Page 51 of Carmine

“It’s fine, we always give insults. I just need to man up.”

“You know something, Carmine? We don’t often say shit like this, but I’m dead fuckin’ proud of the person you become. It would have been easy for you to have acted out and been an asshole. Instead, you all took the opportunities given to you and ran with them. Even more, you paid it forward at an early age.

“I hope my children turn out to be like you. You, Tye, Serenity, Harley, and Cody are the examples I hold up to my kids. Phoe did an excellent job of raising you five, and she’s so damn proud of you. We all are. I love you, kid, and that won’t ever change,” Gunner said and reached out to hug me.

I clung to my uncle for a while, thankful that I had crossed Phoe’s path. Mom was a special woman. Few would have done as she did. And Gunner was right. Rage wasn’t big on saying I love you, but they were fuckin’ huge on showing it.

Gunner slapped my shoulder.

“Love you too, Uncle Gunner,” I murmured, squeezed him once, and stepped back.

“Not sure when you became a man. It seemed to happen overnight, Carmine, but understand this, I’ll ride at your side anytime,” Gunner said and stamped off after Savage and Bobby.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. In an MC, that was the biggest compliment he could have given me. Fuck, I loved my life!

Chapter Twelve.

Molly

Istared at the tempest outside the command centre. The storm had broken early afternoon, and it was winding up to be a doozy. No doubt the eruption was also affecting it. I winced as a huge flash of forked lightning lit the sky up. Despite being only four o’clock, the sky appeared unusually dark. I was watching for Carmine and the others. They hadn’t arrived yet, even though we’d been notified they’d found the missing hikers.

A truck pulled up, and five figures jumped out and raced towards us with a dog in tow. I smiled as I saw them entering the building and recognised Carmine amongst them. Happy now, I knew he was safe, I turned back to the monitors. Interested, I checked the last lot of data coming in. The lava had slowed to a stop finally, and the quakes had also begun to ease.

The latest report from the team watching the fissure was that it wasn’t oozing out any more lava, which I classed as a win.

This storm had hit, and the rain was pounding down hard around us. If it continued, it would certainly help cool the lavadown. It was too heavy to vaporise and not affect the lava. I know Phoe had mentioned a downpour, but this was unexpected.

An alarm sounded near me, and I jumped as I saw Axel peering over a laptop screen. “Now what?” he grouched.

Chief Howser and several men approached him.

“Is that the flood alert?” Howser asked.

“Yeah. I’m pulling up the coordinates. We don’t need a fuckin’ flood on…” Axel’s voice faded, and I tensed up. “Well, lookie here. Seems mother nature loves her Gateway to the Black Hills after all.”

“What is it, Axel?” Howser demanded.

“Shank’s Gulch flood detector just alerted. We’re getting an alert from EROS,” Axel boomed.

I scurried over to have a look.

“I’m not a hydrologist, but yes, that is a flood alert,” I said.

“You’re not a what now?” Axel asked.

“A hydrologist. That’s a scientist that studies water on and in the earth. They research chemical pollution and things like snowfall, glaciers, and ice formation. They monitor flooding for patterns and liaise with a multiple of branches,” I explained.

Axel sent me a glare, and I shut up. “Whatever. Do we have one of them here?”

“Yes,” Susan said from behind me. “I did request Dr Shaken join us.” A man joined the group and nudged Axel out of the way and opened his own laptop.

“The moment the storm hit, I began monitoring the detectors. Basically, they detect the rising water and send an alert when the levels reach a certain point. That allows us to prepare for flooding. This looks like a flash flood. We’re lucky the sensors weren’t destroyed by the lava path.”

“Here,” Dr Shaken logged his laptop into the big projector we’d set up and we could all see clearly what he was looking at. “The lava flow cut across Rapid Creek at Shank’s Gulch and thenfollowed the route of the creek down. Because we’ve had low precipitation, the water levels didn’t stop the flow.

“The heavy rainfall is being blocked on one side of the lava flow with nowhere to go. This means it’s building up. Water will always find somewhere to go. Now, if we get a close-up of Shank’s Gulch, you can see the sides are quite steep, and the lava flow isn’t that deep. Which means the water will cascade over the barrier and follow the Creeks path, which is the same way the lava also followed,” he said.

“Do we need to prepare for a flash flood?” Howser asked, looking put out.

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