Page 176 of The Ampersand Effect
The unspoken burden—that everyone was counting on her to save Grier—weighed heavy in the silence. Tobin nodded once, accepting the charge with every ounce of understanding imbued in his quiet desperation.
She clenched her teeth and turned to Eddie. Her best friend’s face was set in staunch determination. Tobin stared her down,unwilling to cave to the unspoken concerns she saw there. She shook her head once, denying any obstruction.
“Tobin… this is crazy,” Eddie said defiantly. “The entire forest is on fire.” Eddie moved to the table and waved her hand above it, drawing Tobin’s gaze to the three-dimensional display of wildfires. The city of Aetheridge and its surroundings lay before them, dozens of red Xs scarred across the map marking what was already lost.
Her voice was tight as she spoke. “Radio chatter says thirty percent of the city is demolished. They haven’t even estimated the loss in the forest—it’s too hot and too fast to get an accurate read. The electrical storm has passed… for now. But the wind could shift at any moment.”
Tobin dragged her eyes over the map, locating the forest entrance at the trailhead by her house, then traced its path to the clearing where she hoped—knew—Grier would be. She knew Grier was there. Everything in her gut and her mind and her heart screamed its veracity.
She reached out, fingers brushing the map, swallowing the lump in her throat as she counted three fire markers within a mile of the clearing, and two smaller ones more than two miles away.
They had to move. Now.
She braced both hands on either side of the map and looked up at Eddie, ready to challenge her. What she found instead was a literal twinkle in her friend’s eyes. She caught the slight upward turn of Eddie’s mouth as it twisted into a semi-serious smile. Tobin huffed a surprised exhale as Eddie forcefully pushed her helmet into her chest.
“We haven’t done crazy in too long—let’s go get your girl.”
Tobin stared at her, relief and disbelief fighting for primary control of her response. Eddie’s smile turned Cheshire before she winked and turned on her heel.
Cipher was in charge. And she wanted to play.
Tobin turned to Grant while she secured her helmet to her head. “Keep refreshing her watch location. Call me if anything changes.”
Without waiting for a response, she bolted after Eddie and swung into the box office of the Bell 206.
Eddie was already ninety percent through the pre-flight checklist. She had to have prepared ahead of Tobin’s arrival. Tobin didn’t have the capacity to smile in the moment, but she was warmed by genuine love for her literal ride-or-die friend.
Eddie looked at her for confirmation before saying, “Rotors turning, clear prop.”
Tobin frantically scanned the earth below her, noting the charred and scathed remnants of the town’s outskirts and the still-smoldering fields and coastal prairies. They flew west in a furious dash toward the forest clearing—toward Grier. The town lay in cinders; nearly sixty percent of the surrounding area was either burning or already blackened. Her eyes tingled with the all-too familiar sensation of tears welling up, but she blinked them away. The city could rebuild. Her heart, however, would perish alongside Grier if she didn’t get there in time.
Breaking the silence, Eddie asked, “What actually is the plan?” Tobin choked down her emotion, “She’s in the clearing.”
“I gathered that,” Eddie said, eyes sharp. “But it doesn’t matter if we find her if we can’t land. What’s your plan, Blur?”
Tobin could feel the weight behind the question. Eddie wasn’t just pushing for answers—she was submitting. Submitting to Tobin’s knowledge, to her skills, and to the trust that came from years of partnership. They had always been a great team, their egos never clashing. But Eddie was the de facto captain when they flew together. And now she was submitting to Tobin’s knowledge—not only of Grier and her likely location, but also of her flight skill. Eddie knew Tobin had more training infire rescues, with her recent escapades in Iceland at the forefront of her mind.
If I never see fire again…Tobin thought grimly.
But Tobin’s thoughts were interrupted as they passed beyond the city limits and entered the airspace above her beloved coastal forest. She clenched the cyclic and the collective with white- knuckled dread. Raising her eyes to scan ahead toward the clearing, she squinted against the brightness of the fires threatening to devour everything she loved.
There were three distinct blazes, the largest several miles wide and stretching from the cliffside to the area just to the northeast of the clearing. Further west of the clearing burned the second-largest fire, less concerning to Tobin because the wind direction favored it moving farther west. South of that—and of the clearing—was the smallest blaze, stalling proudly like a faithful soldier between its sisters.
“We’re flying without a plan, Eddie. The only thing I know is where she is. The fire changes every second—I can’t give you a plan until I see it,” Tobin spat, her voice tight. Eddie knew all of this; forcing Tobin to say it aloud was only stoking her anxiety.
Eddie let her seethe while they soared over the melting earth. The remnants of the city behind them now, and with every passing second, the pull of Grier tugged at Tobin more firmly. Her heart raced, sweat soaked her back. From their bird’s-eye vantage, they could see the separate fires tearing across the land, consuming everything in their paths.
Tobin was tracing the faint, unrecognizable trail toward the clearing when two things happened at once. First, the wind shifted— hard—slamming into the helicopter’s fuselage and banking the nose south. Then they hit a pocket of hot air and dropped a hundred feet in a gut-wrenching lurch.
Tobin corrected quickly—pedals shifting the nose of the chopper out of turbulent air, collective lifting them back toaltitude. But the tension in the box office thickened until it was nearly tangible.
“You make that look effortless,” Eddie muttered through gritted teeth.
Tobin shot her a brief glance, then turned back to the view ahead. The gust had redirected the second wildfire, forcing it southeast— directly into the path of the smaller blaze. For one breathless moment, the two infernos licked at each other’s edges, sparking and crackling, before finally embracing—sealing off the last stretch of untouched land south of the clearing. Grier’s only route out on foot was gone, swallowed by the fire.
The fire was all-consuming, and the only remaining path was directly toward the clearing.
Tobin clenched her jaw and pointed the nose toward their target, pushing the throttle. Eddie shouted something about their speed, but Tobin didn’t hear it—or maybe she refused to. The fire was decimating the forest, and time was bleeding away faster than she could fly.