The sky split again. The thunder was right above them, so loud it rang inside his skull. Cole barely heard the next thing—a new noise, low and wrong—a wet rumble from above.
Rockfall. He recognized it immediately.
“Shit!” he bellowed. “Rock! Left side! Get down!”
The group scattered as a sheet of pebbles and gravel whipped across the trail. Cole ducked, pressed his face to the horse’s mane, felt the sting of small stones cutting his cheek and arms.
Harper’s horse screamed, a high, terrified noise. Jack’s reared up, but he kept his seat.
Riley went sideways, nearly thrown, but managed to save it.
Cole watched, stunned, as Ethan took a glancing blow from a fist-sized chunk of rock, but just shrugged it off, teeth clenched.
Another roll of thunder, and the world turned to liquid. Cole blinked and realized that the trail in front of him was now a river—water two inches deep, moving fast, carrying more rocks and sand every second.
A new sound now—deeper, more ominous. Cole recognized it a half-second before he saw the wave—a flash flood, real and massive, rolling down from somewhere above.
They had maybe twenty seconds.
He pulled the group into a hollow behind an outcrop, screamed, “Get off, get in, leave the horses!”
He could hear Jack and Harper shouting to each other, but Cole didn’t stop to check. He flung himself off the mare, yanked her around and slapped her hard on the rump to send her clear of the oncoming wall. The mare bolted, hooves scraping for traction.
He turned back just in time to see Ethan and Riley barreling down the trail, arm in arm, running for the hollow.
The water hit, not a wall but a rising tide, cold and brown and merciless. It crashed into Cole’s knees, almost took him off his feet. He grabbed for a handhold, found only slick rock, and scrambled for the shelter.
He heard Ethan, close now, yelling, “Harper’s in! Jack’s in! Riley’s in!” and then, just as the water reached waist height, Ethan reached for Cole, hand outstretched, eyes wide.
Cole hesitated for a split second—too shocked by the offer, too used to being the one to save, not the one being saved. Then he took it.
Their hands locked, hard. Cole felt the grip all the way to his spine.
Ethan pulled, Cole pushed, and together they made it into the hollow just as the worst of the water surged past. For a minute,they were all bodies, stacked and tangled in the dark. Cole could hear Riley cursing, Jack coughing, Harper somewhere above them, steady and calm.
He checked the group. Everyone accounted for. Everyone alive.
The adrenaline was wearing off now. His jaw ached. His hands were bleeding. He looked over and saw that Ethan was shaking, blood running down one forearm from where the rock had struck, but otherwise unhurt.
Cole started to speak, but Ethan shook his head, then gripped Cole’s shoulder, hard.
They didn’t say anything else. They didn’t need to.
The water kept roaring past, but the worst of it was gone. Cole peeked out, saw the flood had turned the trail into a mudslide, obliterating every hoofprint, every bit of their path. He couldn’t even see the horses— he hoped they’d survived and made it to safety.
He cursed, low. Harper, beside him, whispered, “We can still move forward. There’s a side path a hundred yards up. I saw it on the way in. If we can make it, we can skirt the worst of the washout and get back on trail.”
Cole nodded, mind already turning. “We’ll wait for the water to drop.
Jack’s face was a mask of mud and shock.
Cole turned to Ethan. He was about to ask, but Ethan beat him to it.
“I’m fine,” Ethan said, voice wrecked but steady. “We should move as soon as we can.”
They waited, five minutes, then ten. The torrent lessened, dropping from chest high to knee deep. Cole judged the risk and decided it was time.
“Go,” he said. “Stay close. One slip and it’s over.”
