Chapter 1
When my husband finally came to save me, the woman he had almost married was sitting in my seat.
Natalie Shaw stared at me through the rain-streaked passenger window of Grant's county rescue truck. She wore his yellow fire jacket over her shoulders. A white respirator covered her mouth and nose.
At her feet sat our red emergency binder.
THE MORGANS was still printed across the front in my handwriting.
I had packed it myself—maps, emergency cash, spare keys, copies of our IDs. Everything Grant and I might need if the volcano ever forced us out of Alder Ridge.
Now Natalie had it.
Cold rain carried ash down the back of my neck. Gray water streamed across the clinic parking lot, thick as wet cement. Somewhere beyond the buildings came a deep, rolling sound like a freight train moving underground.
Grant lowered the window two inches.
"Claire, listen to me. Bus Two is coming."
"You said you were coming for me."
His eyes flicked toward Natalie before returning to me.
"She called from the south evacuation zone. She couldn't breathe."
Natalie raised an inhaler with a trembling hand. Grant had already fastened her seat belt. He had found her a respirator and wrapped her in his jacket.
There was no mask waiting for me.
"So let her wait for the bus,"
I said.
Grant's mouth tightened.
"Don't make this harder than it already is."
A siren wailed over the rooftops. Rainwater rushed along the curb, carrying black stones and broken branches. The ground vibrated faintly beneath my shoes.
"You have one safe seat."
"She was alone."
"So am I."
"That's different."
He said it too quickly.
My fingers had gone numb, but I forced them around the cold door handle.
"Why is it different?"
Grant stared at me as though I had asked the most unreasonable question in the world.
"Because you can handle this, Claire. You're the calmest person I know."
For years, he had used those words like a compliment.
You're better with money.
You're better in a crisis.
You know how to take care of things.
Standing beside that truck, I finally heard what he meant.
Natalie needed to be protected.
I could be left behind.
"Open the door."
"Claire—"
"Tell her to get out."
Natalie looked down at the binder. Her wet fingers tightened around its red edge, but she said nothing.
Grant reached for the lock.
I heard the click.
Something inside me broke before the road did.
I pulled the handle again. When the truck began moving, I stepped onto the running board. My shoe slipped on the wet metal.
"Stop the truck!"
Grant caught my wrist through the narrow gap in the window.
For one desperate second, I thought he was pulling me inside.
Instead, he peeled my fingers from the doorframe.
"Don't do this," he snapped. "You'll be fine."
My foot slipped.
I hit the pavement hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. My phone flew from my hand and landed beneath the rear tire.
The screen shattered with a bright white flash.
Grant looked at me in his mirror.
Our eyes met.
Then he drove away.
I lay in water streaked black with ash, watching his taillights disappear.
A worker ran out of the evacuation station and caught my arm.
"Ma'am, you have to get inside."
"My husband said Bus Two was coming."
The worker went still.
Her expression told me before she spoke.
"Bus Two was canceled ten minutes ago."
The underground roar grew louder.
She pulled me toward the building.
"The first mudflow could reach this part of town in eighteen minutes."