Immediately Ellery starts to shake his head. “Yeah. I don’t like that either. If the twelfth floor didn’t deter them, the second floor would be a cake walk, and a terrace might as well be a fucking invitation,” the sheriff growls.
“Agree,” Perth pipes out. “That pretty much rules out the small motel too, because Harrold won’t clear out the other guests that are already staying there. Karen offered for Noah to stay with her, but Fife said he thought the apartment above Internet Trolls might be empty, so I’m headed there now to see if a short-term rental might be an option.”
“Okay, keep us posted. We’re headed back into town now,” Ellery orders.
“Will do,” Perth agrees and the call ends.
Ellery’s foot is gentle on the gas as we wind up a road that’s more gravel than asphalt, the black tar worn down to nearly nothing. I’m grateful to be on the side of the car that hugs the mountain, because the sheer drop on the other side is alarming.
The chill of the air and my thoughts collide to make goose bumps pebble along my skin as I stare at the sheriff. A five o’clock shadow darkens his chiseled jaw, and his expression is intense, focused on the road, squinting against the rain now falling in sheets.
He really does take my safety seriously. He and the guys are doing everything they possibly can. Each action they take—watching over me and answering my questions, cooking me food, the non-stop work on my case, this search to find me somewhere new to stay…
My vision becomes as smeared as the windshield, and I have to glance out the side window, because it’s on the tip of my tongue to ask Ellery if I can stay with them.
A plinking sound startles me, and then an utter deluge of plinks pummel the hood of the car. The rain has turned to hail.
“Should we pull off?” I ask, just as I look around and realize there’s nowhere for us to take shelter. The drop off on the side of the road isn’t a direct plummet to death anymore, but there’s still a dangerous looking slope before you hit trees.
“Probably best to power through. You buckled in?” He glances over at me with concern, his right arm moving in my direction, almost as if he wants to put a protective arm bar across me.
“I’m good. You just focus. It’s getting crazy out there,” I respond, as the intensity of the hail ramps up.
He turns his high beams on, and the wipers squeak across the glass, unable to clear it for more than a second at a time. The storm surrounds us, encroaching from every side, becoming a wall of cloud and ice that slams, thunks, clonks, and clangs all around us—nature going to war. Sky trammeling earth.
My fingers curl into the door handle, clutching it like an “oh-shit” bar as we crawl slowly around a bend and take a fork onto a one lane road. A jagged bolt of lightning streaks across the mountain peak in the distance. Less than a second later, percussive thunder has me jerking forward in my seat—the sound loud enough that it feels like I put my ear to a drum.
“Damn,” I gasp, just as Ellery’s large hand lands on my thigh. He squeezes it once, the gesture way more reassuring than it should be. I give an embarrassed laugh. “Sorry, I’ve never been so close to the clouds when they’re angry.”
He retracts his hand in order to take us through a sharp turn in the road, and I have to stop myself from grabbing it and putting it back on my leg.
More thunder growls and grumbles, rolling through the sky. But the low tone doesn’t end, doesn’t fade. It grows louder and more intense, begins a long seemingly endless roar—as if a tsunami is crashing into the mountain.
My brow furrows as I whip my head to the window, eyes trying to cut through the white lines of continuous rain. “What is that?”
We come around a bend, and I don’t need Ellery to answer my question because I can see the answer for myself. My heart thuds wildly at the sight, primal fear instantly coating my skin in a sheen of sweat.
A sliver of the mountain has been sliced off a hundred feet above us, and I watch dirt drizzling down the side like melted chocolate. Rocks tumble and bounce like rubber balls. Boulders slide along the mud, coasting along the surface or rolling like swimmers who repeatedly duck their heads under and emerge from the deluge.
Shocked alarm rockets through my chest as the mess cascades right down the road in front of us, less than thirty feet away.
Rockslide.
Ellery brakes hard and so suddenly that, even though we’re going slowly, I jerk forward in my seat. The ground beneath us quakes.
“Fuck!” he exclaims as he puts the car in reverse, hand flying to the back of my headrest to brace himself as he ignores the rain-speckled backup camera feed on the dash and peers out the rear window to navigate us backward. As he turns the wheel, his headlights slash through the watery mist, and I spot a shape in the darkness.
“There’s a car!” I yell, adrenaline and panic constricting my throat as he backs the 4Runner another twenty feet away from the cascading edge of the mud fall. “It pushed them off the road!” I point through the windshield, and Ellery stops instantly, leaning forward and peering through the rain. I can tell the moment his eyes make out the red minivan, because they widen slightly, right before a string of curse words erupts from his lips.
He starts pressing buttons on his dash display, and a shrill ringing fills the car before I realize what he’s doing. A man answers the other end of the line, but I don’t catch the greeting before Ellery’s commanding voice starts to speak over him.
“Fife! We have a rockslide up on Painite Pass. Right where we had that small forest fire last year. I see one car caught up in it, but there could be more. I didn’t see anyone in front of us through the switchbacks, but visibility has been shit since I started down.”
A voice blasts through the speakers. “On it, Sheriff. Sending all availables to you now. The closest we’ve got can be there in ten. I’m alerting Magical Med Services and Fire now. Sit tight—”
Fife’s instructions are cut off when Ellery turns to me and growls, “Stay here.” The next thing I know, he’s put the car in park and he’s out the door, running to the back, which is full of police equipment and way too many shopping bags. He hurls the back hatch open and grabs a case, pulling flares from it, which he activates and tosses behind him. They roll down the road, smoking and giving off a bright green light. A couple of orange cones are set out next.
“He left, didn’t he?” Fife demands, the question tugging at my attention.
“Yes, he’s…” I’m about to tell Fife that I think he’s assessing the situation, but then Ellery streaks past the car toward the mudslide and the van that’s gone over the steep embankment.
What the hell does he think he’s going to do? He can’t just walk out into that! “You can’t—” I call out, just as he leaps over the side of the road and disappears.
More panic wells in my belly, but this time, it’s not about what’s out there, this anxious twisting in my gut is for him.
He’s going to get himself killed.
I’ve been hearing for days about eeries and shifters and magic, but nobody’s mentioned fucking immortality. So what the hell does he think he’s going to do?