Rush

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  Teaser chapter

  INTO THE FLAMES

  Ten minutes later we get our orders, and we jog, geared up, onto the tarmac. We swing into the helicopter beneath the thumping of rotors. In the distance, a finger of black spirals into the sky.

  This moment answers all the questions. The “why” Salome doesn’t understand and the reason I’ll never comply with Dad’s request. Inside, I burn a joyful burn, and darkness flees. I hate fire. I want to kill it. But I love it. It dances in my mind.

  We hover over the smoke. Radio scratches in the distance.

  “Abort, guys. Wind shifts in the canyon.” The copter pilot looks back and smiles. “It’s turning ugly. Not your war today.”

  Nobody pays attention. We stare at Moxie’s shadow. A red light flashes across his face.

  “Hover!” Mox steps out onto the helicopter’s skids. “The IC has the call, and this IC says, yeehaw!” Mox tucks into the pike position, pats his belly bag, and disappears down his rappelling rope.

  “Guess it is our war,” I say to Harv. “Later.”

  Finding our safety zone. Securing the eighty-pound K-bag filled with saws and food, axes and survival equipment. There will be time for all that. But not now. I stand on the skid and stare out over the sea of green. Smoke rises from beneath the canopy of trees and sends spindly fingers up to grab me. It’s down there, waiting to destroy or be destroyed.

  I zip down the line into the suffocating cloud. My feet hit Koss’s hands, and I hear curses and laughter. I slow. We descend together. The thicker the smoke, the clearer I think. The cloud that fogs my mind blows away, and I’m all here. Right now. Let there be light.

  OTHER BOOKS YOU MAY ENJOY

  SPEAK

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue,

  Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2010

  Copyright © Jonathan Friesen, 2010

  All rights reserved

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Friesen, Jonathan.

  Rush / by Jonathan Friesen.

  p. cm.

  Summary: A pariah in his town and home for the results of his risk-taking behavior,

  eighteen-year-old Jake seeks adrenaline rushes to clear his dark thoughts, but when Salome,

  the girl he loves, gets caught up in taking chances, too, the consequences are devastating.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-43475-8

  [1. Risk-taking (Psychology)—Fiction. 2. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 3. Emotional problems—Fiction. 4. Wildfires—Fiction. 5. Firefighters—Fiction. 6. Family life—California—Fiction. 7. California—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.F91661Rus 2010

  [Fic]—dc22 2009049934

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume

  any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I want to thank an incredible family—mine. Wendy, you know just what to say, and Emma, Isaac, and Si, you know just when to show up with hugs. I love you all.

  I also want to mention the incredible people who worked behind the scenes, yet whose names, if you ask me, belong on the book cover. Deidre, agent extraordinaire, I begin with you, and the family that is the Knight Agency. What a team you make. Angelle, you need to know that as an editor, you’re a writer’s dream. Along with all the good folk at Penguin, your insight makes writing a joy.

  I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Cec Murphey. You were there when this idea was merely a crumb, but you believed in the story, and you believed in me. Thank you.

  Mom and Dad, you were there too. You support me in more ways than I can list. I’m blessed.

  One of the greatest surprises during this season of life has been all the wonderful people at Hillman. You surrounded our family with more love than we could have imagined.

  Which brings me to God. Simply acknowledging you feels too small. You’re awesome.

  Finally, Eli, I humbly thank you for living the life, for leaping into flames when the rest of us flee. You and those who fight fire everywhere are heroes.

  FORMER MEMBERS OF THE RUSH CLUB

  Christian Kodrey

  1987-2010

  Allen Kimm

  1988-2009

  Ray Torea

  1988-2009

  Carter Ramirez

  1985-2008

  David Hendersly

  1985-2006

  Benjamin Graft

  1984-2004

  Andrew Lee

  1981-2002

  Jason Graft

  1980-2001

  Gabe Filcher

  1977-2001

  CHAPTER 1

  “PURE INSANITY.”

  I whisper at the sky as sheets of rain sting my face. Water rushes by me, swamps my boots, and fills Carver’s Gorge up to my shins. It’s a steamy wet, a loud wet. Sheer walls rise on both sides and jumble the sounds of foam and thunder. Miles away at Brockton High, teachers drone on about the composition of rocks and good poetry. But in this deep ravine sliced into forests of California pine, my world is wild and alive.

  Lightning sears into the rushing flow twenty paces beyond me. I feel the jolt, and my sopped hair leaps.

  “Did you feel that?” Troy’s hand squeezes my shoulder. “I’m serious, Jake. If Cheyenne finds me dead, she’ll kill me.”

  I stretch my neck, work my shoulders, and feel my smile widen. “No, she won’t. Why do you think she dropped out when you did? She married you for your money and that big old firefighters’ insurance policy.” I grab his arm and pull him beside me. “She asked me to take you down here so she could collect.”


  “Shut up! When you and Salome finish playing around and get serious, you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

  I run my hand hard over my forehead. “She’s a friend.”

  I swipe beads of water off my watch with my thumb and peer through the smeary face: 1:30 P.M.

  “You wanted to stay in shape in the off-season. I thought a fire boy like you would love all this water.” Suddenly, the stone beneath me shifts, and I reach for Troy to steady myself. He whacks at my hand, and I slip to my knees, stand with a laugh.

  “Okay, buddy. We’re going the length of the gorge in fifty minutes.” I point at a boulder that juts out of the froth. “And you, no mercy.”

  Troy squints and whips back matted hair. “I can’t see a thing down here. I’m heading out.”

  “Follow!” I slap his shoulder and sigh, knowing he won’t go back without me. “Good to have you home.”

  I leap into darkness. Deep in the cut of the forest, stone and shadow keep it dusk, but beneath this storm, it’s midnight. I dodge left, weave right. I wade blind. Massive rocks loom colorless—only lightning gives me a flicker of sight.

  “Slow down, Jake! Can’t hardly see you.”

  “It’s gonna be close,” I call over my shoulder, and my arm grazes a boulder. “Keep up.”

  I don’t fear the granite giants—hit, bleed, run on—it’s the ankle twisters, the sunken stone grenades that wait to explode my feet and drop me to my knees.

  Rain thickens. Straight-down rain that reaches from the sky deep into the earth.

  More lightning sizzles into the canyon walls. The river’s on sulfury fire, each breaker tinged blue or gold.

  I’m inside a fireworks display, part of the explosion.

  Lightning flashes again, and I burn, a pulsing burn that scampers up my legs and sets my spine on fire. The flash steals my strength and leaves me twitching.

  I’m not breathing.

  I stop, suck air hard, and expand tingling lungs. Troy crashes into me, and my body slumps against a trunk, thin and rough. I gasp and press my cheek against the bark. It feels alive, like I’m alive. Pines that dot the ravine’s bottom prove it—there’s life down here. I will not die here, not today.

  “What happened there?” Troy’s voice sounds tinny, but he’s yelling in my ear.

  “Light—lightning.”

  I straighten, clench my teeth, and stumble forward. But I can’t stand against the flow.

  I scrape against rock, leave a hunk of fleshy thigh. My foot slips. My ankle rolls beneath my weight, and I scream. I splash into foaming water face-first.

  Troy’s strong arms circle my waist and haul me vertical. “Jake, what’s the quickest way out? I didn’t survive all those fires to get killed in the water!”

  “Off me! I need to beat my record.”

  I pull free from Troy and pause. Something thick and weighty wraps my calves, and I kick it away. A battered jacket dips beneath the surface, swirls, and snags on a rock. I lean over and pick up the shred. Brown leather, with an I emblazoned in gold across the back. Caked blood splotches cover the sleeves, the front. My heartbeat races, lit up by a different jolt.

  “The Immortals,” I whisper, laying the jacket gently on an outcrop.

  According to legend, each year at least one member of the underground firefighters’ brotherhood must die. But all that’s known is rumor, because dead firemen never speak, and the living strut around Brockton in their Immortals jackets just as tight-lipped.

  Whoever they are, they live life short and wild. Like I do.

  I stroke the jacket. “Remember how we used to pretend? We’d stick that yellow tape on all our coats?”

  Troy nods. “That was before Salome’s brother . . . What are you going to do with it?”

  I say nothing.

  “They’re cursed. Cheyenne says if you put one on, the Reaper’s at your door.” He slaps my shoulder. “You know she’s right. I mean, I still see Drew hanging there. I have nightmares about that day.”

  My heartbeat skips, slows. Death was here. Not the gentle guy who comes for grandpas while they sleep. The violent one, the too-soon one—the one who has a summer home in Brockton.

  “It could have been Ray’s,” I say. “Didn’t they find him upstream?”

  I close my eyes and see Ray’s smile and hear his laugh. I stretch out my other hand and lay it on all that remains of the young firefighter.

  Troy nods. “Or Allen. Did he ever show up?”

  I shake my head.

  “And no others went while I was gone?”

  “Just Christian, but they found his body miles from here.”

  I lift up the jacket and push one arm through.

  Troy grabs my free forearm. “Don’t!”

  I wiggle into leather, cool against warm skin. “You know the difference between them and me? I don’t need the jacket. I’m already immortal.”

  Voices.

  Troy glances at me. I give my head a quick shake. “There’s nobody else down here.”

  I strain to see ahead. Lightning flashes and thunder quakes the canyon.

  I test my twisted ankle, wince, and peek at my leg. Rain traces pink down my calf, pools and swirls and washes away.

  “Let’s go,” I say.

  I slosh forward. That leather scrap steals my will. The creature inside me that needs adrenaline to survive shuts up—it’s time to go home.

  “Dustin!” a voice shouts out from around the bend.

  “Someone’s really stupid,” I say to Troy. There’ll be twenty feet of water before the voice knows it. Troy takes off toward the sound. I grimace and slosh forward and freeze.

  Ten people huddle together. Turned out from the circle, a ranger bangs his walkie-talkie on his thigh, curses as water drops off the brim of his cap. Troy’s gray-on-black silhouette approaches him. All this I see; I hear nothing. Eerie. The storm allows no noise but its own roar. We step nearer until I hear the ranger’s words, see the desperation he hides beneath that brim.

  Women cry, and a little kid shrieks from her seat on a granite slab. Men shine flashlights into the sky and holler. I follow the useless beams, look back at the girl.

  “Jake!” Troy spins me around. “He says there’s a boy stuck—”

  “You’re a firefighter. Can you get her, and all of them, out of here?”

  Troy nods.

  I hobble into the circle. “What are you all doing? In less than an hour, water will be above that girl’s head.”

  A man, drippy-faced and hoarse, grabs me. “My son. He’s on that cliff—”

  I squint upward. There’s no way a kid could climb—

  “Daddy!”

  I shield my eyes from the pounding rain, but the small voice is invisible. All above is shadow.

  “Hang on, son.” Dad sloshes to the rock wall, reaches for a hold. His fingers slip. “Don’t let go!” He runs his hands through soaked hair and stares around with wild eyes.

  The little girl whimpers and rocks. I wade toward her perch. “Is that your brother up there?”

  She nods.

  “I’m Jake King. What’s your name?”

  “Nikki.”

  I bend over. “Look at me.” She balls up, squeezes her knees to her chin, and peeks.

  “I’m gonna bring your brother down. I prom—I guarantee it.”

  Her small voice whispers, “I shouldn’t have called Dusty a dummy.”

  Troy grabs the shoulders of two rangers. “Hey! You have no time. Get the girl and the family and get out, now!” He turns to me. “You need anyone?”

  “Dad,” I say.

  Troy nods. “The father stays here!”

  One ranger grabs the other’s sleeve. “It’s what I’ve been telling you. We need to get them out, or we lose ’em.”

  I look to Troy. “Take them back the way we came.” I pick at the zipper on the jacket. “Please don’t tell Salome about this.”

  “What are you gonna do? Your ankle. Your leg—”

  “We’
re leaving.” The drippy ranger gestures with his walkie-talkie. “Now!”

  Anguish sloshes around me. A mother, heels dug in, fights off men, and Nikki wails.

  “Why’d your friend take them away?” Dad speaks to me without emotion.

  I walk by his question, stroke the sandpaper rock face. “Wait for Dusty here. And be sure to remind Nikki it wasn’t her fault.”

  I bear full weight on my bad leg, grit my teeth, and climb. Pruned fingertips search for crevices, boots plunge into nooks, and I press hard against the rock.

  “Keep screaming, kid!”

  “Daddy.” It’s fainter.

  Ten feet, twenty. I reach thirty feet, find a hold, and breathe hard. “More—keep talking! Can’t see you.”

  “Is Daddy coming up?”

  To the left.

  I veer horizontal across the cliff and continue my climb. Forty feet. I peek down into the darkness. I’ve reached the Coffin Zone.

  I scan the rock face—still can’t see him. I close my eyes. The jacket I wear weighs heavy on my arms. Right now I’m one of the Immortals. I’m doing everything they do. Except die.

  “Kid! Keep talking!”

  “I didn’t mean to do it.”

  Rain pelts my eyes, and I push up. My hand slides onto a flat space, grazes a small pine and the small shoe of a small kid latched onto a tree. I scramble up and lean back against rock. My ankle screams, and my heartbeat slows.

  The ledge is four feet wide, two feet deep, with a tree. Far as I remember, this is the only ledge on this rock face. This kid’s life is charmed.

  Dusty is in second grade, I bet. He doesn’t look hurt; his jeans and Celtics T-shirt are nothing but wet. But his makeshift belt makes me smile—a long coil of climbing rope that snakes around his feet.

  “Hey there.” I pat his back, and he tenses. “I’m Jake. Are you Dusty?”

  He doesn’t speak.

  “I ask because Dusty’s dad is down there waiting for him, and if you’re not him, I need to keep looking.”