AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I glanced back at Laurie, Archie, and little Oliver with Rachel. We were leaving vulnerable people here, and I hated that.
“The house is okay, right?” I asked Micah. “You want me to get them into town?”
“It’s all good,” he managed, but whatever he added was lost as the wind carried our voices away.
We leaned into it and headed up from the ranch. An overhang protected the house, and deep channels redirected water from it to a pond and runoff below. Also, whatever danger we were heading to was a thirty-minute stumble-run-hike up a loose graveled path, slipping and sliding on the streams rushing downhill.
The wind howled through the trees like a wild beast. Now more of a torrent, the violent waters shoved the rocks from a previous landslip. Beams of flashlights converged on one spot, a hole carved into the side of the mountain, land drifting from the weight of the rain, destroying what I knew was a natural boulder wall created from the last landslip here over thirty years ago.
“Shit!” Levi shouted over the rain. “Move these rocks!”
We all worked together to shift what we could, to form another barrier against the torrent of water, but the ground beneath us rumbled. The sound was unsettling—a low vibration of moving earth rocked us all.
“It’s moving! Run!”
Panic surged through us as everyone scattered. The earth split beneath our feet, a terrifying crack that echoed in the storm. I lost sight of Quinn amidst the chaos then heard him yell. My heart pounded as Micah grabbed me, and I watched Levi stumble over the sliding mud, but he was too far away to get to Quinn.
Without thinking, I sprinted over chasms and through rushing water, my boots skidding on the mud-slicked debris. The landslide was a cacophony around me, but I focused on my mission.
“Quinn!” I shouted; my voice barely audible over the roar. He turned, eyes wide with fear and confusion. I didn’t waste a second. I reached him as the ground beneath his feet gave way.
Grabbing his arm, I tugged him with all my strength, yanking him from the collapsing earth as the edge crumbled into a dark, churning void.
“Get back!” I yelled, shoving him away from the danger zone with every ounce of muscle I had.
Quinn stumbled to safety, but as I pushed him away, the hole opened up, and I was swallowed. I clawed at the collapsing earth, trying to find anything to hold on to as mud filled my mouth, the taste bitter and suffocating, my grip faltering as the force of the landslide pulled me down.
Time seemed to slow, and the noise around me was a blur of chaos and destruction. I hit rocks and debris, pain shooting through me, but I focused on survival, on clawing my way back to the surface. At the point my strength began to wane, a hand grabbed my wrist, yanking me upward.
Gasping for air, I surfaced, pulled up by strong hands—Quinn, Levi, and others. They dragged me to solid ground, the earth still rumbling but stable.
“Connor, you okay?” Quinn’s voice was urgent, his face pale but determined.
I nodded, coughing out mud and trying to catch my breath. “Just doing my job,” I managed to say, a weak smile tugging at my lips.
The ground had stopped shifting, but the landscape was changed. Half the pasture had subsided, leaving a newscar on the earth where the boulders had tumbled down, creating a new course for the stream.
I stood, legs shaking, but alive. I’d been trained to dive into situations and protect those I cared about, no matter the cost. The relief in Levi’s eyes as he hugged Quinn closer was worth every bruise, every scrape, every terrifying second.
“Fuck, that was insane,” Daniel yelled over the rain, Micah at his side, as we all moved away from the edge and onto stable ground.
Nature had reshaped the land in all her fury, and fuck, I felt high from the adrenaline. My muscles ached, and the near-death experience left me buzzing with a strange exhilaration.
I’d missed that rush.
Chapter Four
NEIL
The storm was unrelenting,pounding on the roof of my office like a thousand fists. It was so loud it seemed as if the entire world was moving. The noise was almost deafening, my empty mug rattling on my desk and my favorite pen slipping off the side.
Solomon burst in, his face pale. “Did you feel that?” Solomon—our dispatcher—should have gone home hours ago. I wasn’t going to make him leave now, though a storm like this, caught in the valley and up into the mountains, was going to cause issues, and I appreciated his level head.
“It didn’t sound good,” I replied, my voice barely audible over the storm’s roar. The unsettling sensation of the ground moving beneath us lingered, and then everything stilled.
“Flash flood?” Solomon asked and glanced out of the window. The town itself wasn’t in the path of the mountain’s river and streams, but what about the outlying ranches? Fuck knows what was going on.
“Get calls out to all the ranches,” I announced, pulling on my slicker. I’d not long come back from patrolling the town looking for disaster, and my hair hadn’t even dried. Lewis still hadn’t made it in, still trapped on the other side of the flash flooding.
