Page 32 of The Aster Valley Collection, Vol. 2

Without my climbing trainer there, the rope work was being managed by two production assistants who’d been hired specifically for their climbing experience and ability to help with the technical aspects of these scenes.

I still didn’t trust them the way I trusted Kramer. He’d been overseeing my climbing for years, but his mother was having a medical procedure and he needed to be back in LA helping her through it.

We’d planned for this, but it was still a departure from the routine. It still meant the rope work for the tyrolean had been set up by PAs who weren’t necessarily expert at it.

When I arrived at the location of the shoot, I greeted the two PAs with a smile. “Hi, Sara, Bo. How are you two doing today? Are we ready to traverse this bad boy?”

The first scene involved my character realizing that when he rescued Crystobell’s character, he’d need a way to get her across a deep ravine.

He had to assume she might be hurt or unconscious, and even if she wasn’t, her character didn’t know how to rock climb.

The scene entailed my character setting up the tyrolean traverse as quickly as possible.

These action scenes had a sense of urgency to them since my character was racing against the clock to get Crys’s character out of the mountaintop cave before it detonated.

The first part of the scene went smoothly.

I set an anchor at the top of the eastern cliff and rappelled down one side of the rock face to the floor of the ravine below.

The sun was shining, and the helicopter noise drowned out the nervous thump of my heart.

I got in character and focused on the scene.

I am the rock, and the rock is fearless.

My muscles were warm and loose by the time I hit the ground and hustled over to start the climb up the western face of the ravine, pulling the trailing rope with me that I would anchor at the top to create the first part of the tyrol.

Because there wouldn’t be a top rope in this scenario, I had to lead climb which took longer since it involved placing anchors as I went.

The problem came when Nolan kept shouting, “Cut!” and insisting I speed up the pace to increase the sense of urgency in the scene.

He was standing in the bucket of a cherry picker several yards away from me with the DP, Director of Photography, Joel Wilson.

“There’s only so much I can do,” I insisted, wondering why the hell he couldn’t fix some of this in postproduction. There would be simple ways to edit these scenes to make it look like I was going the speed he wanted.

Joel said, “I’d rather him place fewer anchors. It would look less secure and increase the tension.”

“It wouldn’t just look less secure,” I insisted. “It would be less secure.”

Joel ignored me. “Let’s get a shot of him falling back so one of the anchors has to catch him.”

Nerves jangled in my stomach. I was hot and thirsty now, and the sun that had been lovely and warm was beginning to make me irritable and itchy.

While they discussed it, I triple-checked the anchors in reach.

If I was going to test them, they had damned sure better work.

The most solid cam in reach could still fail if the momentum from my fall placed enough force on it to crumble the rock around it.

These weren’t meant for deliberate falls.

They were oh-shit-last-chance fail-safes.

I moved down and added another nut near the cam below my chosen one and quickly created a “sliding X” anchor with some ropes to self-equalize or spread the weight and risk between two set points.

The lower cam and the newly placed nut together would be more secure as a backup in case the main cam failed.

I quickly climbed back up to the main cam and waited for the decision I knew was coming.

“Let’s do the anchor fall,” Nolan called. “Joel is right. We can use it in post to make up for the lack of tension in the pace of the climb.”

Joel called out some direction, and we proceeded to shoot my “fall” for three takes. Thankfully, the main cam held for all three falls. By the time I’d pulled myself back onto the rock after the third take, my muscles were screaming and my body was bruised.

“Okay, climb the rest of the way up and let’s get to the next part of the scene,” Nolan called. I couldn’t help but laugh. He made it sound so easy.

I would have asked for a ride in the cherry picker, but it didn’t go that high, and it would have taken me longer to unclip than it did to climb to the top of the ridge.

Once I was there, I quickly tightened the ropes and created my second tyrolean anchor.

Thankfully, we had a hidden bolt in the rock, so I only had to make it look like I was using a sketchy boulder as an anchor.

As soon as the ropes were ready, I prepared to clip in and pull myself across the high traverse to the other side.

And that’s when everything went to shit.

The wind picked up, and the ropes began swinging.

The helicopter got too close and made it worse.

Trying to pull myself along the ropes was hard enough in perfect conditions, but trying to do it with the ropes swinging in the wind was damned near impossible.

I advised them to stop the shoot due to the worsening conditions but got an immediate no .

Nolan and Joel looked positively orgasmic at the resulting film and told me to take off my helmet again.

I’d known there would be times on the climb I’d have to remove my helmet since my character lost his in one of the falls, but with the conditions like this, it was a stupid risk.

I was angry and bitter at the situation I’d gotten myself into.

I felt guilty for not looking out for myself better in the contract, and I vowed to fire Iris for allowing this to happen, too.

No one should be out here without a helmet on rope work that hadn’t even been installed by climbing experts.

Production should have brought in a replacement for Kramer to oversee this shoot.

Moreover, no one should be on ropes in these conditions at all.

But all of that was pointless to worry about. The more time I hung there suspended over a deep rocky ravine arguing about the conditions, the more at risk I was for an accident.

I pulled off my helmet and lowered it to the cherry picker on one of the ropes I had dangling from my rigging. They’d use it to send the helmet back up to me after getting the shot.

After running my fingers through my hair to get rid of helmet head, made moot with the next gust of wind, I called out for them that I was ready.

When I heard the call to start, I grabbed the rope and pulled hand over hand with as much muscle as I could, gritting my teeth and fighting the wind to get to the other side.

I focused on nailing the shot in one take.

Thankfully, I did it. As soon as Joel yelled, “Cut,” I grabbed for the ropes one of the production assistants tossed me to clip in for some extra protection before climbing up onto the ridge and detaching from the tyrol.

That’s when the next gust of wind hit me square in the chest and tumbled me right off the edge again.

I scrambled to grab for the tyrolean ropes, but they hit the back of my hand at top speed as I tumbled past them.

Thankfully, the new anchor rope attached to my harness caught, and I swung quickly against the side of the ravine, scraping my face, my bare shoulder, and my elbow against the rough granite.

The nasty metallic screech of the carabiners and chocks on my rigging being caught between my body and the rock face made my teeth hurt.

I hung there for a second, stung and shocked while the adrenaline flooded my system, and I vaguely heard the screams of the production assistants at the top and the director and DP down in the cherry picker.

Fuck, that had hurt.

I closed my eyes for a minute to catch my breath.

My body jerked upward as Sara and Bo began hauling me back up by the ropes attached to my harness.

The twin looks of horror on their faces made my stomach drop, reminding me just how close I’d come to falling to my death.

If they hadn’t given me the extra protection of the top ropes…

“Get the jeep,” Bo called to Sara, all business now. “The hospital is on the north edge of town. I have it in my phone.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell them I didn’t need the hospital, but I was afraid if I opened my mouth, my voice would break. I was a trembling mess, but I’d be damned if I’d let it show.

I didn’t say a word, only climbed back onto the ridge with Sara and Bo’s help. Bo pulled off the zip-up hoodie he was wearing. “You’re shaking. Probably shock. Put this on.”

I winced as I tried to put my arms through the soft sleeves. Blood splotched the fabric, so I made a mental note to replace the jacket for him. He was right. I was freezing suddenly.

After getting the jacket over my tank top, I turned to follow him to the jeep but noticed the set medic racing toward us in another vehicle. She jumped out of the SUV and hurried over to me with her big kit bag. “You’re fine. I saw it happen from down below. Looks like a few abrasions, that’s all.”

Bo and Sara exchanged a look. “He’s bleeding from his shoulder pretty badly,” Sara said.

The medic flapped her hand like it was nothing. “I’ll take care of it. We’ll get him patched right up. From the looks of it, he didn’t even hit his head. Isn’t that right, Finn?”

I blinked at her. At first I thought she was being oddly cheerful to keep me from panicking, but now it seemed like she was being deliberately obtuse.

I tried to remember if I’d hit my head or not. “Well, no, I don’t think?—”

“He might need stitches,” Bo said. “On his shoulder.”

My legs felt like noodles. I wanted to sit down. “Can someone please call…” I stopped talking. Asking for Declan was stupid. I hadn’t even meant to say it out loud. He wasn’t anything to me, and he sure as hell wasn’t someone I could claim in any kind of public way.

“His mom is here,” Sara said to Bo. “We should call her.”

“No,” I said, sitting down on the hard ground and putting my face in my hands. I was so fucking worn-out. “Do not call my mother. Trust me.”

Another vehicle came speeding up, leaving a plume of dust in the air as it stopped. Nolan and Joel hopped out. “There he is. You’re fine,” Nolan insisted. “Just a bit knocked around by the breeze up there.”

He eyed the two PAs. “Not a word of this gets out. Do you understand? Nothing happened here. Just a scrape or two. That’s to be expected while filming a rock climbing scene.”

Bo and Sara looked at me with the same surprise as they’d had when I’d almost tumbled to my fucking death in the ravine. I nodded my agreement with the director. It wouldn’t do anyone any good for word to get out there’d been an accident on set.

Suddenly, the medic’s reaction made sense. I remembered a rule about mandatory accident reporting. It was only necessary when the on-set injury resulted in a trip to the hospital. No wonder they’d hired such a laissez-faire medic.

I reached for Bo’s hand to help me back up. “Take me back to my room, please,” I said before turning to the medic. “You can treat me there after I have a shower.”

Nolan sputtered. “We have two more scenes to film today.”

I did my best to look at him as steadily as possible. “You may, but I no longer do.”

His nostrils flared, but he didn’t argue with me. I managed to hold it together until Bo helped me climb into the back seat of the jeep, and then I asked in a cracking voice, “Can I please use your phone?”