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I pictured Erin, then Angelina and Harlon, and channeled all those mixed emotions — love, hate, resentment — into my arms, shoving with everything I had.
Correction —redirecting.
And, whoa. If a camera had freeze-framed on that particular moment, it would have caught me as Atlas holding up the globe. At least, that’s what it felt like. Just as heavy, and just as crushing.
But in the next frame, the boulder inched sideways, and farther still in the next. And the next and the next, until I glimpsed sky overhead. The sky was still stormy, but I would take that over staring straight up at a boulder. One last shove with the left side of my body sent the boulder careening to the bottom of the crater. The force nearly sent me sprawling, but Erin grabbed my arm, and I fell beside her.
Rain pelted us as we stared down at the boulder.
“Well, that ought to hold the balloon down,” Erin quipped, though her hands were shaking.
I gulped, then grabbed her hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
We crawled up a gravelly slope. It gave way under us, pushing us back one step for every two in the right direction. Finally, we made it to the top and crouched in the lee of the rocks that had hidden the crater. I feared what might come next. A goddamn tornado?
“This way.” Erin pulled me along that natural rock wall.
We ran at a crouch, a lot like I’d done a couple of times in war zones. The wind continued to roar, and tumbleweeds rushed past. But every step took us farther from the epicenter of the storm.
Thunder boomed in an angry explosion. We dropped flat, though no lightning followed — that, or the clouds were so thick, even lightning couldn’t pierce them. A moment later, we raced off again.
“Great,” Erin muttered as rain started pattering down.
In seconds, it went from a drizzle to all-out, pelting rainstorm. Every drop was a painful projectile. I threw my arm up, protecting my face, squinting to follow Erin. The storm, having failed to locate us, seemed intent on drowning us instead.
“Not far now!” Erin hollered over the wind and rain.
Every step I took sent up a cold splash, and when we turned into a gully and headed uphill, the red soil grew slick and muddy. Still, Erin pushed onward, climbing a steep, rocky slope.
“We’re nearly there.” Heaving for breath, she pointed to a narrow ledge traversing the cliff.
“Are you nuts?” She wanted to head back into the open on a path as treacherous as that?
Yep. She did.
She set off, flattening herself against the cliff while sidestepping along the ledge. Cursing, I followed. The cliff became steeper, higher, and even more exposed. Rain hammered my back, and the wind whipped at my soaked shirt.
After edging along for a good fifty feet, I was ready to give up. But the ledge gradually widened, swung around a bend, and—
I stumbled into a huge cave, nearly barreling into Erin.
“Over here.” She pulled me to the far wall, where we stopped, staring at the storm that raged outside. Water dripped from our bodies to the floor of the cave, pooling around our feet.
“What is this place?” I whispered, looking around.
“Robber’s Roost.”
Whether the name was fact or folklore, it fit. The cave was a huge scoop in the cliff, big enough to house a whole family of dragons. Traces of an ancient cliff dwelling stood against the back wall. The front opened onto a huge, natural window high over the desert, where sheets of rain blew past on a howling wind.
Erin pointed into the gray-on-gray sky, getting me oriented. “On a clear day, you can see Sedona. The highway’s over there.”
I took her word for it, but we might as well have been on a distant planet. Some place like Mars where storms constantly whipped an otherworldly landscape.
We stared out for a while, catching our breath and assuring ourselves we were finally safe. Then we hunkered down behind the ruins to wait.
“Holy shit,” Erin muttered a few minutes later, hugging herself.
I couldn’t agree more.
