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The sound he made might as well have been a curse. He grabbed her hand, scooped up Raszta like he weighed nothing more than a football, and pulled her toward the gift shop as a deafening roar washed over them.
People were running in all directions, their frantic shrieks piercing through the rumble of cascading rocks and dirt. Pierce’s grip was ironclad, pulling her along, his feet pounding on the asphalt. The world around them became a storm of dust and debris, visibility dropping to nearly zero as he shoved her intothe shop. He all but threw Raszta at her, then turned back to wave a young family inside.
Just as the last of them made it in, Pierce slammed the door shut. Dust pounded against the aged glass, and Rhiannon heard the sharp crack of rocks striking it. People huddled together inside, faces pale and filled with fear.
Rhiannon stared out at the chaos and, with a sharp stab of horror, realized a small child had been left outside. The boy was screaming, his back pressed against a car as rocks tumbled around him. “Oh my God.”
Pierce’s gaze followed hers, and he made a sound that probably would’ve been a curse if he had been able to speak. Without a moment’s hesitation, he bolted back out into the storm of dust and debris.
“No!” She tried to run after him but was pulled back by an older woman dressed in a blue polo shirt that looked like some kind of uniform. Probably a worker at the gift shop.
“No, hon. It’s too dangerous.”
“But Pierce…” she trailed off and watched as he disappeared in the billowing dust cloud. Seconds ticked by in agonizingly slow motion.
Where was he?
Finally, he reappeared with the crying boy tucked safely in his arms and sprinted back toward the door.
Her exhale of relief stalled in her lungs. A boulder as big as a truck hurtled down from the hillside, crashing into the car that the boy had been hiding behind, flattening it like it was made of tinfoil. Then it kept rolling—right toward Pierce and the little boy and the gift shop.
The woman beside her gasped and backed up. “Oh, no.”
“Come on, come on,” Rhiannon whispered, her heart like a jackhammer trying to drill through her chest.
At the last possible moment, Pierce threw himself to the side, narrowly avoiding the boulder. He rolled with the momentum, shielding the child with his body. Dust clouds billowed around them, but Pierce managed to get back up—miraculously unharmed—and race toward the building.
Rhiannon pulled the door open just as Pierce reached it. He stumbled inside and slammed the door shut again, throwing his back against it as if he could hold back the chaos outside with sheer willpower. He was panting heavily and covered in dust. But he was alive. And so was the little boy, clinging desperately to Pierce’s neck as he sobbed.
Pierce dropped his cheek to the boy’s head and held him tightly for a moment as if even he couldn’t believe they were both alive.
She reached for him. “Pierce?—”
The sound of crunching metal and shattering glass filled the air, and he lurched away from the door, ushering her toward the back wall of the shop where the others huddled.
Nobody there claimed the boy, and Rhiannon’s heart sank. Where were his parents?
Shelves of souvenirs rattled off the walls, shattering into shards of ceramic and glass. The lights flickered as dust seeped in through the cracks in the doorway, casting eerie shadows in the dim light. Above them, the untreated wooden beams that held the roof groaned under the weight of the mountainside collapsing outside. Pierce grimaced, and for a moment, Rhiannon saw a flicker of uncertainty cross his stoic expression.
Shit. If he was worried, did they have any chance of surviving this?
The lights went out.
And then all they had was the dying light filtering in through the dirty windows, the dust turning it into a sickly yellow haze. The air tasted like dirt and fear.
She thought about her brother. Would Rylan spiral into a suicidal depression again if she died? Would he lose all the progress he’d made?
And, God, her poor parents back in Kentucky. They’d already been through so much. They would?—
No. She couldn’t worry about them now.
Rhiannon squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to push past the adrenaline that was making her shake all over. When she opened them again, she found Pierce staring at her, dust-caked hand outstretched toward her across the gloom.
She hesitated for only a moment before reaching back. His grip on her hand was reassuringly firm.
The tremors lessened, and finally, everything grew quiet.
Pierce turned his attention back to the sobbing boy in his arms. The kid couldn’t have been older than four and was shivering violently from trauma and fear. Rhiannon watched as Pierce’s hardened gaze softened just for a moment. He looked at the clinging child, and then he gently pried the boy’s fingers away from his shirt. With an encouraging nod, he somehow convinced him to let go and passed the sobbing child to her.
