This chapter was LONG; so I decided to split it into two chapters. I will post one today and the other about this time tomorrow. (Approximately 4pm AZ time) A big thank you to jam2014 for being my sounding board for this one. You get the chapter a lot sooner because of her!
Warning: Some Language, Peril . . .
Conner gaped in disbelief. Robin had disappeared a second time beneath the dark, churning water of the river. All that was left was the grapple that the Boy Wonder had used to try to save himself. And he had almost succeeded, too!
His mind wouldn't accept it. Refused! The younger boy had risked his life to save Conner's. He couldn't be gone!
With renewed determination, Conner grabbed up the dangling grapple gun. It might come in handy. He fumbled with the controls and released the line, and then he took off once more along the river's edge; shoving the equipment into his pocket.
He could barely see. The snow was coming down heavier; the flakes were larger now. Already that on the ground nearly covered his boot; at least five inches with no sign of stopping. He stumbled over rocks and branches that lay hidden beneath the blanket of white. Several times, sharp twigs had slapped his face; cutting his skin.
A simple twig had broken his skin! It seemed impossible, but Conner knew it was a fact. He could feel the sharp stinging it had left behind across the side of his nose and cheek; another had sliced his forehead; one, his chin. Conner could still feel his face, but his hands were another matter. His fingers felt numb as he shoved off of trees in his path and swatted blindly at shrubs and bushes.
Ironically, his lungs felt like they were burning.
The vague outline of the baggage car loomed suddenly! He had almost passed it! The aluminum train car had appeared to have broken in half, and a portion of it was caught between two boulders only a few feet from the shore. He could see the shape of a tree jutting out from the bank nearby. But what Conner couldn't see, however, was Robin.
Terrified that the boy was crushed or trapped beneath the surface, the older teen didn't hesitate. He plunged into the icy current after him; gasping as glacial temperature stole his breath away. It nearly swept him off of his feet. Both boots were now filled as Conner trudged through thigh high water in his effort to reach the baggage car. Was this even the right half of the car?
"Robin!"
Other than the roar of the river, he could hear nothing.
"I'm coming," he yelled. He didn't know if Robin could hear him or not, but on the off chance that he could, Conner wanted him to know he wasn't alone; that help, such as it was, was on the way.
He knew the boy's cape had been snagged by the sharp edges on the end of the car where the blast had blown outward. Had he been crushed by the car or against the rocks?
"Robin!" Conner yelled. "ROBIN!"
Conner was splashing through the water toward the end of the railway car nearest him when suddenly the river bottom fell away. Conner dropped beneath the surface of the water briefly before surging upward. The current had him now and drove him forward.
He didn't fight it only because it took him in the direction he wanted to go.
His hands slapped the side of the car. The current was nothing if not stronger here and Conner felt his boots slip as the water threatened to drag him beneath the surface; beneath the car. He grabbed at a piece of the railing that had lined the roof of the car, but his legs were thrust to the side and not even the cold could camouflage the sharp pain sheering up and down his leg. Conner cried out as part of the aluminum siding had just sliced deep into his thigh. The pressure of the current made him slide further as the metal ripped an even longer gouge into his flesh.
"ROBIN," he screamed; pain accentuating his fear.
He shoved away from the car in an effort to save himself. The metal tore at him even as the water yanked him free from it. He grunted; slamming into one of the boulders that had captured the baggage car. Conner grabbed on for all he was worth. The current pinned him against it.
Balancing himself against the rock, he ducked under the water to feel for his teammate. He was desperate to find the younger boy, but was simultaneously terrified that he would. What chance did Robin have of escaping an icy grave?
Something brushed his hand. A piece of cloth. Robin's cape? Conner gripped it; dragging it to the surface. The signature black and yellow material was hardly recognizable in the last light, but it was Robin's. He could see that the material had been cut through partway. Robin had obviously attempted to cut himself out of it. Gritting his teeth, Conner continued to haul up the weight on the other end of it as fast as he could.
Robin's pale face cleared the water. His lips were blue. Was he breathing? A thin dark line slithered down the side of his face from beneath the hairline. Robin must had hit his head at some point. Conner suspected that the injury was what had prevented him from succeeding in freeing himself. Right now, however, the boy looked dead, but Conner refused to accept it. He couldn't . . . He struggled to unfasten the cape and wrapped his arms around the smaller form; clutching him protectively to his chest.
He couldn't see the shore anymore from where he was at. Conner knew it was there, but he couldn't see as the light was finally consumed by the night. Or, he thought it had.
Ice was forming on his hair and his eyelashes. Maybe it was affecting his vision, but Conner thought he saw something glowing. It was snowing too hard to tell for sure. All he knew for certain, was that he needed to get Robin to shore. There had been a tree overhanging the river next to them, but he could no longer see it. If he stayed here any longer, however, Conner would end up joining Robin. As it was, he could no longer feel his feet.
The baggage car behind him creaked and groaned. It shifted under the strain of the current, letting out an ear-piercing shriek as it resettled into a new position.
Shifting Robin in his arms so that the boy was draped over his shoulder, Conner took a leap of faith and stepped away from the deceptive safety of the boulder. It was difficult. The force of the water prevented him from moving freely, but he inched his way to the side until the heavy rock curved away. He lifted a hand out blindly in front of him; searching for a branch or limb. Nothing!
Unable to stay where he was any longer, Conner lunged forward. The current immediately yanked him off of his feet, but his hand slapped against the rough bark of a branch and halted the current's attempts to sweep the two boys away.
So close!
He was so damned close to the shore, but unable to get his feet back under him, Conner was stuck. Robin's dead weight shifted and his body threatened to slide from his grip. Conner clamped down on the boy's thigh to hold him in place, but without the use of his extra hand, how could he possibly get them to safety?
They were going to die . . .
He was going to die!
It didn't seem possible! Had he ever even considered that death might one day claim him? Maybe . . . but not so soon! He hadn't really lived yet!
Unexpectedly, a light appeared just a couple of feet from them. The white snow blurred his vision until abruptly, and a grizzled, ice-encrusted face materialized a few feet away on the shoreline in front of him.
"H-He-elp," Conner stammered. Was that his voice? It sounded so weak! Hardly the roar of earlier. What else was the cold stealing from him? "P-Pleassse, h-help us!"
"Dang! Appears you boys have gotten yourselves into a bit of a pickle," came a voice that sounded a lot like it had been gargling rocks.
"P-Pic-ckle? N-No sssir." Conner's teeth were chattering. "Th-The t-train . . ."
"Hang on, young-un. You can tell me all about it once we get you and your friend there safe," the old man interrupted him. "Don't you worry none. I got you now."
"R-Rob . . ."
The man clamped a rope around the trunk of the tree and attached a line to it that wrapped around his body; then he stepped out into the river. The water rose up above the older man's knees.
"Whooo-eeee, that's plum cold right there!"
Conner's eyes widened as his grip on the branch slipped. His hand was getting too numb to hold on for much longer.
"T-Take h-him," Conner cried out. "I'm c-can't h-hold on! T-Take him, p-ple-ease!"
Calmly, but quickly, the heavily bearded man wrapped a line around Conner's waist and cinched it tight. He ran the line to the secured rope next. He moved back to Conner.
"We're going to have to move quicker if we're going to get you out of this," the old man told him.
"T-Take h-him," Conner begged. At least one of them might get out of this, although Robin hadn't moved or groaned even once since Conner pulled him from the water. A tiny voice in his head whispered insidiously that his friend might be already dead.
"No worries, son. I've got you both," the man assured him.
The man then reached out and hauled the smaller boy from Conner's shoulder, and draped him over his own as a man might carry his own young son. Robin's head lolled on the man's shoulder lifelessly.
"I need you to follow me," he instructed. "Hand over hand. Can you do that?"
Unable to speak anymore, Conner nodded shakily. Their rescuer had Robin now. He'd get the younger boy to shore. The man would help him. Conner could do this as long as Robin was taken care of first.
The man slogged his way through the knee-high water at the river's edge and carefully laid Robin in the snow. Alarmingly, the snow covered him almost immediately. He turned and grabbed Conner's line just in time as the boy's grip slipped and the current pulled him downstream.
The man didn't panic, however, just began hauling Conner to the shore with long powerful movements. Hand over hand, he towed the boy to him until he could reach out and grab Conner's upper arm. A second later and he had the older teen sprawled next to the snow-covered mound that was Robin.
Conner struggled to his knees; sweeping the snow from the younger boy's face. Robin was pale . . . too pale. Blue tinged his skin in the weak light and his lips darker still. Ice and snow encrusted his hair and clung to the boy's mask.
"Noooo," Conner wailed.
"Don't go weeping and wailing just yet," the old man snapped. He had taken a moment to unfasten the ropes from the trees. "The cold can kill you quick, but sometimes, especially in the case of drowning, it can actually give you a fighting chance."
Conner watched as the man tugged Robin further from the river's embankment. He kneeled down and tilted Robin's head back; pinching his nose. The man blew in several breaths into the boy's mouth, and paused to rub his cheeks.
"He's about frozen solid," the man remarked. "We need to get you both back to the shack, then we can see what we can do for your friend here."
Conner's brain struggled to keep up, but their cover story suddenly flitted through his mind.
"B-Bro-ther," he stammered to the man. "H-He's m-my b-bro-ther."
The grizzled fellow hesitated as he looked at Conner and back at the masked face of the younger boy. "You don't say?" He shrugged as he accepted the lie with ease. "Family, eh? Well, now, I'd say that explains a lot," he said with a nod of approval.
He opened his large fur-lined coat as he climbed to his feet and lifted Robin in his arms smoothly, with hardly a grunt. He took a moment to wrap the edges of the warm outerwear around Robin as far as it would reach, and then he held out a hand to the older boy.
"Come on now, we have to move, or we might as well lay down here and let Mother Nature have her way with us," he coaxed.
"R-Right." Conner struggled to his feet. The old man's hand helped more than the clone would have liked to admit.
He took the line still wrapped around Conner waist and clipped it now to his belt.
"Just so I don't lose you," he told him. "Hate to have to explain it to your brother why I managed to save him, but lost you in the process." He nodded, satisfied at his work. "Now, we follow the line back to my shack. Quick now. I won't do you boys a lick of good if I freeze up out here, too."
Conner frowned. It was getting hard to follow what the older man was saying, but when the man turned and started walking, the rope around Conner tugged him forward and he stumbled after him.
"It's not far," the man yelled back over his shoulder. "Good thing, too. I might never have heard the almighty noise that train car made over the howling of the wind otherwise, and came out in this mess to investigate. Luckily for all of us that I left Cecil to keep the fire warm."
Cecil? The name was lost to him as it was all Conner could do to put one foot in front of the other. He thought he was managing it, but he couldn't quite tell. He couldn't feel anything below his waist anymore.
His world consisted of swirling white, a hint of light, and Robin's snow-covered head where it rested on the old man's shoulder.
REACTIONS?
Don't kill me yet . . . You'll never know what happened to Roy and Artemis. More on that tomorrow!
*Ooh, if you haven't seen it yet, check out my newest one-shot, "The Cowl". It's part of my young Dick Grayson series.*
