The heat of it felt like a warm, wet blanket covering the land around us. Half of the tree did not fall. It swayed with the intense breath of the wind. I was too close to it.
Mariano was shooting at men faster than they could shoot at him. I had heard how fast he was, but I did not understand it until I saw him in motion. Just as I did not realize how fast he was on the field until he carried me and ran.
I hurriedly stood, teetering a bit, and a man from the opposite side noticed me. He came at me at the same time my husband was. Mariano was not as far. My husband went to shootat the advancing man, but his gun must have been out of bullets. He flung it to the side, still racing toward me as the man did.
Another man was coming for me.
Closer than my husband or the other enemy.
He went down before I could even blink.
Iggy.
He held a smoking gun.
I backed up a pace to put more distance between me and the enemy and to get closer to my husband. Perhaps Iggy had saved me once, but I refused to allow him to take my husband from me.
My foot snagged on a rock.
It was tall enough to trip over, and my body went back, and then it felt as if gravity was sucking me down. I did not hit the ground right away, and my heart felt as if it was in my throat as I fell, fell, fell, my arms flailing, desperately searching for something to grab.
Perhaps it was my imagination, but I could have sworn I heard my husband’s voice crying out for me—a lion’s roar.
My back finally hit land, and I wished I would have kept falling. The hardness of it slammed the breath from my lungs, and I was desperately trying to grab hold of something again, force the air back in my lungs, but the momentum of the fall had me spiraling down the hill.
All this air, and I could not breathe.
I could not stop the forward momentum. I felt as if I was a rag doll that had been flung down the hill by a petulant child’s hand.
My sister’s hand pushing me down the steps.
Something stopped my downward motion.
A rock to my gut.
It did not stop me for long.
The rock was not fully secured in the ground. I collected it, dislodged it, as I flew forward.
My baby.
Mariano.
Perhaps their names came out of my mouth. Perhaps they were my last thought. In that moment, I realized I had been shielding my stomach, but I was not sure if it was enough to save my baby.
I could do nothing about my heart.
My husband’s heart that beat inside of my chest.
My eyes searched the sky but only found rain and fire. Then my body was launched into the raging tributary…an icy underworld’s arms waiting to bring me under after a rock slammed into my head. The storm seemed to be dislodging them from the steep hill.
The world went dark.
Chapter 58
Mariano
Seconds.
