Chapter 9
Nine
Noah coughed, his lungs burning. His headlamp cut through the haze and dust still filling the air like fog. The beam caught thick particles suspended and swirling. The air tasted of crushed rock and minerals, bitter on his tongue.
Noah’s hands reached for Meg. He needed to touch her, to confirm she was real and whole and here with him. “Are you okay? Anything hurt?” He couldn’t keep his hand from brushing back her bangs as he checked her eyes for signs of concussion.
Her skin was dusty, a smudge of dirt across her cheek like war paint.
But her eyes were clear and focused.
Frightened, yes. Wide with fear.
But clear.
“I’m fine.” She blinked and pulled away slightly. She turned her headlamp on him, the beam bright in his face. “You were covering me during the blast. Let me check—”
“I’m not hurt.” The memory of the small rocks bouncing off his back was already fading. One had been larger than the rest, the size of his fist. Had it been a square hit, he wouldn’t be standing. But it had glanced off his hip.
He’d check that bruise out later. If there was a later.
He stood and took a few steps toward where the entrance should be.
But even the thin crack of gray daylight that had been there before—that sliver of hope—was gone. Just darkness and the sound of water trickling somewhere above them, steady drips echoing.
“Stay here.” Noah pressed his palms against cold stone, pushing himself to his feet. His legs were unsteady. His ears were still ringing from the blast, high-pitched and persistent, like he was underwater.
He picked through the scattered rocks carefully and tested each step as he made his way toward where they’d entered. The rubble shifted under his boots, loose stones clattering down with each movement.
But instead of the familiar crevice that had led them into the chamber—the narrow passage they’d squeezed through—a solid wall of rubble towered before him and reached toward the ceiling.
Tons of broken sandstone. Some pieces as large as his torso. Others reduced to gravel that crunched underfoot.
The explosion had brought down the entire passage.
And worse, a new stream of water ran down from the center of the domed ceiling above and splashed onto the rocks below, then pooled at his feet, the cold seeping through his boots.
The blast must have cracked a new path for the rain runoff to find its way in.
His heart pounded in his ears, the blood rushing so loudly it drowned out even the tinnitus. This couldn’t be happening.
Not here.
Not with Meg trapped inside with him.
He pressed his palms against the wall of debris, the stone rough against his leather gloves. He felt for any gap, any void, any pocket of air that might suggest a way through.
The rocks were cold and solid beneath his touch and were wedged tight.
Even if he could move some of the smaller pieces—and that was a big if—the larger boulders would take equipment—jacks, pulleys, a whole team with proper gear.
Things they didn’t have. Things outside while they were buried inside.
He had to get Meg out. Had to protect her from this.
The thought came sharp and desperate.
He drew a few slow breaths through his nose and forced his mind to clear.
Panic wouldn’t help. He’d been trained for crisis situations, had drilled for this—for making decisions when everything was falling apart around him.
He could do this.
“Noah?” Meg’s voice was frantic and thin.
Noah scrambled back over the loose rocks, his boots slipping on the wet stone as he reached Meg and nearly fell.
She’d pulled his pack toward Alex and was kneeling beside the unconscious boy.
She had slid a sweatshirt from the pack under his head as a makeshift pillow.
Her headlamp created a small circle of light as she pointed to where a sizable rock had rolled against his shin and pinned his pant leg to the ground.
Noah leaned down, his muscles straining. With great effort, he rolled the rock away.
He couldn’t tell if the limb had just been pinned down or if it had taken enough of the weight to cause damage.
Meg glanced up at Noah. Her face was pale in the lamplight, but her expression was focused. Professional. Doctor mode.
“His pulse is good—steady at about seventy beats per minute. The head wound looks worse than it is, mostly superficial bleeding from the scalp. Pupils are reactive but sluggish, which concerns me. But until he wakes, I can’t really assess whether there’s serious brain injury or just a concussion.”
“Meg, I’m so sorry I let you come in here.”
Her head jerked up to look at him. “You didn’t let me. I made a choice. It was the right choice. We couldn’t have known…” She shook her head. “This is not your fault.”
“If I had come in alone, then—”
“Then you would be trapped with an injured person alone.” She pulled away completely now and turned back to her medical bag. She yanked out gauze with more force than necessary.
Her eyes flashed with anger in the lamplight. “I’m not breakable. You trusted me to do my job.”
“And now you’ve been trapped in a collapsed cave by a madman.”
Noah reached to grab his radio from his belt. But it was gone. He scanned the floor around him. His stomach lurched as he caught sight of a shard of plastic among the rubble—black and cracked. That glancing hit on his hip must have taken out the radio.
Perfect.
He dug in his pack for another—a backup, anything—but came up empty. His jaw tightened so hard his teeth ached.
He gestured toward the blocked entrance. “No way out that way. And no way to contact the outside.”
Meg pressed gauze to the wound on Alex’s head. Her hands were steady, even though her voice wavered. “No way out? Are we buried alive?” She swallowed hard.
“No.” The word came out too fast, too sharp, too desperate.
Maybe.
But he’d never say that to her. Never let her see how scared he actually was.
“These caves have shafts. Some natural, some from miners back during the gold rush.”
“I thought there wasn’t any gold found this far north.” Meg’s voice was thin and stretched tight like a wire about to snap.
“There wasn’t. But that didn’t keep people from looking.” Noah stood and shone his light around the chamber in a slow arc.
Not looking at it like a crime scene with Jeremy’s photos scattered across the floor like evidence.
But as a maze with an exit they just had to find.
“They dug exploratory shafts all over this area in the 1870s and ’80s after gold was found in Prescott in the 1860s. Some of them broke through to the surface and created accidental skylights. We just need to find one.”
It was a long shot, he knew. Most of those old shafts had collapsed decades ago. Or were too narrow to climb. Or led to dead ends. But he’d tried to keep the hopelessness from his voice and inject confidence he didn’t feel into every word.
By the look on Meg’s face—eyes too wide, jaw too tight—he hadn’t succeeded.
She swallowed once. Then again.
Her breathing slowly picked up speed, her chest rising faster—shallow and rapid. The beginning of a panic attack he’d seen her fight off before.
Noah closed the distance between them in two strides and pulled her against his chest without hesitation. One hand cradled the back of her head.
“Deep, slow breath. We’re going to be okay. I’ve seen maps of these caves—old survey maps from the park-service archives. Climbing out through a shaft is possible.”
Possible, yes. Probable? Likely?
He couldn’t even let himself think about the odds.
But they’d get out. They had to.
Because the alternative—Meg dying down here in the dark, never seeing sunlight again—made him ready to retch.
Meg sank into him. Her breathing gradually slowed as she matched her breaths to his. Then she leaned back and pulled away. She wiped under her eyes with the back of her hand, smearing dust across her cheeks in dark streaks.
“Talk to me.” Noah kept his hands on her shoulders, his grip firm and steady. “Before you came to the park—what were you doing? Working in a hospital?”
Meg blinked at him. “What?”
“Just—” He needed to keep her focused on something other than the walls closing in. “Tell me about before. Keep your mind somewhere else.”
She drew a shaky breath. Then another. “ER. I worked in an ER in Denver.”
“That’s right. I remember you saying that.” He encouraged her to continue.
Her voice was still thin but steadier now. “Crazy pace. Gunshot wounds, car accidents, heart attacks. Never knew what was coming through those doors next.”
“Sounds intense.”
“It was.” She reached for Alex’s wrist again and found his pulse automatically. Her mouth moved as if counting in silence. “Andy loved it. My boyfriend at the time—he was a doctor too. Thrived on the chaos, the adrenaline. Didn’t understand why I…” She trailed off, her eyes distant. “Why I didn’t.”
Noah waited, sensing there was more. He already disliked this Andy.
“I had a panic attack one night.” Her voice turned flat and emotionless.
“It had been an extra intense day at the ER, but I held it together until I got to my apartment. My dad had died the year before, and they had been coming more regularly—the attacks. Andy arrived to take me to a fundraising gala—you know, one of those schmoozy events where you rub shoulders with the board members and donors.”
“And you were alone?” Noah ran his hand over her back in slow circles.
Just the idea of it—her alone and terrified on cold tile—had him wanting to lift her into his arms and hold her forever.
“No, Andy found me huddled on the floor in the bathroom.” She let out a bitter laugh. “He stayed with me. Missed his opportunity to network with the hospital’s biggest benefactors. He was furious.”
The muscles in Noah’s arms tightened.
Yup. He detested Andy without even meeting him. Wanted to punch him.
“He broke up with you?”