Gage didn’t want to do it. He thought of Cassandra, could still hear her piercing screams as she plunged to her death. He didn’t want to put Carlos at risk as well as Abby.

He felt his brother’s hand on his shoulder. “Make the call, bro. You know it’s the right one.”

Gage glanced back at the hole. With a deep, calming breath, he nodded.

Carlos stood still as Mateo tied a length of rope around his skinny waist and pulled the knot snug.

“You ready for this?” Gage asked.

“I can do it,” the kid repeated, thumping his narrow chest.

“All right, we’ll give it a try.” Gage returned his gaze to the opening. “Carlos is bringing you the rope. Just stay still!”

They walked around to the other side of the hole. Carlos got down on his hands and knees, dropped to his belly, and crawled very slowly out toward the opening. The floor was more stable here, but it dipped and swayed beneath his weight. A couple of false starts, a couple of direction changes, and Carlos reached the opening.

“It will not work!” the boy called out. “I need to take it down to her.”

Gage softly cursed, his body vibrating with tension.

Edge was already feeding out the line, giving the boy enough slack to drop through the opening.

“We’ll haul him out as soon as you have the loop tightened around you!” Gage shouted to Abby.

“Okay!” Abby called back, trusting him as she always did.

His chest felt tight. His heart was thundering like a freight train. Time dragged. He wanted to say something, make sure she was okay, but he didn’t want to distract her. He had to trust Abby as she trusted him.

Gage saw the tug on Carlos’s rope, signaling Abby had the line around her, and it was time to haul the boy up. Edge and Mateo made a quick and efficient extraction, pulling Carlos out of the hole and back across the floor to solid ground.

“I did it!” The boy jumped up and down as he ran toward Edge.

“Good job.” Edge smiled and ruffled the kid’s dark hair.

“Hang on, Abby! We’re bringing you up.” Gage took a turn with the rope around the trunk of a tree, then got a firm grip on the line and braced his legs apart. Edge and Mateo joined him, and they slowly hauled Abby out of the hole. Timbers creaked, debris rained down through the opening, but the dangerous portion of the floor remained anchored in place.

Abby’s head emerged, then the rest of her body. As they pulled her onto solid ground, Gage dropped the rope and ran toward her. “Are you hurt? How do you feel? Is anything broken?”

“I’m okay. I hit the ground pretty hard, but nothing’s broken.”