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The world turned upside down as she landed on her chest. Her ribs couldn’t take much more before they snapped. Jocelyn stared up at figure standing above her, and the first real tendril of fear snaked into her brain. She was supposed to be stronger than this.
“You really should’ve quit while you were ahead.” He reached for her. “Oh, well. I guess I could use you to my advantage after all.”
Jocelyn rocketed her bare foot into his ankle with everything she had. His legs swept out from under him, and she rolled to avoid getting pinned beneath his body. His rough exhale was the only evidence she’d delivered any kind of damage, but she didn’t have time for victory to take hold. Spinning on her hip, she secured the bastard’s head between both thighs, then locked her ankles together. And squeezed. “I think you’ve done enough damage for one day.”
He dug his fingertips into the soft skin of her legs to get free, but it was no use. His strangled sounds barely reached her ears. She was no longer ashamed of the thunder thighs other girls had teased her about in high school. Soon, they would be what saved Alpine Valley.
“You...need me.” The bomber tried to pry her knees apart. Then lost consciousness.
Jocelyn unlocked her ankles from around each other and shoved back. He lay motionless on the ground, but the rise and fall of his back said she hadn’t killed him. She thrust herself to her feet and ran for the SUV. Stabbing the key into the door lock, she twisted and ripped the door back on its hinges to get to the radio inside. “Socorro, this is Carville. Do you read? Over.”
Static infiltrated the sound of her heart thudding hard behind her ears. She pinched the push-to-talk button again. “Socorro, this is Carville. Please respond.”
“Jocelyn, what the hell is going on out there?” Jones’s voice ratcheted her blood pressure higher. “There was an explosion at the top of the cliff. We need you to run logistics. Fire and Rescue can’t get there in time. Where are you?”
She pinched the radio. “I’m already here. Listen, I don’t have time to explain. It was a bomb, and the cliff is going to give out any second. We need to get everybody out of Alpine Valley. Now!”
Jocelyn didn’t wait for an answer. She’d done what she could to raise the alarm. But Baker was still inside the compound. Tossing the radio, she pulled a set of cuffs from the middle console. The bomber was still there, lying face down in the dirt.
She centered her knee in his lower back and hiked each hand into the cuffs. “You’re not going anywhere.”
A burst of flame shot up from one side of the compound.
She raced across dry desert as her body threatened to fail. Blood seeped down her leg from the wound in her side, but she wasn’t going to stop. Not until she got Baker out of here. Intense heat licked at her exposed skin as she wound through the front gate and back into the collapsing structure.
It was harder to breathe in here. “Baker!”
“Jocelyn?” His voice grew more frantic. Louder. Stronger. “I’m here! In the pool!”
She tried to keep her clothes and hands from brushing against the walls—afraid she’d take down what was left of the structure from contact alone—and cut through what used to be the kitchen.
She froze at the destroyed patio door.
A wide chasm split through where the pool should’ve been. The water was gone. The chunk of wall that’d pinned her to the bottom of the pool balanced precariously over a mini canyon before falling straight into the darkness. Her mouth dried. Had she been too late? “Baker!”
“Over here!” His voice cut through the panic setting up residence inside her and led her to the edge of the gap splitting the earth in two.
“Just hold on. I’m coming!” The chasm had widened to at least three feet and was growing every second she stood there, but she could make it. She had to. Jocelyn shuffled backward a handful of steps, then launched herself over the unending blackness. Glass and rock cut into the bottoms of her feet as she landed on the other side, but it wasn’t enough to slow her down. Reaching the edge of the pool, she thrust her hand down. “Grab onto me!”
Baker’s calloused palm grated against hers before it slipped free. He was at the bottom of the pool. Nine feet below her. He had to jump to reach. “You’re too high!”
But there was nowhere else for him to go. The shallower the pool, the closer he’d get to the chasm tearing away from the canyon wall. She got down onto her chest, wedging her injured shoulder against the cement. “Come on. You can do it! Try again.”
He jumped, securing his hand around hers.
Just as the cliffside gave way.
THEGROUNDDISAPPEAREDout from under him.
Baker leveraged his toes into the side of the pool, but it was no use. The rough coating merely flecked beneath his weight. He dropped another inch, threatening to take Jocelyn down with him. The pool was gone. Nothing in its place as the earth split in two.
“Hang on!” Her voice barely registered over the ear-deafening sound of destruction as rock, metal and cement gave into gravity. She clamped another hand around his and tried to haul him higher. “I need your other hand!”
He swung his broken wrist toward her, and she latched on. Agonizing pain radiated through his hand and arm. But his scream didn’t compare to the compound slipping into the protective canyon around Alpine Valley.
Jocelyn somehow managed to drag him upward, high enough for him to get one foot over the edge of the pool. “Almost there.”
Gravel and glass pressed into his temple as he collapsed face-first. Dust drove into his lungs. He fought for breath, but it was useless against the overwhelming tide of grief swallowing him whole. Staring out at the new ridge overlooking the town he loved, he willed the people below to survive. Though didn’t know how they would.
