Page 47 of When the Silence Breaks

“Was that an earthquake?” Sarah’s eyes grew wide.

“Just a mild tremor.”

“Should we be concerned the cave will collapse?”

“This cave has been around for a long time. Let’s gather everything and take it back to base camp. We’ll figure it out there.” Yeah, now he was trying to reassure himself.

Sarah wrapped what they’d found back into the cloth and stuck it into Ryder’s pack.

Sometimes instincts were all a guy had, and Ryder had a bad feeling about everything. The atmosphere had shifted from bad to worse, metaphorically and literally. Pebbles trickled from above, dust landed in his eyes, as if to emphasize his instincts weren’t wrong.

He grabbed Sarah by the waist and nudged her ahead of him toward their only escape. “Run!”

Nineteen

Sarah tripped and fumbled as Ryder’s one-word command propelled her forward and into action. The cave’s mouth loomed ahead—a slit in the rock and impossibly small. How had they so easily slipped through before? If the cave came crashing down on them now, it was entirely too far away. Pulse racing, she couldn’t get enough air.

A sharp crack overhead echoed through the caveandher bones. For no reason she could fathom, she froze. Stood her ground and looked up as pebbles rained down from the ceiling.

How to survive a collapsing cave hadn’t been part of her training. Ryder’s hand clamped around her wrist. “Get moving!”

Another loud, painful snap, and a bowling ball–sized rock crashed to the ground beside her, sending dust into the air. Fear sparked and raced through her veins, spreading like wildfire until her limbs shook with it. Behind them, the back of the cave groaned, sounding like a wounded animal had been left behind.

Ryder pushed her forward, and they hurried toward the opening. A boulder slammed to the ground a few feet to the right, and the earth shuddered beneath her feet. The fissure behind them was collapsing in slow motion. Sarah ran overuneven ground now covered in more pebbles and rocks, jarring her knees, slowing her efforts. Grit and dust thickened the air, making her lungs burn. The roar of falling rocks followed them like a freight train barreling toward them, chasing after them from behind.

“Faster!” Ryder shouted behind her.

She burst toward the opening, slipped through, scraping her coat sleeves as she stumbled out. A blast of air and the cacophony of crashing rock followed.

Ryder tackled her from behind. They slammed into the ground so hard, the breath was knocked from her. He shielded her with his body, protecting her from the roaring protest of crashing rock and shaking earth. Somehow, they’d offended the thunderous mountain with their trespass into the cave. Beneath her, the hard ground shook, rattling through to her bones. She tried not to whimper, but death felt so close, so near.

She was no match for nature’s fury, and for a few heartbeats, she couldn’t breathe. Maybe it was the dust. The sheer terror. Or Ryder’s crushing form.

He hadn’t moved, and another fear snaked through her.Oh no.

“Ryder?” Her voice croaked. For too many breaths he didn’t move. If something happened to him...

Shifting slightly, he coughed. “I’m still breathing.”

Relief rushed to her eyes and a few tears might have leaked out. She never cried. She’d been through too much in the past. But Ryder was alive and okay. That was reason enough for a few tears of joy.

As for him protecting her with his body? This was déjà vu from the mudslide. “I’m struggling to...”

“What? Oh.” He moved his protective form from her.

It took her a few seconds to catch her breath before she couldfinally sit up. She dreaded what she might see but took in the crumbled opening of the cave. Only moments before, they’d been inside. Sarah couldn’t comprehend how close they’d come to being crushed to death.

“Ryder?”

“Yes?”

“Can we get off this mountain now?” She’d wanted to find the crash site. Get her brother justice. Find whatever was hidden. Was that even possible? And at what cost?

Ryder stood and offered his hand, his intense eyes seeming to probe her very soul. Dust and grime smudged his face and whiskers, covered his hair. Though he said nothing, she took that as his agreement as she dusted off her pants. Pulled her coat tighter against the brutal wind gusts.

Sarah hung her head, stared at the earth that had grown calm and quiet beneath her feet. What was happening when a person couldn’t even trust the ground they stood on?

“Are you okay?” he asked.