They waded out together, Ethan at his side, the others behind. The trail was gone, nothing left but mud and broken rock. Cole led the way, feeling for every step, trusting his boots and his legs and not much else.
They made the cutout—barely. The new path was a goat track at best, but it followed a narrow ledge along the wall, above the worst of the flood. Cole tested it, found it just stable enough, and motioned the group onward.
For a hundred yards, they shuffled forward, backs pressed to the wall, rain and wind battering from above. The thunder had faded, but lightning still flashed.
They reached a wider spot. Harper took the lead, scouting ahead for danger. Riley followed, then Jack, then Ethan, and finally Cole, who took up the rear to make sure nobody was left behind.
They rounded a bend. Ahead, the ledge dipped, then stopped. A section had caved out, leaving a gap of maybe four feet across, with only a sliver of stone as a bridge.
Cole looked at it, then at the group.
“We can jump it,” Harper said, practical as ever. “One at a time. I’ll go first.”
She did, without hesitation, nimble as a cat, and made it with room to spare.
Jack went next—barely cleared it, but caught Harper’s hand and scrambled up.
Riley’s turn. He hesitated, but braced himself and leapt. He barely made it, Harper and Jack caught him and pulled him up.
Then Ethan.
He looked back at Cole. There was fear in his eyes, but something else, too.
Cole nodded. “You’ve got this.”
Ethan ran for it, leapt. Cleared the gap, but landed hard. He grunted, then rolled over and looked back at Cole.
Cole felt the moment stretch, thin and sharp.
He braced, ran, and leapt.
He felt the ledge crumble under his boot as he pushed off. The world slowed. For a second, he thought he wasn’t going to make it. But then hands were grabbing him—Harper’s first, then Jack, then even Riley—and they hauled him over the edge.
They all collapsed in a heap, gasping for air.
“Holy fuck,” Riley said. The wind battered them with a force that felt personal, as if the entire storm system had tracked them across the range solely for the pleasure of flaying them alive. Every upslope gust knifed through the seams of Cole’s soaked jacket, lifting the hood from his head and slashing icy rivulets down his back. The ledge ahead vanished and reappeared with the velocity of the rain, each curtain of water more blinding than the last.
Cole pushed himself up, shaking off the remnants of shock, and glanced back at the group. “We can’t stay here!” he shouted over the wind, his voice hoarse but firm.
Riley scrambled to his feet first, pulling Jack and Harper up with him. Ethan followed, determined, his expression set with resolve. Cole rose alongside them, feeling the urgency settle in his bones. They had no time to waste.
“Let’s go!” Cole urged and they began to stagger forward, navigating the treacherous terrain while the storm howled around them. Each step was a reminder of their precarious situation, but they pressed on, driven by the instinct to survive. The path was slick, and the rain continued to pour, but together they forged ahead, united against the elements that threatened to consume them.
He barely had time to process the way Riley’s boots skittered and slipped on the lichen-slicked rock before Riley was airborne, arms flailing, face frozen in a mask of terror. Ethan, three feet behind, pivoted without hesitation and caught Riley in a bearhugmid-fall, both of them nearly tumbling over the edge. Cole’s stomach flipped, the entirety of his world reduced to the fragile grip of Ethan’s hand on Riley’s collar, the desperate kick of boots against stone that meant one or both could go over at any second.
It took all of Cole’s self-mastery to keep from shouting, to resist the urge to sprint forward and seize them both by the shoulders. But he knew their only shot was to maintain the single-file, keep moving, trust that the bodies ahead and behind were as determined to survive as he was. He could hear Jack’s panicked breathing—a whimper on the edge of every exhale—and Harper’s voice, flat and furious, calling out orders no one could hear over the bellowing wind.
The path narrowed again, crumbling to a ribbon no wider than a boot sole. Cole forced himself into the zone he reserved for emergencies—mind wiped blank except for the physics of his own body, the balance and timing and force required to stay upright in a catastrophe. He reached out, grabbed Jack’s belt just before the ledge sloped downward, and felt the raw jerk as Jack nearly went over. He didn’t let go, not even when the strain twisted his shoulder.
They inched forward, step by step, the only sound their gasps and the percussive barrage of rain on stone. The cave mouth was visible now, maybe fifteen yards ahead—a black, triangular void in the face of the cliff. He could see Harper poised at the entrance, hair plastered to her cheek, one hand braced on the wall, the other outstretched, beckoning them with a desperation she’d never admit.
A crack split the air—so loud, so close, it sounded like the mountain had detonated from within. Cole’s heart missed a beat. He saw the shadow of the rock before he heard the rumble. It detached from the heights above, a boulder the size of a pickup truck, and came screaming down in a shower of smaller debris.
There wasn’t time to analyze or calculate. Instinct drove Cole as he threw an arm across Jack’s chest, lifted, and practically hurled the man toward the mouth of the cave. Riley dove after him. Harper scrambled in, brushing past them both, and disappeared into darkness. Cole pivoted and grabbed Ethan’s arm. Together they lunged the last yards—just as the avalanche slammed the trail shut.
They hit the cave floor in a tangled heap, dust choking the air, their limbs entwined in curses and sharp breaths. Then came the silence—only the high-pitched ringing in Cole’s ears, the drizzle of rain muffled behind rock and mud.
Harper’s rasp, Jack’s whimper, Riley’s urgent questions echoed from deeper in the cavern. They were safe, at least for now. But something was wrong.
