Page 194 of Roulette Rodeo
"Yeah, can't do that," I tell him, muscles screaming with every step. "You're heavy as fuck, but lighter than Shiloh, so I'm thankful you don't eat more."
He tries to respond, but the words come out as unintelligible mumbles before he goes limp again. The drugs are still too strong in his system.
I get him clear just as something inside the farmhouse explodes—probably an old gas line or something flammable stored in the walls. The blast of heat nearly knocks me over, but we're far enough away that it's just heat, not fire.
Four alphas laid out on the grass like discarded dolls, unconscious but breathing. Safe. Alive.
But something nags at me. The shrine. Rafe's shrine to Sophia, with all those memories he's been trying to process, to either keep or let go. We'd only moved the truck and the horses yesterday. Everything else is still in there.
"Fuck," I breathe, looking at the inferno that used to be a farmhouse.
I should leave it. Should stay here with my pack, make sure they keep breathing, wait for help to arrive.
But I think about Rafe's face last night, the vulnerability when he talked about moving forward. Those items aren't just things—they're the physical manifestation of his grief, his process, his journey toward healing. If they're gone, just destroyed without his choice...
"Fucking hell."
I run back toward the flames.
The shrine is in the back section, the part that hasn't collapsed yet but will soon. The heat is beyond unbearable now—it's like swimming through fire. Every instinct screams at me toturn back, but I push forward, shirt pulled up over my face doing absolutely nothing to help.
The shrine is somehow still intact, though the wooden crate it sits on is starting to char. My eyes water so badly I can barely see, but I grab everything I can—the photos, the books, the perfume bottle that's probably about to explode from the heat.
One photo catches my eye as I shove items into my shirt, creating a makeshift pouch. Sophia's face, clearer than I've seen it before.
I freeze.
There's something familiar about her. Not the blonde hair or the delicate features. It's her eyes. Gray-green, distinctive, with a particular tilt at the corners that I've seen before. Recently. Not in Nevada—that's not it. Here in town?
But that doesn't make sense. She's dead. Has been for over two years.
Yet those eyes...
A massive crack from above breaks my concentration. The ceiling beam directly overhead splits, raining burning debris. The front section of the farmhouse suddenly collapses with a roar that shakes the entire structure.
"Shit, shit, SHIT!"
I shove the photo into my shirt with the other items, grabbing the last book from the shrine. It falls open as I pick it up, revealing not pages but a hollowed-out center containing what looks like letters. No time to investigate. I clutch it to my chest and turn to run.
That's when I see it—the blanket on the floor has been disturbed by my frantic movements, revealing the metal hatch Rafe had mentioned. The storm shelter. The hurricane bunker that never saw a hurricane.
Another beam cracks overhead. The entire back section is about to come down.
I don't think. I just react, yanking the hatch open. It's heavy, rusted from years of disuse, but adrenaline gives me strength I don't actually have. The ladder leading down is barely visible in the smoke and flame-light.
The farmhouse groans its death knell.
I jump.
The drop is longer than expected. Much longer. My feet miss the ladder entirely, and I'm falling through darkness, the rectangle of fire above me getting smaller. I have just enough time to think this was a terrible idea before my head connects with something hard—a beam, the ladder, the floor, I'll never know.
Pain explodes through my skull, sharp and then immediately fuzzy as darkness rushes in from all sides.
The last thing I see is the hatch above framing a square of flame and destruction. The last thing I hear is the final collapse of the farmhouse, the roar of it caving in on itself.
Then nothing.
Darkness.
