I gaze up at the path I’d trekked down so optimistically only hours earlier. I look down at the beach and sigh at the sight of my busted tent. “Just let me find my raincoat and my camcorder.”
“There isn’t time.”
I ignore him, flinging aside impractical underwear and storm-soaked books. I find my raincoat and put it on. But I don’t see the camcorder anywhere.
Where is it?
A sepulchral groan sounds above me. As I look up, it’ssuddenly a little too easy to imagine myself being taken by a real-life rockslide, swept away like a feather on a wave.
Then giant arms are scooping me up and Sam’s voice is in my ear. “We’re getting out of here, ma’am.”
“I said stop calling me that,” I say, even as his strong arms and firm chest are putting me in an almost grateful state of mind.
“Then perhaps you should tell me your name?” he says.
“The name’s Fenny,” I tell him, just as the serpent’s ancient hooded head crumbles onto the sand.
Chapter Three
The light on Sam’s helmetflickers and then dies twenty feet into our trek up the trail.
“Top-notch rescue,” I say, still in his arms. “Didn’t they teach you to charge your lantern in hero school?”
“We’ll be fine,” he tells me, still climbing. “It only takes eighteen minutes for night vision to kick in.”
“Fantastic. I’ll just scream until then.”
He laughs, surprising me. “You’re funny. And light as a feather. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“Not since the last time I was rescued.”
“Now you’re making me jealous.”
“Shut up.” I roll my eyes. At least he can’t see me smiling in the dark.
“Almost there,” he says. “Uh-oh. Oh no.”
“Oh no, what?”
Up the path, a torrent of water, mud, and rocks rushes toward Sam’s legs. “I was hoping we’d make it to the Jeep before the levee broke.”
This is the levee he predicted would break while I yelled at him on the beach. If he hadn’t shown up, hadn’t tossed me over his shoulder, this avalanche would soon be landing on my tent,smothering my campsite, smashing me and all my possessions. I’d have been sent straight out to sea.
“Oh no,” I whisper, tensing in his arms as he presses against the current. For the first time tonight, I feel truly afraid.
“Don’t worry,” he says, so warmly and softly that I turn to meet his eyes. I still can’t see him, but I want to. “I’ve got you.”
I can hear in Sam’s voice how he isn’t afraid. It eases my mind a little.
“Hold on!” he shouts, as the mudslide slams into his thighs and stops us in our tracks. I feel his spine bow backward like a fishing pole, then straighten. He presses on.
“Dude,” I say, impressed.
“Learned that one in hero school.”
“What were you, valedictorian?”
“Sorta.” He dodges passing boulders and uprooted trees, moving nimbly, holding me tightly, never faltering. Not once. It’s as if he possesses a preternatural power, like the monster in Mary Shelley’sFrankensteintrotting across the Alps for weeks or Pedro Pascal’sMandaloriannever loosening his intergalactic grip on Baby Yoda.
