Page 58 of So Insane

Faith turned toward the explosive bricks and tossed the flare. It arced through the air, the shadows it cast undulating across the room like wraiths.

It landed on top of the explosives and burned. Faith estimated they had less than a minute before it burned through the casing and activated the starter charge. Once the first brick went off, the others would too.

They needed to be out of the cave when that happened.

“Let’s go, Turk!” she called.

Turk released the weeping Benny and sprinted after Faith. Benny struggled to his feet, but this latest wound was finally too much for him to handle. He took two wavery steps toward them, then collapsed to the ground.

“No!” he shouted after them. “I hate you!”

Faith and Turk sprinted into the brightening light of the day. Michael and Jones greeted them with smiles, but their smiles disappeared when Faith said, “Back up! It’s gonna blow!”

The officers turned tail and ran, leaving their vehicle behind. Shawna and Frankie were already several yards past the cars, but they also turned and ran.

Faith and Turk brought up the rear and made it about thirty yards away from the cave entrance when the bricks went off. A roar so loud they felt rather than heard it slammed into their back, followed by a blast wave that knocked all of them off of their feet.

The sky lit brightly, and when Faith rolled over, she saw a burst of flame shoot from the tunnel and rise over fifty feet into the air. It disappeared in a puff of smoke, and that was when Faith felt the ground shake.

She got to her feet and watched in amazement as Benny, blood dripping from his wounds, struggled to the entrance. He paused at the mouth of the mine and leaned against the wall.

And the mine collapsed.

Rock and dirt tumbled downward. The mountain sunk inward, collapsing in on itself as millions of tons of Earth filled the cavern. Benny was visible one moment, and the next he was consumed by the rockslide.

They watched in awe as the mountain reshaped, a massive cliff replacing the slope, a forty-foot pile of rock covering the mouth of the mine and forming a new slope that ended seventy feet below the lip of the cliff. Faith felt another low rumble as the earth settled.

Then there was silence.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

“What are you going to do?” Faith asked.

Jones shrugged. “As little as I possibly can for the rest of my life.”

“Must be nice,” Michael said.

Jones shrugged again. “It’s something.”

“Who’s going to take over?” Faith asked.

“Well,” Jones said, “I’m guessing they’ll probably just merge the department with Brightwater. That makes more sense anyway. Most of the people in town are moving there after this. I don’t blame them.”

“Are you moving?”

“Yes, but not to Brightwater. I’m moving to New York.”

“Small town life not fun anymore, huh?” Michael asked.

Jones scoffed. “I wasn’t here for fun. I was here to take care of these people. They needed help, and when I was twenty-eight, I thought I could save the world. Turns out the world is shitty no matter who you save.”

Faith looked out the window of the breakroom where Shawna and Frankie were holding hands and talking with Frankie’s father. The three of them smiled and laughed, the fear that had consumed them only hours ago gone.

“It’s still worth saving people,” she opined.

Jones smiled softly and watched as the two girls piled into Mr. Cole’s sedan. “Yeah. I suppose you’re right.”

They watched the would-be victims drive away, back home to safety and comfort. When the car turned the corner out of view, Michael asked, “So what’s happening with the caves?”

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