Saturday, 3:53 p.m.
Grace hadn’t needed to pick the lock to free her daughter from the chain. She found the key in Richard’s pocket right after she hit him with the Taser a second time.
Leyna sent Grace and Ellie ahead to the creek, Grace supporting Ellie’s weight as the pair stumbled across the golf course toward rougher terrain. She intended to go back to the neighborhood, make sure their mom had gotten out. Now that Ellie had been found, she couldn’t leave—
Leyna froze as the road came into view. The flames licked the sky, nearly at the car Grace had visited minutes before, now covered in ash. The fire howled a warning: I’m coming for you. But she knew it wasn’t actually capable of malice. It wanted the branches, the grass, the leaves. That it would consume her too, leaving her bones on that road if given a chance, would be only a consequence of its hunger.
There would be no returning to Ridgepoint Ranch for any of them.
Heart and lungs near exploding, Leyna raced to catch up with her sister and niece. The fire crashed toward them. The smaller pines swayed as if they too were trying to escape. Through eyes stinging with smoke, Leyna scanned the tree line marching toward the sky to her left and right. In front of them too. Behind them, the ground sloped downward, toward the fire and the clubhouse where a temporarily incapacitated Richard might already be stumbling up the stairs.
She and Grace bore Ellie’s weight between them and accommodated her bound wrists, and she thought of Dominic and how she and Richard had carried him between them in much the same way.
But she had no time for mourning or regret. That would come later. In that moment, the three of them existed in that most dangerous of places—uphill and downwind—and her niece was weak. Dragging her feet, she stumbled often, and each time Leyna kept her from falling, her back strained with the effort. Still, they had no choice but to climb, even knowing the fire would sprint up the hill many times faster than they could.
Winded, they stopped halfway up the hill, leaning against each other and a large pine, needles dancing far overhead.
She took a breath and she and Grace urged Ellie forward again. They banked a hard right, dodged a manzanita, then began scaling a hillside slippery with fallen leaves and loose dirt, their steps growing sluggish. In one spot, the trees grew so dense they were forced to turn sideways to squeeze through the opening, and even then, Leyna held her breath to allow extra clearance. Ellie and Grace slipped through easily. Bark scraped Leyna’s stomach, and her lungs burned when she finally exhaled.
Wheezing, the collar of her shirt soaked with sweat, Leyna kept climbing.
Remembering the wolves, she pulled Ellie toward the burn scar of a past blaze, calculating its distance, even as it dawned on her that they would not make it. Hermann Creek was their only option. How far? A couple of minutes? They had that much time. She hoped.
But a second, more important question mocked. How deep? What if they spent their final minutes stumbling toward a creek that had gone dry? And even if water still ran, it might not be enough to protect them. It might be just enough to give an illusion of safety in the moments before they boiled in it.
“Stop.” Her chest heaved as she halted behind a boulder to catch her breath. She listened, then started moving again. As they ran, her lungs burned, and her share of Ellie’s weight grew heavier. How much farther could the girl go before she collapsed? She had a head injury and likely hadn’t eaten in days.
If they had any chance of surviving, they needed to remain upright. She hitched Ellie’s arm higher up on her shoulder and she and Grace pulled her forward up the hillside.
Flames swallowed the timber. Flecks of burning grass churned around them. The sky grew livid. Reflex forced a labored breath into her lungs, and she sucked in ash. Her head throbbed, and a wave of dizziness made her sway. She glanced behind at a wall of flames. Her eardrums pulsed as the fire howled.
A crack split the air, loud even over the keening fire. She jumped back, nearly dropping Ellie, her reflexes warning her an instant before the tree fell in front of her. On impact, sparks danced, and the ground vibrated.
Up ahead, a tree flared and exploded. Nearby trees ignited, and it was daylight again, the sky an angry orange.
Behind her, the flames chased.
The heated air seared her lungs, and her heart dropped. They wouldn’t make it. Though she’d spent more hours in this forest than nearly anywhere, somehow she’d miscalculated the distance. When it mattered most, her superpower had failed her. She didn’t know these woods at all.
But a second later, they crested the small hill, and Leyna pulled her focus away from the girl and toward the creek below.
Too exhausted to talk, she pointed and dropped her head, and the three of them launched themselves down the hill together, toward a creek gone nearly dry in the drought.