novelraw Chapter 133: What Level Of Done Is Done?
Chapter 133: What Level Of Done Is Done?
Elias had the grease pencil out before Zubair finished the second tap. He circled both bolts, printed a quick arrow, wrote a number that only meant anything to him. Lachlan laid rope and hardware like he was dealing cards, fast and neat. Alexei put his weight on the first bolt and grunted, satisfied.
"Glass?" Elias asked, testing the pane with the flat of his knuckles.
"Don’t love the chatter," Zubair said. "Acceptable if we don’t do anything stupid."
Lachlan wagged his eyebrows and then, to his credit, kept his feet planted. He threaded the first carabiner and fed rope through. The line purred as it ran.
Wind licked their knees. The bridge tried to talk them into a misstep with a dozen little noises: a light fixture ticking its chain, a rail vibrating under a gust, two panes complaining to each other where a seal had gone brittle. Sera’s fingers went numb where she held the door. Alexei shouldered in beside her and took the weight without making a show of it.
"Mark tension," Zubair said. Elias caught the rope, watched the sag, and gave a number that wasn’t wrapped in a lecture. They adjusted. The line lifted a hair and held.
"Back clip," Zubair said. Lachlan passed him hardware blind, and it landed in his palm like they’d practiced it for years. Alexei checked the second bolt again and put his shoulder against the wall as if he intended to argue the whole building into staying upright.
"Visibility?" Elias asked.
"Bad," Zubair said, and that was that.
Sera narrowed her eyes through the gap. White and more white, wind pushing hard sideways. No shapes. No movement you could prove. Just the sense of space beyond the far pane and the hard bite of air on the inside of her wrist.
"Don’t," Alexei said under his breath when Lachlan’s weight tipped forward a fraction.
"I’m only looking," Lachlan said, and let Alexei haul him an inch back anyway.
"Hold it steady," Zubair ordered. He braced his weight into the line, tested the give, and nodded to himself. "We’re not testing span load blind."
"Who said anything about blind?" Lachlan grinned.
"Back," Zubair snapped without heat.
They locked the first anchor, moved down a meter, and set the second. The rope sang a different note here; Elias scribbled another arrow, adjusted the run, and handed Zubair a fresh carabiner. Frost crept into the seams of Sera’s gloves; when she flexed her hand, the leather cracked a little.
"Your hand," Alexei said, and closed his over her fingers just long enough to warm the joints. He didn’t look at her. She didn’t thank him. It was a job like any other.
"Door," Zubair said. Sera eased it a sliver wider so he could shift position. Wind slapped their shins; ice pellets pinged off the bolts like a handful of thrown BBs. The glass rattled. The line lifted, settled, held.
"Again," Zubair said. "Last anchor."
Elias was already moving. Lachlan had the hardware ready. Alexei leaned harder into the door so the wind had to argue with him first. Sera adjusted her grip and felt the frost grind under her glove like salt.
Something thumped down the bridge — a loose fixture finding a new rhythm. Elias’s head came up; Lachlan’s grin got sharper.
"Focus," Zubair said.
They set the last clip, took up slack, and locked the knot tight. The rope ran clean from frame to frame. Zubair tested each anchor in turn, putting his weight to it, listening to the groan and the give. He nodded once, short.
"Good," he said. "We’ve got it."
"How much good?" Lachlan asked.
"Enough to come back here and be smart," Zubair said. "Not enough to be stupid."
Lachlan held up two fingers and mimed a scout’s honor. Elias snorted. Alexei laughed into his sleeve.
Sera let the door ease back until the seal kissed.
The ding-ding-ding of ice hitting the surface of the building softened until it was a lot easier to ignore.
Elias capped the pencil with a gloved thumb and tucked it away while Lachlan palmed the last carabiner like a coin and made it appear in Zubair’s waiting hand. Alexei shook frost off his shoulders like a dog, but he couldn’t hold back the smile on his face.
"Wrap it," Zubair grunted. For a moment, Sera and her creature just watched him. She had heard the guys calling him Zaddy, and she couldn’t have agreed more. He didn’t waste words, and yet, everyone listened to him with such precision that she could feel the tension lesson from her shoulders.
It was hard in the beginning, to let them into her cabin, to let them into her life. But now she was almost thankful for it.
At least, she wasn’t loosing her mind as she rocked back and forth in a corner somewhere... too stressed to even bother going out into the coldness.
Lachlan gently pushed her forward and she nodded her head.
They reversed their steps — not leaving so much as just cleaning the scene they’d made. Rope coiled where it needed to coil. Hardware sat where hands would reach for it next time. Grease circles marked the bolts on the wall like a quiet map.
"Hold," Zubair said again, listening with his palm to the floor one last time. Satisfied, he straightened. "We’re done here."
"Define ’done,’" Lachlan asked, already edging for another look. "Because with you, there is done, and then there is done-done, and then there is everything is so far done that we never have to return to this place again... we are going back home: we are done."
"Back," Zubair said without looking at him.
Alexei hooked a finger in Lachlan’s hood and reeled him in like a fish.
Elias cracked the door just enough to take one last reading on the rattle. "It’s going to fight us," he said, simple. "We’ll plan for that."
Zubair planted a hand on the rope, braced in the doorway, and glanced over his shoulder. "On my count," he said. "We close and move."
He didn’t count yet. The wind shoved once more. The glass knocked twice. Lachlan’s grin flashed, Alexei’s shoulder stayed solid against the door, Elias’s pencil tapped once against his palm. Sera held the edge of the seal and waited for Zubair’s "one."