Now here, at the edge of the park, entwined with Sebastian on a metal railing.
Finney, too, just beyond the railing, standing between them and the cliff’s edge, grinning wildly. Behind them, the fire suddenly flared and brightened; and his face, badly burned on one side, flickered in it, like a demon in the flames of hell.
He was pointing a gun at them.
She closed her eyes and waited.
Spencer. I love you.
Darcy, I’m sorry. I failed you.
I failed both of you.
FINNEY
… but the trigger didn’t yield.
The gun didn’t fire.
The safety was on.
Should have practiced more.
He was fumbling for the lever with his thumb—
(Who knew it was so hard to fire a gun?)
—when beneath him, the muddy ground gave way …
RITA
Her teeth rattled, and she heard an immense rumbling—felt it in her chest, as if a tractor-trailer truck were zooming by inches away.
But no gunshot.
She opened her eyes.
The ground on which Finney had been standing was gone.
So was Finney.
Before her brain could process this, the wet earth she and Sebastian were standing on melted under their feet—
(mudslide California mudslide those happen in California after heavy rains)
—and she lost hold of the railing and started to fall.
No time even to cry out.
FINNEY
… and a roar.
His whole universe a huge roar.
He was falling.
Or was he flying?
Air whooshed across his ears, tickled his scalp.
As he fell (flew), he tumbled. No up or down. Only the roar and the tumbling. It was, he thought, like being in a gigantic washing machine.
He wasn’t frightened. Just exhausted. So it’s over. He was glad, relieved that he didn’t have to worry anymore, and that this miserable existence was ending.
He’d believed that he could somehow single-handedly fix things and set the cosmos back on its proper heading.
But he couldn’t.
He knew that now.
Now he realized killing Wu and her sister wouldn’t have made a difference. The promise of cosmic balance had been an illusion. The emptiness, the absence of her, would have remained.
In the instant before he smashed onto the rocks, and tons of wet earth entombed his broken body, he spoke his last word, which disappeared into the rumble of the tumbling mud.
Jenny.
SEBASTIAN
The edge of the cliff, and Finney, had disappeared.
He clung to a twisted length of railing with his good left arm. The mudslide had dragged much of the surrounding railing down with it, but this bit remained, partially buried in the mud. His legs were swinging in space. He could hear the crash of waves breaking far below.
Wu was clinging to him, her arms wrapped around his waist.
The railing was too slick.
He started to lose his grip.
Through gritted teeth he told her this, and told her to climb, using his body as a ladder. She did, gripping his clothes as handholds, using his torso as a ladder for her hands and feet. Thank Christ she didn’t weigh much.
His hand was slipping.
He cursed like he never had, a magnificent string of shits and goddamn mother fuckers. He prayed and begged Alfonso, wherever he might be, to help him.
And then she reached the railing, and grabbed it to pull herself up to firm ground. Now, with one arm wrapped around it, she reached back down toward him with the other. “Come on,” she implored, grabbing him by the shoulder and pulling. Streams of running water ran over the side of the cliff and splashed in his face, and he sputtered and coughed.
He counted down—three, two, one—to prepare himself; and then, like a monkey on a tree branch, he swung his right arm, the one on the side with the broken ribs, up and grabbed a piece of railing.
Agony.
The pain in his right side left him with just enough breath to scream.
He reached up and snatched her outstretched hand. With the added weight, her grip on the railing faltered, and she began to slide across the slippery mud toward the edge.
It was her turn to scream.
He let go of her hand and grabbed another length of rail poking out of the mud.
There. This one was less slippery. She stopped sliding.
Between her pulling and his, they got him up to the top. They threw themselves down and lay in the mud, panting, until it occurred to him that more of the cliff might give way.
RITA
“Come on,” Sebastian gasped, dragging her up.
He pulled her to the grass. Across the park, beyond the fence, the construction site was a roaring blaze. She could feel its heat from here. She spotted distant figures around its perimeter. Spencer was lying where they’d left him, silhouetted against the firelight. He was waving his arms weakly toward the fire, up and down in unison, as if he was praying to it.
“I need to go help him,” she said.
“Yes.”
Sebastian limped over to his backpack a short distance away, pressing a hand to his side.