Page 46

Maybe she should have argued more, insisted on a timetable where they could each get some sleep, but she was simply too depleted.

With a grateful nod, she plodded down the hallway and flopped onto the bed.

Never had she felt a more comfortable mattress, a cozier room.

Sleep might not have been immediate, but it was nearly so.

A minute, or an hour, or several might have passed when a draft caressed her cheek, and her brain remarked on it while her eyes remained firmly closed.

Sleep. There was nothing her body required more than that.

But the fear that had been coiled in her chest since the moment she’d crashed sprang loose.

She heard the stealthy tread of a man’s heavy boots.

Nico. He’d found them again.

With a shriek, she leapt from the bed, swinging.

Someone caught her, and she thrashed to get free.

“It’s me.”

Cullen.

She stopped wriggling and jerked the hair from her face. Cullen stood wide-eyed in front of her, his huge palms cradling her fists.

“Why ... why are you in here?” She gulped.

“I heard you cry out. I was worried. Came to check on you. You must have been dreaming.”

Her jaw was clenched tight. “So Nico hasn’t come back?”

He shook his head. “All buttoned up tight. You don’t need to worry.”

“Tot...”

“She’s sleeping at the moment. Super fussy, but I let her have your bear. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Is she sick?”

“Don’t think so, but our little pookie is sprouting another tooth, so probably everything is okay.”

“Okay?” She tried and failed to make that statement ring true. “The volcano’s imploding and Nico is out there still and we experienced a limnic eruption and wrecked a bus.”

“Well, yeah, but we’re still kicking, aren’t we?”

Whatever retort she’d meant to give him dissolved in a humiliating gush of unexpected tears. “I’m tired of being tired… and scared ... and hungry and cold ... and lost.”

With a bemused look, he nodded.

She sobbed, hiccupped, cried some more. “And I’m angry that I’m crying. I don’t want to cry.”

“Understandable.”

She held up a palm. “Don’t say anything sweet to me right now or I’ll cry harder,” she said severely.

“Um, okay.” He shifted from one socked foot to the other. “How about I get you a drink of water?”

She forced breath in and out, wrestling for control. “No. That’s sweet too.”

“So I’m thinking a hug’s out?”

“Definitely.”

He thought for a moment. “All right. Nothing sweet. Come on, Garrido.”

He left and she found herself following a moment later.

“Sit there,” he commanded, pointing to the sofa before he went back to the bedroom and returned with a pad of paper and two pencils, then slapped them down on the cushion. “Tot’s still asleep. Plenty of time for me to whoop you at tic-tac-toe.”

She blinked.

“What’s the matter?” He thrust a pencil at her. “Embarrassed to be trounced?”

“No.”

He dramatically licked the pencil lead and dashed off a game square. “Then try to unseat the Tic-Tac-Toe Master, why don’t you?” With a roguish flourish, he scribbled an x .

And all of a sudden she was playing a ridiculous game in an unreal situation and deriving an inordinate amount of comfort from it. Five games later, they’d each won twice and one was a draw.

“This is humbling,” he said, appearing crestfallen. “The Tic-Tac-Toe Master should make a better showing. I blame dehydration and the distracting smell of those vile green olives for messing with my skills. Another game?”

She smiled. “No. I’m ready for some sleep now, I think, even though it’s still afternoon.”

“Excellent. I’ll lay down with Tottie girl and get some shut-eye too.” He leaned forward, moving closer, and then stopped. “I’ll, um, see you later.”

She quickly closed the gap and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” he said softly.

The bed felt more comfortable now, her tension drained away after the tic-tac-toe match.

She pulled up the handmade afghan and patted the envelope with the incriminating photos she’d zipped in her pocket, appreciating the heft of it.

Eventually her eyelids grew heavy. As she edged closer to sleep, a roar split the silence.

She leapt from the bed, sliding, the floor suddenly sloped at a forty-five-degree angle.

“Cullen!” she yelled, grabbing her pack and running to the living room, where the walls were emptying themselves of decorations, photos and paintings flung to the carpet.

Books tumbled from the shelves, but she could not take her eyes from the floor splitting apart before her eyes.

It was as if a giant hand was tearing an envelope in two.

Cullen appeared in his doorway, Tot and the duffel bag in his arms. The kitchen side of the trailer broke off, a crevice forming between her and Cullen. Terror twisted through her. She’d be cut off from them.

Without hesitation he ran and vaulted over the gap and skidded to an abrupt halt next to her.

Their side of the floor was tipping, leaning into the crevice, and taking them along with it.

Cullen grabbed the door frame, and she clung to his outstretched arm.

The effort made his forehead furrow as he reeled them back into the hallway, where she got her balance.

He thrust Tot at her and wrestled the wardrobe he’d placed as a barricade out of the way. A lamp crashed off the side table, a piece of the flying ceramic nicking Kit’s cheek. She hardly felt it. Only one thought pulsed through her being.

We’re going to be swallowed alive.

They’d outrun the wrath of Mount Ember, but the minutes had ticked away.

Run or die.

Or maybe it was run and die, but they’d decided together they would hang on to every precious moment of life, and she felt in Cullen’s strong grip on her shoulder that his determination was as great as hers.

Shrieks of ripping metal hurt her ears. They stumbled, slid, fell out of the structure and landed outside. With a last bit of optimism, she’d hoped to see a miracle, a helicopter, a vehicle with Gideon behind the wheel, anyone...

But there was only the heaving ground, split by the deepening chasm that she now saw was filling with molten lava spilling into the riverbed with a monstrous hiss.

Some of it hardened into blackened chunks that floated atop the incoming lava.

The orange goo was rising, bubbling up at a pace that would rapidly overtake the channel.

Cullen looked wildly around. She pulled Tot closer to shield her from the whirling particles, the acrid vapors stinging her nasal passages and making her eyes tear.

Cullen pulled them along the gap between the collapsing trailers and the riverbed, heading for the road where they’d previously parked the bus.

Should they climb up? Away from the rising lava?

It was likely their only chance to keep from burning to death, if the poisonous air didn’t sear their lungs first. They’d made it a few lurching yards when Cullen stopped short.

Through her blurred eyes, she made out a vehicle and her heart leapt.

Until she realized who was stepping out.