With rising energy, I drove from the bothy, frustration adding to my already high energy mix. That woman… I’d fed her, checked on her, travelled all the way out to the airport to collect her, and she’d treated me like an employee. Or worse. She was probably polite to her paid members of staff.
Leo never behaved like an entitled brat. And my rock star cousin-in-law was just as famous as Elise.
My muscles primed, and I hauled the car’s steering wheel unnecessarily hard. From the back seat, Ellie gave a wuff, and I glanced in the rearview.
“Sorry,” I grumbled to my dog.
At the junction to the lane that led home, I pulled the car over, no clue about what I should do next.
For months, I’d been in recovery and bored out of my mind. Last winter, I’d taken a shotgun blast to the shoulder, and repeated surgeries had put me out of action, the final one only a few weeks ago.
I rolled my shoulder, the bandages off now, but the pain real.
For a man of twenty-three, I’d been in and out of hospital more times than I liked to remember. At least that was over. I only had physio left to fix me up. So when Leo had called me about picking up his friend, I’d been glad to have something to do.
I wished he’d contacted someone else.
As a teenager, I’d been obsessed with Elise. With her petite frame, huge violet-blue eyes, and wavy brown hair, she was a cartoon princess come to life, and my very first fantasy. I’d grown up and matured, but I still loved her acting. What was it they said about meeting your idols?
I grabbed my phone, hitting Leo’s number.
He answered right away. “Cameron, sorry I didn’t get back to yesterday. How did things go with Elise?”
“Mission accomplished. She’s here and safe. We might’ve had a tail, but I lost them. No one’s been poking around the estate, either way.” I paused, debating whether to share more. “Not very talkative, is she?”
“Doesn’t sound like the woman I know. Probably tired from the travel. Did she need anything?”
“Not that she told me. I took her food. How’s Viola?” I changed the subject to his wife.
“Still in pain. Definitely early labour.”
“Christ, man!”
“I’m scared out of my mind,” he said on a strained laugh. “I can’t bear her to be hurting.”
How selfish was I, dwelling on the rudeness of a stranger when Leo had real issues? “Hopefully the bairn will be here soon.”
“Amen to that. I’ll keep you posted.” Leo made his goodbyes, and I stared out the windscreen at the hidden landscape.
I should go home. It was late enough. But with the energy still coursing inside me, I’d go insane.
Instead, my wheels found their way to a garage, closer to the castle than the moors where I’d left Elise. Floodlights illuminated the interior, one of the huge doors open to the spring night.
A motorbike waited outside.
Under the workshop’s lights, Max, another cousin, was half visible under the bonnet of an antique car. He raised his auburn head, a smirk twisting his lips when he spotted me.
I climbed out and released Ellie, too. She bounded right up to Max, and he rubbed her head with greasy mechanic’s fingers.
“What’s got ye up so late?” he asked.
“Same question.” I gestured with my chin to the car. “This urgent?”
Max raised a shoulder. “Not so much. Maddock’s home.”
Ah. I’d been half expecting this.
Max and Maddock were twins and identical in every way, including in their hatred for each other. As boys, they’d competed, driving their parents and sister mad. But in their teenage years, they’d really begun to lay into one another. No one in the family could work out how to fix the fracture in their relationship. With Maddock away at university most of the time, it had become less of a problem. But if he was home…it was a good thing that Max kept his distance.
Now they were both aged twenty, their brawling could cause real damage.
Max set aside his tools and grabbed a cloth, wiping over the streaks on his hands. “I know why I’m sulking, but what’s up with ye? Why do ye have a face like thunder?”
Ellie bounced back, seeking permission to explore. I flicked my fingers, and she danced away, sniffing happily around the grass.
“I’ve been taking care of a friend of Leo’s. She’s…kind of mean.”
Max gave a bark of laughter. “Never seen ye rattled by a woman before.”
“She managed to royally piss me off in a short time frame.”
“Why do ye care? Did she happen to be pretty?”
I resisted the obvious answer and instead looked skyward. “Dinna be daft.”
My cousin tossed the rag and slammed closed the car bonnet. “Whatever. The angst is pouring off ye in waves. What do ye want to do about it?”
More adrenaline eked into my system. Usually, working with the mountain rescue service took up the extra energy I had that couldn’t be applied elsewhere. But with my injured shoulder, I wasn’t allowed to go out with the team.
Max was a daredevil. Where I was always in control—I ran my own team, trained my dog, had created my career—he’d be the one tempting me to do stupid things in search of a rush. Aye, I needed that now.
Exactly why I’d come to him.
“Help me out?” I asked.
Max’s eyes gleamed. “Eh, I was getting bored here anyway. Want to take my spare bike and we’ll head into the trails?”
I wrinkled my nose. “The vibrations will kill my arm.” Let alone driving a motorbike down a mountainside in the pitch-black night was ridiculous.
“Fair point.” He pondered his no doubt crazy array of ideas. “Ah. Got just the thing in mind. It means a bit of a drive, but it’s a clear night.”
“A clear night for…?”
“Wait and see.”
It could be anything. Dangerous, reckless.
My pulse quickened. “Fuck it. Let’s go.”
Under Max’s instruction, I drove us from the National Park and out to the coast, blasting music from my speakers. Despite it being well over an hour’s trip, I couldn’t relax. Nor would Max give a hint to what we were going to do.
Go out on a boat? Swim? It was too dark and cold for either.
Eventually, we found our way to an isolated road leading to Portknochie, a tiny coastal town. The sea crashed on the rocks, audible over my engine. Then Max slapped a hand up on the dashboard, and I brought us to a halt.
“We’re here.”
“Where? I can’t see anything.”
He hopped out without a backward glance, and I followed. The light spring breeze drove salt spray at us and ruffled my hair. At the car’s bonnet, I peered into the dark. The area of coastline was familiar, though I didn’t know it well. To our left, a harbour served fishing boats, and the small town lived on the produce of the North Sea.
As kids, we’d come here to jump from the pier, freezing our arses off in the process.
“Leave your phone and Ellie in the car and follow me.” Max descended a tiny path worn into the soft, eroded ground.
Faint shouts reached me, the excited calls of unseen people. Oh fuck. Disquiet tightened my gut at what I’d gotten myself into.
Yet my adrenaline spiked higher, and…I needed this. Whatever this turned out to be.
I ordered Ellie back inside, tossed my phone onto my seat along with the rest of the contents of my pockets, and pursued Max.
He paused at the bottom of the track. Together we advanced on a group waiting at the edge of the cliff. In wetsuits, or half dressed, a few gave us their attention at our approach, but most ignored us. Then a man about my age moved to the rocky ledge. He fist-bumped his friend and peered down at the waiting sea, inflated his lungs…
And leapt.
The fucking idiot had just jumped straight into empty space.
A splash resounded far below; a raising cheer followed.
I released my breath.
Tombstoning, it was called. Probably because it killed the irresponsible fuckers who carried out the practice.
Max slapped my chest. “Me next,” he told me and the others.
“Are ye fucking crazy? Ye could hit anything. The beach, jagged rocks.”
He grinned, just visible in the starlight. “Nah.”
Then my dickhead cousin took a few steps back, murmured something to himself, and threw himself over the edge.
Christ.
His mother was going to kill me. When his battered body washed up on a local beach, I’d be dead meat. I should’ve stopped him.
His landing splash took a long time to come. Or it seemed that way, at least. I grinded my teeth, my relief sharp but not denting my other emotions.
“Cameron, it’s bonnie down here. Jump,” Max yelled, his voice hollow in the echoing rockface.
I peered down, spying a ring of soft lights around the natural basin at the base of the rocks.
Faces watched me. A lass stepped up, cocked her head at me, then took position. She flew without hesitation.
Again, a yell, a splash, and cheers.
The weight of weeks of pain from my surgery met my irritation from handling surly Elise. I was so over being the sensible one.
My blood spiked with a fever I couldn’t ignore.
Aye, I was going to do it.
I steadied my breathing and took my place at the crumbling ledge. This was insane. Max was a fucking moron. I was worse.
Max’s voice returned, egging me on. The others took up the chant. “Cameron, Cameron, Cameron.”
Forcing away self-preservation, I jumped.
And dropped from the cliff like a stone.
My freefall lasted for a split second, then I broke the surface of the sea. Saltwater invaded my mouth and nose. The slap from the surface tension jolted my healing shoulder.
Yet exhilaration crested, wiping out every other emotion.
This was why I followed Max and did dumb shite. Because the reward was worth the effort. I surfaced then spluttered and laughed, lying back in the freezing sea and staring up.
Finally, I had some modicum of peace.
It was only later, after swimming to the pebble beach then crawling back up the slippery, seaweed-strewn rockface, shivering all the way back to the car, and driving home in my underwear with an ecstatic Max not shutting up by my side, I regretted my thrill-seeking.
The almighty rush gave way to extreme guilt.
I couldn’t risk myself. I owed it to my family to take care in all things.
This wouldn’t happen again.
I had to find another way to relieve my stress. One that didn’t lead to a broken neck.
The following morning, I strode through the hangar where the mountain rescue service operated, in search of Lochie, our leader.
Despite being banned from attending call-outs, I was still part of the crew, and here to talk training.
At one of the helicopters, alongside one of the hangar’s more experienced staff, a red-haired lad peered into the machine’s guts. Maddock, Max’s twin.
In his visits home, he’d been taking flying lessons, building up his hours behind the controls with the intent of eventually passing his pilot’s exam.
“Maddock,” I hailed.
His gaze snapped up, and he murmured something to the instructor. Before I knew it, he’d arrived in front of me and grabbed me in a hard hug.
“Cam. How the fuck are ye?”
I hid the recoil of pain in my shoulder. “Grand. What are ye doing home?”
“Revision. I have finals in a couple of weeks.”
“Is that why you’re here instead of hitting the books?”
His smirk, identical to his brother’s, broadened. “The exams willnae be a problem, and I’ve had an idea for when I’m a qualified pilot.” He paused for dramatic effect. “I want to fly search and rescue for the service.”
He meant the mountain rescue. Two things struck me at once. First, thank fuck, because we always needed pilots, and second, that Maddock planned to settle down here. I’d always assumed he’d live elsewhere after he graduated.
He and Max were going to kill each other if they didn’t find a way to coexist.
“Good to know,” I said.
“You’d trust me to hover over a cliff face in the dark with ye and your dog on the end of a rope?”
“I wouldnae go that far.”
We both grinned.
“Max definitely willnae,” he added.
“Ye are too alike. If you’re thinking like that, he will, too.”
“Cameron,” Lochie hollered from the door of the operations room.
I punched Maddock’s arm. “Got to go. Catch ye later, fly boy.”
“See ye online.” He pointed at me.
“Deal.”
Along with his other charms, Maddock and I shared a hobby. Since we’d been lads, we’d spent late nights engaged in intense warfare in a gaming world. Team death matches, mass scrimmages. For the years Maddock had been away, we still kept a regular weekly session.
It was probably the only time I acted my age. Aside from the daft shite I got up to with his twin.
In the operations room, Lochie stood with his back to the huge wall-mounted maps of our mountain home. On an adjacent whiteboard, Training was underlined, and our topic for the day.
Lochie grumbled a greeting, his expression typically grumpy, then refilled his coffee from an ever-present jug on a warmer. He poured a second for me, and we got down to business.
“This spring, we’ve had a new intake of volunteers,” Lochie began. “They’ll need basic training, then specialising when ready. For the more experienced crew members, I want to change up our training provision.”
Something in his tone gave me pause.
Ever since last winter, when Cait, my relative and now Lochie’s better half, had been attacked by a stalker, I’d dreamed of ways we could’ve better defended her and ourselves.
While in pursuit, I’d been shot by the fucker.
Lochie had been stabbed.
In the end, our assailant had fallen to his death—a better result than him hurting anyone else, but it had robbed us of the closure we could’ve got with him being tried in court. In the months that had passed, I’d been in and out of surgery, and Lochie had concentrated on settling down with Cait and fixing problems the stalker had caused.
We hadn’t tackled the question of the fuck-ups we’d both made.
I knew he felt it, too, the crushing horror at letting someone get the better of us on our home turf.
I posed my question carefully. “Are ye thinking about how we better track and defend against a rogue individual?”
Lochie’s dark eyes flashed, a show of intent. “Exactly that. Ye ken this is outside of the typical remit of the service?”
Of course it fucking was. The mountain rescue saved lost and injured people. We didn’t hunt maniacs.
But if it happened once…
My mind shot to Elise. Of anyone here, she’d be a likely target. Even if she was only staying for a wee while, it would be good to have more knowledge on protecting vulnerable people.
“Outside of our remit but pretty relevant,” I argued. “I’ve had any number of thoughts on what I could’ve done better.”
“Same.” My service leader jumped up and grabbed a black marker pen. “Give me them. We’ll write a list and see how much we can deliver. The team has a limited training budget, but Gordain might be persuaded to extend it.”
Gordain was my uncle and the owner of both the hangar and the contract to deliver the rescue service. He was ex-military, same as Lochie. A background I missed.
One by one, we went through our considerations. We’d tracked Cait and her stalker through the snowy hills. Drone use would’ve helped. Tactical body armour could’ve protected us from the injuries we’d sustained, not that we could wear that on a regular basis, but the option was real. A heat-seeking camera could help find people lost in the night, or those seeking to hide from us.
Advanced tracking.
Survival.
Combat training.
Gun skills.
At the latter point, my shoulder panged. I rubbed at it, forcing back my surge of hurt and frustration.
Lochie palmed his bearded jaw, considering the points we’d listed. “Most of these willnae be relevant to the crew as a whole. Some we can make fun for team building, like paintball or some shite.” He regarded me. “But for a select few of us, I want the works. This is about more than just the job. This place is our home. My wife could’ve been killed—”
He stumbled then got himself under control. I knew better than to offer comfort.
“An old military friend of mine is now a contractor delivering private training. Weapons, hand-to-hand combat, defensive skills. I have a decent grounding in those areas but could use a refresher now I’m no longer serving. Want in?”
“Fuck yeah.”
He pursed his lips in approval. “I’ll get in touch with him. Ye know, I’ve wondered about this. Why did ye never join the military? Ye have a keen strategic mind, and it would suit ye.”
At least for that I had an easy answer. “It would mean leaving home for too long. I cannae do that.”
If Lochie was curious as to why, he didn’t press. Instead, he changed the topic to this afternoon’s newbie training, repeating his edict that I was there to instruct and observe, not to take part.
At least I had something productive to look forward to. Full-on training to fill in the gaps I hadn’t learned by myself.
It couldn’t come fast enough.
Later that afternoon, kitted out and in our red jumpsuits, the mountain rescue service took to the hills. The hike, with rock climbing practice and equipment use rehearsal for our newer members, chewed up another portion of my energy.
Then Lochie’s radio barked with a call.
The crew hustled to head out on the mission, leaving me behind.
“Take the new starters back to the hangar. Then go get some rest, aye?” Lochie said to me over his shoulder.
The call of the wild rose in me, an almost desperate need to hunt and find.
But I couldn’t go.
With heavy boots, I descended the hill with the new members chattering away. On the way, we passed the bothy containing Leo’s friend.
I eyed the small stone building. No lights shone from the interior, despite the dull afternoon. The place didn’t have a TV, but no signs of life were visible at all.
With Viola’s labour ongoing, Leo likely wouldn’t have checked on his guest, so I made a mental note to return tomorrow.
At the last minute, I caught a glimmer of movement at the window.
I raised a hand.
The figure didn’t wave back.
Elise might not appreciate my calling in on her, but it was the right thing to do.
