Ignited (39 page)

It was as if the mountain had split in half. The rock face near the top of the pass had slid down, down, down into the road, crumbling the asphalt to nothing. Dust was still hazing the air, curls of it gleaming in the last bit of light before true darkness fell over the valley.

Ivan pumped the brakes, and they skid to a stop before a boulder twice as big as his truck. Other vehicles stopped too—full of a mixture of townspeople and Independents. They walked out into the haze, silent. All around, the mountain still groaned a warning. Somewhere off to their left, rocks shifted with a deep rumble. Boulders were piled high, and the sheer quantity of destruction pressed on Ruth’s chest. How could anyone survive this? How could Bill …? 

Shining beneath a boulder was the tail end of a car. Their vantage point didn’t afford them a view of the front or side. It was impossible to tell how much damage had been done, or if Bill Goodman was still inside of it.

Ruth had never spoken to Bill, but he was Henry’s friend, and Henry had been through enough.
Please, God
, she prayed as she ran.
Watch over him.

“We need to get to Bill before full dark,” Henry said, his tone quick and clinical. “Everything will be harder once it’s dark out.”

Henry was at the front of their group, and he took off, pushing people out of the way as he ran to the car. People recognized him and began to clear a path. He didn’t have his medical bag with him, Ruth thought, even as she watched him get to the driver’s side door. He shouted Bill’s name at the window and reached out to touch the door handle.

“Don’t!” came a voice from the crowd. “Don’t touch the car, you’ll make the slide come down on all of us!”

The townspeople let out a cry. Someone Ruth couldn’t make out in the dim light tried to pull Henry away, and he shook them off. “The nose is crushed, and Bill is trapped inside! I’m afraid his legs are stuck—we need to get him out!”

Another boulder, small but still lethal, tumbled down the mountain. The crowd gasped, but it rolled off to the other side. 

Beside her, Teddy sucked in a sharp breath. “He’s going to get hurt,” he muttered.

There was a rumble above them, like thunder but closer, more grounded.

Teddy didn’t hesitate. He took off running. Clayton gave a shout for him to stop, but he brushed by, barreling through the crowd as another boulder began to fall down, down, down, right toward Henry—

A cry ripped out of Ruth’s throat just as Teddy dove forward, catching Henry around the shoulders and pinning him back against Bill’s car. The rock fell and bounced off something faintly glowing—a force field.

Teddy had created a force field around the car.

There was a chorus of screaming, and people began to back away, giving the car a wide berth. The force field faded.

“We’re okay!” Henry called out into the near-dark.

Everyone seemed to breathe in unison.

Ruth went running toward Henry. June reached out to grab her arm, but Ruth shook her off. She needed to be by his side, to help him. Footsteps sounded behind her, and she skidded to Henry’s side, throwing her arms around his neck.

“Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” she whispered fiercely.

He hugged her briefly, then disentangled himself. “Get back away from here. We need to open the car door, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

Teddy sighed. “We don’t have time to argue about this, guys. I can’t create a field that big too many more times before I exhaust myself. Let’s get Bill out of there.”

The rest of the Independents ran up beside them. It was almost fully dark now, the last tendrils of sunlight creeping over the mountains. Henry shooed everyone back. “I’m going to touch the car, and I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

“Wait, maybe …,” Ivan walked a few steps away, crouching and putting his palm flat against a patch of bare ground beside the ruined asphalt. Around him, vines sprouted from the earth, creeping their way up the sides of the rock slide quickly. The sound of shifting made everyone around them stiffen, and someone from among the townspeople called out, “What did you
do
?”

“I stabilized it,” Ivan called back, nodding when he heard appreciative murmurs from the crowd. He turned back to the Independents and added, “I think. I don’t know how long they’ll hold, but if it works the way I’m thinking—”

“I’m here if it doesn’t,” Teddy cut in. “But I can’t protect all of you, so you guys need to get back.”

Ruth stood stubbornly in place. “I’m not leaving Henry.”

“Fine, stay. But the rest of you ….” Teddy waved them off, and they gave the car a few feet of space.

With a trembling hand, Henry reached out and touched the car handle. Nothing happened. He opened the door, and the mountain remained silent. From inside the vehicle, there was a groan.

“Bill?” Henry reached inside the car. “Bill, are you—”

“My
arm
,” Bill moaned. “And, oh God, my head.”

Henry crouched, looking down beneath the steering column into the well there. He motioned Ruth closer. “I need a light.”

Ruth held out her right hand and let it go up in small, gently burning flames. She held it at a safe distance from Henry’s face, but close enough so he could see that Bill’s legs weren’t trapped. She let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding.

“I’m going to get you out now, okay?” Henry said, his voice calm. He moved in close and got his hands underneath Bill’s arms, pulling him up. Bill yelped with pain. His arm was red and bloody, with a flash of bone. The sight of it made Ruth’s stomach turn abruptly sour, but she held her ground.

There was another rumble. Teddy danced in his spot. “Henry ….”

“Bill is concussed and has a compound fracture,” Henry said. “He can only go so fast.”

The sound grew worse, and Ivan appeared back at Ruth’s side, building more vines, directing them up and up toward the top.

Henry pulled Bill free, dragging his friend back a good twenty feet before the Independents came running up, each one offering an arm, helping to carry the injured man. The townspeople rushed forward.

“What
happened
?” Peter Powell’s voice sounded above the others.

“Bill’s okay,” Henry started, but the man himself interrupted.

“The other side ….” Bill’s voice sounded weak and hoarse. He coughed and flinched when the movement jolted his arm. “There were headlights coming toward me, I swear I saw them. I swear ….”

Everyone froze as Bill slumped, only barely conscious. Headlights—that meant there was someone on the other side, someone still trapped.

Matt Harris recovered first. He may have had his badge taken from him, but he was still comfortable taking charge. He helped Clayton to lay Bill out flat on the road and took of his jacket to shove underneath Bill’s head. 

“Does anyone near the back have a truck with a flat bed?” He shouted the words into the night. “We need to get this man back into town so Dr. Porter can look at him! And we need to see if anyone on the other side is hurt!”

“I have a truck!” Someone called back.

Another voice called out, “Me, too!”

“Only one go,” Matt yelled. “We don’t need any more accidents tonight.”

Someone ran off into the night.

“We need to check to see if there’s someone hurt on the other side of the slide,” Clayton said, keeping his voice calm. He turned to June. “Can you …?”

She grimaced, but her jaw was set and determined. “I can try.”

“What’s she doing?” A man came closer, watching as she turned to stare at the slide. Ruth didn’t know his name, but she recognized him from town. He owned the jewelry store, she thought. 

“Where’s she going?” the man asked when no one answered him.

June took off at a run, arms pumping. A woman shrieked. “She’s going to hit it, she’s going to set it off!”

June hit the rock, then disappeared. The crowd gasped.

When she appeared a moment later, she was fighting back a sob, her arms wrapped around her stomach. She limped back to group, rubbing at her eyes. “It’s so much. I tried, I swear I did, but—”

“You did what you could,” Ivan reassured her, kissing her forehead. He brought his arms around her as she collapsed against his chest.

Henry was on his knees beside Bill, checking his friend’s pulse. His face was pinched with worry, and Ruth touched his shoulder, just to remind him she was there. The tension in his back decreased ever so slightly, and he looked up at her. “He’s going to slip into shock if we don’t get him back to town fast. I’m going to ride back with him in the truck and then come right back here, in case you find another person on the other side.”

“Henry ….” Bill’s weak voice broke up the conversation. Ruth stooped to hear him better. “You saved me.”

“No,” Henry corrected. He thumbed at the Independents. “
They
saved you.”

Bill turned to look at them, and nodded. “Thank you.”

Teddy shrugged. “Of course.”

“We still need a way over. Bill, you’re sure you saw lights?” Clayton asked, but Bill was already well on his way to passing out once again. Clayton stared up at the slide, frowning. The walls at this section of the pass were sheer. “We can’t go around, we can’t go through.”

The thought came to Ruth suddenly, and she sucked in a quick breath. Her powers had caused so much trouble today—now it was time for them to do some good.

“What about over?” she asked.

Even in the dark, she could feel Henry’s sharp look. “Ruth, no.”

“I’m with Henry,” Cora interjected. “That’s too dangerous.”

“It’s the only way. I’ll climb up to the top and look over, and if there’s anyone there, I’ll—” She lifted both hands up, sending a spray of sparks into the air. It shone bright in the night.

Around her, the other townspeople gasped. Ruth glanced in their direction, but no one was calling her a demon. No one was stopping her.

“And if no one is there?” Matt asked.

She lowered one hand.

“It’s too risky,” Henry insisted. His voice was shaking. “I won’t lose you too.”

Her heart hurt for him, but she couldn’t walk away from this. The Independents needed her. Independence Falls needed her. She leaned forward, so just he could hear her. 

“Do you trust me?”

This close, she could see the complicated series of emotion pass across his face. He nodded once, decisively. “Go, quickly. But you better come back.”

She put her forehead against his, just for a moment, just to ground herself. She needed his strength now.

“I will,” she said.

She turned and ran for the rock slide before she could lose her nerve.

“Ruth!”

Ivan caught up to her as she reached the base of the slide. “I’m going to do what I can with the vines, but I can’t guarantee they will hold for long.”

Fear twisted inside of her, and she shook out the jitters in her arms and legs. She flicked one hand into fire, holding it up to the rock to find a hold. When she found it, she jammed her hand inside, wincing as the stone bit at her flesh. She pulled herself up, scrambling to find a place for her feet, and then another hand hold, and another and another. Rocks shifted beneath her, and she seized onto the largest boulder she could find.

Her heart was loud in her ears, and she squeezed her eyes shut. She felt that familiar sweep of hot lava in her veins, and she took a second to breathe, cool down.

“Careful!” Someone called out from far below. It sounded like Teddy.

She hoisted herself up farther, making slow progress to the halfway point. The rocks were unstable. A shower of dirt and pebbles came down and hit her side, but she hung on, resolute. Hand over hand, foot over foot, she climbed. When she got to the top of the landslide, she swung a leg over, taking time to pause. She had made it. There were no distant rumblings. For now, she was safe.

The sky was dark now, and the moon was hiding behind a cloud, making it difficult to see. Directly below, she could see where the road was supposed to be—it was a big nothing, a cavernous drop, for at least twenty feet. Everything that had been there had fallen into the river far, far below. Slowly, carefully, Ruth moved to the other side, climbing down five feet toward the ground. It didn’t help as much as she’d have liked. The boulder beneath her feet gave away completely, and Ruth yelped, digging in with her hands and clinging to the stone face of the slide.

Ruth scrambled to find a new foothold, a better angle, but could find nothing. Her grip was failing—she was going to fall, she was going to fall on the wrong side, separated from any sort of help, crushed to death by any rocks she brought down or falling into the destroyed pit where the road had once been and tumbling into the river. Her heart climbed up her throat, and she kicked out wildly, hitting something promising with her toe. She threw her weight on it, and nearly cried with relief when it held.

She climbed back to the top of the slide, not wanting to get stuck on the wrong side in case things didn’t go as planned. Something shifted beneath her.

“Can you see anything?” June’s voice echoed up to her, faint.

Ruth didn’t reply. The breeze picked up, and she looked toward the sky. The moon was completely obscured by clouds.

“Hello?” she called out. “Is anyone there? Make a sound!”

There was no car sticking out from the slide, nothing glinting in the rapids below, no voice calling back to her. Ruth stuck one arm straight up and let it burn, sending flames high up into the sky. Below, the town cheered.

She went deaf to them. Without warning, lights suddenly flickered on, just on the other side of the chasm—first one pair, then another. And another, and another. A whole stream of headlights, going as far down the pass as she could see, all of them blinding. She cried out and her fire disappeared. She threw her arm over her eyes.

The lights dimmed every so slightly, and the moon peeked out from behind the clouds, shining bright.

There were men—hundreds of men in uniform, standing in formations around a convoy of vehicles.

They all had guns, and every single one was trained on her.