I turn to Gary. “Can you stand?”
“Been better.” He braces against the fallen beam and pushes himself up. His face goes gray with pain, and his pulse spikes hard enough that I feel it ripple through the air between us.
I shift my shape. I flow behind him and spread my body into a broad, curved surface that cups his back like a stretcher.
I firm my outer layer into something solid and supportive, molding myself to the contours of his spine and shoulders while keeping my inner surface soft against him. Two thick extensions anchor me to the ground and will carry us both.
“Lean back,” I tell him. “I’ve got you.”
He hesitates, then lets his weight settle against me. I hold firm beneath him, cradling his weight. His damaged leghangs at an angle that makes his pulse stutter every time it moves.
“Hold on,” I tell him.
The Ridge Walker leads us through a path I missed. The gap is barely visible and must’ve been hidden behind a slab of sandstone that he pulled aside before making his presence known.
I follow with Gary braced against me, my anchored extensions finding purchase on the uneven floor, adjusting constantly to the shifting grade.
The Ridge Walker pauses ahead, turning his angular head to listen. Then he shifts left, into a fissure I would’ve dismissed as a shadow.
“This way,” he says.
The Ridge Walker moves faster now, surer of the terrain. The passage opens into what must’ve been a drainage channel, the floor smooth with decades of water flow. The air changes. Cleaner. Carrying the faint clean scent of the open sky.
We round a final bend, and the purple dusk appears ahead. A narrow opening in the hillside, half-hidden by a curtain of dead brush.
The Ridge Walker stops at the threshold. Bobby lifts his head, and the boy’s face transforms with something that makes the whole descent worthwhile.
“Look! There’s everyone!”
The crowd has gathered at the base of the slope below the ventilation shaft. Headlights cut up from the road, and figures stand in clusters, their attention fixed on the hillside.
The Ridge Walker steps through the opening first, Bobby still in his arms, and a sound moves through the assembled people. A sharp intake, dozens of breaths catching at once. The creature from the ridge, holding a child.
Bobby waves. “I’m okay! Gary’s okay too!”
The sound that follows is something else entirely. A woman’s voice, breaking into a sob. The scrape of boots on gravel,people surging forward. Hands reach for Bobby, and the Ridge Walker goes rigid.
I move behind him with Gary against my body, and the crowd’s attention splits. Faces I recognize from the diner, from the supply store, from Deborah Pritchett’s Neighborhood Watch group.
Their expressions shift by degrees. The shock lingers, but something else is rising through it, something that rewrites the scene they’re witnessing.
Gary, injured but alive. Bobby, waving and grinning. The Ridge Walker shrinking back against the rock. And me, carrying a man who couldn’t walk, my form solid and steady beneath him.
Maisie pushes through from somewhere in the crowd. Her face is streaked with dust, her eyes red, and when she sees me, her whole body sags with relief.
Then Gary’s voice rises above the murmurs. “They got us out. Both of them. They got us out.”
The crowd moves from shock toward recognition. Two men step forward from the crowd, both of them moving with the purposeful stride of people accustomed to physical labor. They reach for Gary, and I feel the moment his weight shifts from my surface into their hands.
Gary groans through clenched teeth as they lift him, his damaged leg dangling, and I maintain my shape beneath him until I’m certain their grip is secure.
They carry him toward the road, where headlights illuminate the open bed of a pickup truck. Someone has already laid out a blanket. A woman I recognize from the supply store hurries alongside with a first-aid kit clutched against her chest.
Bobby has been swallowed by the crowd. I catch glimpses of him between bodies, pressed against someone’s chest, arms wrapped tight around his neck. His grandmother, perhaps. Her shoulders shake with the kind of relief that looks indistinguishable from grief.
Hands find me. A palm against my shoulder, warm and brief. A squeeze to my upper arm. Someone says my name, and I turn to see grateful faces.
“Thank you,” one woman says. “Thank you.”
