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Voices. They were low, and yet that sounded like a kid’s voice.
She pointed down a nearby passageway, smaller but still big enough for a trolley car. She shot him a look. “I’m going to strangle those kids with my bare hands.”
He smiled, gave a huff. “Only if you find them first.”
She smiled then too and took a step toward the tunnel.
The mountain seemed to shake awake, as if stirring after a long sleep. The ground trembled, and amber dust shifted off the walls into the air.
“Not again! I thought we told Ethan to leave it alone!” Tia had frozen.
He put his hand on her arm. “We’re not going in there?—”
“Doyle!”
The mountain shook again, this time with more oomph, and she met his eyes, hers widening.
“We can’t help them if we’re trapped,” he said.
“We can’t leave them!”
But everything inside him told him to run. And Doyle was a man who listened to his instincts. “C’mon!”
He turned her, pushed her ahead of him, his hands on her hips. She fought him for a second, but the rock continued to shake.
She took off toward the opening?—
Dust clogged the air, rocks shaking free now, pebbles scattering at their feet.
“Run!” He put his hand to her back, but he didn’t need to.
She broke out into a semi-sprint on the uneven ground, her light spraying across the darkness. There—ahead—the exit?—
He burst out after her, into the open area, heading for the entrance?—
Rocks spilled down the entrance, careening off the mountain, bouncing into the vault, and he grabbed her around the waist and yanked her away just as boulders rolled in.
“Not that way!”
The landslide thundered across the open space, and he pushed her back, into another tunnel, his arm still hooked around her waist.
Behind them, the entire mountain seemed to break apart, roaring now as they stumbled into the darkness, her light ripping across the jagged, broken tunnel.
“There!” He spotted an alcove, and in it, an old metal cart.
In one swift move, he swept her up and deposited her inside it.
Dust thundered into the tunnel. He held his breath, then followed her into the cart.
He knelt in front of her, his knees on either side of her legs, his arms braced over her, hands hanging onto the edge of the cart. “Cover your mouth!” He hated to think of the sulfur they might be ingesting.
He ducked his mouth into his shirt, his body over hers, listening to the chaos of the mountain—rocks falling, and all around them, amber and blood-red dust so thick he had to close his eyes.
Which led him to the only thing he could do when he made singularly impulsive decisions?—
Hang on and pray.
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