ChapterThirty-Eight
Xavier’s head swam, and he guessed he might have a concussion in addition to broken ribs.
Good times.
But fuck. He was alive, and that was more than he’d had a right to expect. The moment the merc threw the grenade at him was frozen in his mind. It was like he saw every moment through a disjointed strobe effect.
The grenade in the air, closer. Closer.
Batting at it with the empty Glock, trying to send it back downslope, toward the merc.
But he’d swung too hard, and the projectile went to the left, heading for third base. And it hit that rock and tumbled into the crevasse that snaked across the hillside, a split caused by the heavy rainfall of the last few days.
The shock of the explosion, the rocking of the hillside. He’d stood for a moment on the precipice, knowing the slightest movement would collapse the ground beneath his feet.
But then the ground dissolved anyway, and the next thing he knew, he was gripping roots, hanging on with his one good arm as the other had been torqued when he grabbed at the collapsing hillside. Then the tree he gripped came down, with him clinging to the side.
It was a jumble from there. A blur of pain and motion. He and his tree plummeted into the pool. He lost his grip on the trunk and slipped underwater—or rather, undermud—and had grappled for the surface with his one good arm, the other hanging limp and useless.
He caught a branch and tried to surface, but couldn’t through the leaves and twigs. He was going to suffocate in draping moss that grabbed on to his face.
He’d been forced to release the branch, dive under and kick for a new gap in the debris. He’d finally surfaced, face clear of moss, and found air and gray sky. Grappling between logs, he latched on to one and caught his breath. He tried to clear the mud from his eyes by rubbing his face on his shoulder. One arm was useless, the other gripped the log that kept him from sinking.
The world remained a muddy blur.
He’d had no idea how he was going to make it out of the mud pit until he heard Jae’s shout. His friend’s voice was like a dream. So unexpected. So necessary. He’d feared he was hallucinating.
But Jae had been real, and he’d brought along a friend, to whom Xavier now owed his life.
And both men had come here to find Audrey. In a way, his beautiful, amazing Audrey had saved him yet again.
His eyes burned at what she must be going through. She had to believe he was dead.
Hell, he’d believed he was dead. But he was gloriously alive. In a crap ton of pain, but breathing. He closed his eyes against the throbbing of his head.
“Stay with us, X-man,” Jae said.
He nodded. “Not going anywhere.”
“No sleeping. We need to get you back to the lodge so a medic can check you out.”
He didn’t need Smith to tell him he had a concussion, so they would stay right here. His future was on her way to find him.
Audrey scanned the wreckage where the hillside had given way, adjusting the binoculars as she searched the mud for signs of Xavier.
His camouflaged clothing would blend right in with the debris pool, it was a useless endeavor. She lowered the binoculars and left the rise that had offered a narrow view of the wreckage.
She would skirt along the slope, giving the weak hillside wide berth.
At last, she reached the bottom of the slide zone, where a pool had formed at the base of the hill. They were still well above the lake, on a shelf carved by a glacier thousands of years ago.
If not for this shelf, the mudslide would have continued downward. In its descent, it would have gained steam, like an avalanche, and taken out a massive swath of forest before wiping out several cabins and pushing into the lake, filling it with mud and trees.
But the shelf was stable, and the lower, less steep hillside remained intact.
She cautiously approached the debris field, aware that mercenaries could have made their way up here in her absence, in addition to the fact that the ground adjacent to the mudflow could be compromised.
But there was no way to search for Xavier without exposing herself to both the dangerous ground and the dangerous men who’d been hunting them for days.