What a fucking idiot.
“I’m so sorry! Are you quite all right? I’m so—”
“Shhh.” I try to push myself up, but find I can’t. Her hand is on my cheek.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Can you see me? Do you know where you are?”
Something in my chest aches. My right cheek feels like someone’s stabbing it.
“Declan?”
I shift slowly onto my side. When nothing hurts too much, I push up on my arm and look around the flooded hillside. Her face swims in front of me—wide-eyed and a little fuzzy, like the hologram she mentioned before.
“I’m so horribly sorry!”
I try to swallow, but my throat feels locked up. I realize that’s blood I’m tasting. There’s a sharp sting in my cheek.
I spit some blood out. Finley gasps.
“Sorry.” I rub my aching head, realizing that the cold at my back is the water running down the slope; I’m fucking soaked now.
“What’s hurting? How can I help?”
I blink up at her just in time to see a vein of lightning spread behind her. “I’m okay.”
Lightning streaks across the sky again, a spider web, followed by a clap of thunder so loud, I think I feel the rock below us tremble.
“Fuck.”
“I’m so terribly sorry.”
“That lightning,” I rasp.
Her hand brushes my shoulder. “Can you get to your feet?”
I start to stand and feel her hands on my arm. I don’t mean to toss her off. It’s just…instinct.
I get to my feet and find her right in front of me. Lightning strikes again, illuminating her unhappy face. All around her, the rain-soaked landscape seems to pulse and writhe. Streams of runoff glisten as they flow down the slope across from ours. Muddy water gushes over our feet, on its way down to the valley, which sparkles like a lake.
Out to my right, beyond the
flatland of the Patches, the ocean roils. The rain’s falling so hard now, it beats on my neck and shoulders like a waterfall and casts a veil between Finley and me.
I move my arms and legs, testing things out. My right shoulder burns like a bitch, but that’s normal. The rest of me feels…okay. “I’m fine,” I half-shout over the rain.
“My apologies again,” she shouts back. It’s hard to see her face in the deluge, but she sounds sorry. Even concerned. “Do you need help to your vehicle?”
“Nah. You want a ride back?” I remember what I’m here for, and I have the fuckwit thought that maybe I can hype the injury and get the help I need without admitting my issue. Addict.
She gives a slight shake of her head, leaning in closer as she cups her hand around her forehead. “I’ve got to get to the other side of this peak. The volcano’s that way, and there are likely some stragglers on its lowermost slopes.” I watch her mouth tug into a frown. Then the rain picks up—it’s painful on my aching head—and she leans toward me again. “I shouldn’t have urged you to climb the arch!”
“Ehhh, I didn’t have to.”
“You were goaded.”
“Still my choice.” I gesture to myself, realizing as I do that my pants are so wet and clingy, she can probably see the outline of my junk. I tug on one of the pant legs, feeling like an asshole. “I’ll go with you. We can leave together.”
Thunder booms, and something heavy hits the ground beside us. Her eyes widen and her jaw drops as a chunk of rock rolls past us. A pretty big one.