Chapter 5 - Gabriel Stone
His name was Gabriel Stone, and I learned only fragments while he worked. He did not waste words. He checked my pulse, my breathing, my pupils, the way I held my belly. He asked if I could feel the baby move. I said yes, barely. His jaw tightened with relief so fierce it almost frightened me.
“You know my mother,” I whispered.
“I knew her before you were born.”
“Why were you looking for me?”
His hands moved carefully, fastening the rescue harness around me. “Because she sent me a message before she died. It took years to find where she hid the truth.”
My mother had died when I was seventeen. Officially, it was a sudden illness. Unofficially, she left behind locked boxes, warnings disguised as stories, and one photograph of a younger Gabriel standing beside her near a mountain station. I had spent half my life believing the missing pieces belonged to grief.
Gabriel glanced up at the ridge. Michael and Ashley stood frozen there now, caught between fleeing and pretending they had done nothing. The helicopter light washed over them, stripping the smugness from Michael’s body. Even from the ledge, I could see him step back.
Gabriel spoke into his radio. “Two suspects on the ridge. Keep eyes on them. Do not let them leave.”
Michael shouted something down, his voice swallowed by rotor wash. It sounded like my name. It sounded like panic wearing concern too late.
Gabriel ignored him.
He secured one arm around me and checked the harness twice. “Emma, listen to me. I need you awake for the lift.”
“I’m so cold.”
“I know.”
“My baby—”
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“Your baby has a heartbeat,” he said firmly. “You both are coming off this mountain.”
I held onto that sentence harder than I held the rope.
