the white coat didn't say anything for a moment. Then he pulled the stethoscope away from his ears.

“Because you have a collapsed lung, young man,” he said. “You are very lucky.”

“Am I?” I asked. I didn't feel lucky. I felt like I was going to stop breathing at any moment and not start again.

Which might be okay, because if breathing hurt this much, maybe I should just quit it.

There was a shuffling in the room. I watched Sam rise from a chair behind the doctor. He had stubble on his face, and his eyes were bloodshot.

“Sam,” I said. “What are you doing here? Actually, what am I doing here?”

Sam laughed and reached out a hand to me. “Man, you hit that guy hard. Don't worry, though, the police were looking for him anyway. He'll be in jail a long time, thanks to you. Then you stuffed him in a trunk? With a collapsed lung? That is hard-core.”

“I stuffed someone in a trunk?” It came back to me in a flash. The whole mess from beginning to end.

“Yes,” Sam said, laughing. “Yes indeed, my man.”

“Is Bryce all right?” I asked.

“Yeah, man, he's fine. His dad came and got him.” He shook his head. “I don't think that is going to go all that well.”

“No?” I replied.

“People have to accept that they are who they are.” Sam stared at the window for a minute. “Never try to prove to people that you're something other than who you are, Alex. Just be the best
you
you can be.” He laughed. “That sounded dumb.”

“It sounded true, Sam,” I said. “What about you?”

Sam looked across the room at a man I hadn't noticed before. A cop. “I have some explaining to do,” Sam said. “But I convinced them to let me stay here until you woke up.”

“But you weren't really a part of it,” I said.

Sam shrugged. “Don't worry. I'll be all right. And hey, now that you're an official member of Backcountry Patrol, we'll need you out there soon.”

I smiled. Then the police officer took Sam by the arm and led him out of the room. Hope stepped inside as the door was closing.

“You're all right,” she said. I shrugged, which hurt more than it should have.

“So are you,” I said. “What happened?”

“Well,” Hope replied. “You crushed a lung, dumped a criminal in the trunk of a car, and then I finished off the hard work.”

“Which was what exactly?”

“Convincing the kidnapper to drop his gun.”

“And how did you do that?”

“I said I'd shoot him,” she said with a smile.

“Okay, but he had a gun too, right?”

“Sure, but he wasn't too worried about a girl in a puffy pink snowsuit. Big mistake.” She blinked a few times. “Those guys are amateurs. They were in over their heads. The guy with the gun dropped it like he'd had enough. Like he'd been waiting for this to happen.”

I could imagine.

“Taken out by a little girl,” I said.

“Little girl?” Hope said. “No. He was taken out by an official Backcountry Patroller.” She sat down in the chair beside my bed. She looked very different out of her snow gear. She looked like an actual girl. Enough that I almost forgot how annoying I'd once found her.

Hope looked out the window at the light rain that was falling on Vancouver.

I thought for a moment about what to say next. “You know, you were pretty amazing out there.”

“Thanks,” she replied. “So were you.”

“Would you actually have shot him?”

She looked at me as she considered her answer. “You know what? After all we've been through? I think I can pretty much do anything now.”

“Anything?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said, looking me right in the eye. “Anything.” And I didn't doubt her for a second.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank anyone who ever said, “You can do it,” even if they didn't mean it. Shout-outs go to my past writing “coaches,” Rick Taylor, Tom Henighan and Paul Quarrington, and to my friends and first readers, Sarah Leahy, Mark Molnar, Nichole McGill, Ros Paterson and Sylvie Hill. Thank you also to my editor, Sarah Harvey, who molded a jumble of sentences into something that makes sense. Finally, thank you to anyone who is reading this. Keep reading. Oh, and thank you to my grandmother, who will be 103 this year and will read this book. Twice. That's just how she rolls.

Jeff Ross has been hurtling himself down mountains on a piece of fiberglass and hoping for the best for as long as he can remember. He grew up near Collingwood, Ontario, where he learned to ski, snowboard, skateboard and injure himself in fantastic and unique ways. Jeff lives in Ottawa, Ontario, where he teaches English and Scriptwriting for Television and Animation at Algonquin College. He is humored on a daily basis by his wife and two sons.
The Drop
is his first novel.

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Crossover
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Dead in the Water
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The Drop
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