35
Camila
“What do you mean Darana isn’t here?!”
The storm rages outside the windows with a ferocity that now feels personal to me, as if the sky had decided to settle an old score with me in the worst possible way.
A veritable meteorological monster—and just now, of all times, the most exasperating woman decides to vanish right in the midst of its fury.
Elizabeth, drenched in worry from head to toe, looks at me from the center of the kitchen. Her hands twist a checkered dish towel.
“She’s gone to save the foals,” she replies, her voice trembling. “I couldn’t stop her, Camila. She climbed onto Byron and galloped off. You know what she’s like when she sets her mind on something. She won’t listen to reason.”
For what feels like an eternal second, I stand completely still in the middle of the room. I simply stare at her as panic washes over me like a wave. Then I close my eyes, clenching my fists, trying to hold back the avalanche of memories threatening to drown me right here.
“Oh my God…”
Of course, the most stubborn, brave, and desperately reckless woman I’ve ever known has decided to go out alone to face hell itself. I place my hands on Elizabeth’s shoulders, giving them a squeeze.
“Don’t even think about leaving here. Stay in the house with the dogs and Angus. I’ll go find her.”
“Camila, please… you have to be careful…” the woman tries to protest, her eyes brimming with tears.
“I’ll bring her back. I swear on my life.”
I don’t know whether I’m saying it to reassure her or convince myself, because the plain and simple truth is that I’m terrified. Terrified in a way I haven’t felt in years—not since that cursed night, not since the fire that nearly took the lives of the Calloway siblings.
I step out of the main house, and a gust of wind hits me full force, forcing me to plant my boots in the mud to keep from falling backward.
The rain is falling at a steep angle, lashing my face.
The lightning turns the area into a stroboscopic, delirious image of red mud, raging water, and absolute chaos.
I can barely make out Ethan’s figure as he runs toward me through the dense curtain of water, soaked to the bone, his face completely contorted with worry.
“We have to get to the foal barn right now!” I shout at him, spitting out water without giving myself a second to think.
“Camila, the northern trail is impassable! Going that way is fucking crazy!” he replies, raising his voice above the deafening roar of the storm. “Landslides from the hill are imminent…”
“I said we’re going!” My shout is swallowed by a brutal clap of thunder.
Ethan stands motionless for just a moment, staring at me through the rain. Then he nods slowly, swallowing hard.
“All right. Let’s go. But you know full well this is reckless, don’t you?” he mutters as he turns and starts running alongside me toward the vehicles.
Because he knows me, and he knows full well that I’m no longer thinking like the cool, calculating meteorologist who analyzes charts. I’m thinking like a desperate woman, like someone who can’t afford to lose the person who has brought light back into her world after years of utter darkness.
I run toward Viento, slipping in the mud. I climb in, fasten my seat belt, and check that we have everything. Never in my life did I think I’d have to go to such extremes in this stretch of desert. Much less to save Darana Calloway’s skin.
When we reach the edge of the landslide on the northern slope, the scene unfolding before my eyes takes my breath away.
“My God…”
The stable looms in the distance amid clouds of dust, accumulated mud, and shattered structures. Lightning continues to strike all around, and the energy built up underground keeps unleashing itself in erratic discharges and electrical arcs that illuminate the horror of the scene.
“Help me with this, quickly!” I tell Ethan, heading toward Viento’s trunk.
He stops staring at the destruction, snaps out of it, and nods, his jaw clenched.
My fingers tremble with adrenaline as we pull out the black case and I enter the unlock code on the keypad.
The sealed lid opens, revealing the equipment perfectly nestled inside the padded lining; with the passive-charge trigger, I have the arsenal I need to outwit the electrical storm for a few minutes.
Just a few measly minutes. But they have to be enough to reach her.
“Do you think it’s going to work?!” Ethan asks.
“It has to!” I reply, locking eyes with him. “There’s no other choice, Ethan. If we fail, I won’t just lose her… Get the probe out!”
I pull out the main piece of dark alloy.
The metal seems to absorb the blinding light of the lightning, glowing with an ominous, charged radiance.
We run through the downpour to one of the metal supports of the perimeter fence that’s still miraculously standing beside the warped structure.
Every lightning strike makes the mud beneath our boots tremble; my hands are so thoroughly soaked that I can barely hold on to the grounding terminals.
“Higher! Secure the grounding terminal tightly!” I shout to Ethan. He stretches as far as he can from the insulated base, slipping in the water and praying the next strike won’t electrocute him right there.
I pass him the conductor cable. The wind roars so fiercely that it tries to rip it from our hands again and again. For a few agonizing, endless seconds, I truly believe we’re not going to make it, that the storm will win this battle and bury us right here.
“I’ve got it! It’s secure!” he finally exclaims, leaping away from the metal.
The probe is secured high up, directly connected to the framework.
I hurry back down, my legs covered in mud up to my knees, and open the main panel of the case.
The capacitor lights remain a garish, menacing red.
The system detects an absolutely absurd amount of ambient static energy accumulated in the ground.
Perfect. That means the passive induction principle can still redirect it.
In the distance, I hear Byron’s desperate whinny.
“As soon as I flip the switch, get as far away as you can!” I warn Ethan, without taking my eyes off the dials climbing toward the critical zone.
“And what about you?! Are you planning to stay right here in the middle like the perfect target for a lightning strike?!” he protests, standing beside me and grabbing my arm.
“I’m not moving from this control panel until I stabilize the charge!” I reply, even though fear is gripping my throat. “Go get Byron and take him out of there! That’s an order. Don’t make me waste my damn time arguing with you.”
He opens his mouth to retort, indignant, but snaps it shut when he sees the look on my face.
He knows full well that arguing with me in this state is completely pointless.
He takes three steps back, covering his head.
I raise my right hand, grab the heavy safety switch, and pull it down with all the determination in the world.
The entire universe seems to hold its breath for a fraction of a second. The device emits a low, truly menacing hum. I feel it vibrating powerfully through the soles of my boots, through my teeth, coursing through my stomach. The red lights on the panel begin to flash violently.
Once. Twice. Three times.
And then they turn green. A bright, almost fluorescent green. The hum transforms into a muffled roar. The ground shakes, and the flow indicators shoot up to maximum.
And then the miracle of physics occurs. A brutal electric arc bursts from the tip of the graphene probe—blinding, colossal.
A veritable spear of bluish light pierces the curtain of rain and shoots upward with savage force straight toward the clouds, seeking the point of least resistance we’ve created for it.
The system suddenly draws off the static energy accumulated around the structure.
For a few impossible seconds, it seems as though a bright star has been born right in the middle of the ranch. And it’s… beautiful.
The hair on my arms stands on end. My hands are shaking. But it works. Damn it, it works!
The sensors on the case begin to stabilize immediately, and the area stops behaving like a death trap. It’s not safe—far from it—but now I have a chance to get inside without being fried. And I’m going to take it, even if it’s the last thing I do.
“I’m going in!” I shout with all my might, without waiting for Ethan to say anything.
I simply start running toward the shattered entrance. The interior looks like the scene of a recent damn war. The wooden beams have collapsed. There are broken planks scattered everywhere, piles of red dirt seeping through the cracks, and clouds of gray smoke stinging my eyes.
Suddenly, amid the creaking of the structure, I hear heart-wrenching shouts in the distance.
“Hang in there, Bert! Don’t move, damn it!”
I recognize Ricky, who’s kneeling in the mud, trying to dig Bert out.
I run over. An entire support beam has fallen across Bert’s left leg, and it looks terrible. Ricky is sweating buckets trying to pry it loose, but the mud pushing against the back wall is cornering them.
“Where’s Darana?!” I yell at Ricky, grabbing him by the wet lapels of his denim shirt.
“On the other side of the beam!” he replies, his eyes wide with panic. “She tried to deflect the last log, the structure creaked, and it fell on top of her. I couldn’t leave Bert alone! Get her out of there, for God’s sake!”
At that moment, I see my partner join the chaos.
“Ethan, stay with Ricky and get Bert out of this quagmire—now!” I order, turning away with my heart in my throat.
I plunge back into the smoke.
“Darana!” My voice echoes off the wood and damaged structures. “Darana, answer me, damn it! Where are you?! Don’t do this to me, Calloway! Show yourself!”
My heart pounds against my ribs with such violence that it physically hurts.
No. This can’t end in such a horrific way.
Not after everything we’ve been through together.
Not after finding each other again in this corner of the world, after every look of reproach, pride, and unbridled desire, after every promise whispered through ragged breaths in the darkness.
I push forward through the wooden debris, my heart in my throat, while my lungs burn from the smoke and dust hanging in the air.
“Darana! For God’s sake, say something!”
And then I see it. A brown leather boot, barely visible beneath a hideous jumble of debris.
The whole world vanishes around me in that damned instant.
There’s no storm, no ranch, no science—only that boot.
I run frantically, fall to my knees in the mud seeping through the floor, and begin tearing away planks in a frenzy.
“Come on… move…” Tears of fear mix with the rain seeping through the holes in the roof. “Come on, Darana. Don’t you dare leave me hanging now that I’ve found you. I’ll never forgive you for this, do you hear me, Calloway?”
I pull with all my might on a massive beam pinned across her body, but it doesn’t budge a millimeter. I groan with the effort, clenching my jaw and pushing with my full body weight. It’s wedged in place.
“Ethan! Ricky! Get Bert to safety and come here! I need your damn hands right now!”
Seconds later, Ethan appears beside me, followed by Ricky, both of them panting after dragging Bert toward the entrance.
“Grab that end and pull with me,” I tell them.
The three of us coordinate our movements and let out a roar of rage, managing to shift the wooden structure inch by inch. We lift it just enough to fling it aside. Until it finally gives way completely.
Darana blinks hard, coughing from the dust and letting out a moan of pain that tears at my soul.
She has a deep, ugly gash across her forehead that’s bleeding faintly, staining her face red, but those huge honey-colored eyes are fixed on mine with unbridled rage.
Luckily, a plank has prevented the beam from crushing her completely.
“Well…” she manages to say, forcing a cheeky smile that brings me back to life in an instant. “You took… a while, didn’t you, scientist?”
Relief hits me so hard in the chest that I almost collapse and burst into tears over her, but I place a hand on her cheek, wiping away the mud.
“You’re such a fool! Shut up and don’t waste your breath!” I bite my lip with emotion. “Can you move?”
“Even my last name hurts… but I’m still in one piece,” she growls, making a superhuman effort to sit up while clenching her teeth.
Another structural beam creaks dangerously above our heads, threatening to crush us. The mass of mud pushing against the side wall is about to burst through the perimeter. Ricky is already helping Bert limp out the front door.
“We don’t have time—this place is coming down!” Ethan shouts, grabbing Darana by the waist to help her to her feet.
“Come on, cowgirl!” I slip Darana’s good arm around my shoulders, supporting her weight as she lets out a curse through clenched teeth from the pain. “Come on, just one last push.”
Ethan and I drag her urgently between us. One yard. Two yards. Three yards. The dust grows thicker and thicker, almost suffocating, obscuring our vision. Behind us, the wooden wall gives way completely, and another beam plummets straight down where Darana was trapped just a minute ago.
Two seconds later, the fresh, clean air of the storm hits us full force. The torrential rain continues to fall, instantly washing away some of the horror, blood, and mud from our clothes. And just a few seconds after we step outside, the entire building collapses behind us.
A monstrous, deafening, final roar shatters the Outback night. Right in the exact spot where Darana Calloway was trapped just minutes ago.
I collapse into the red mud, dragging her down with me, completely exhausted but holding her tightly against my chest, shielding her from the storm. She rests her head on my shoulder, breathing heavily, while I’m unable to take my eyes off the smoking, collapsed ruins of the barn.