Read Online Why Lie? (Love Riddles #2) by Carey Heywood - Free Book Online Page A

me.
    Mud sucked at my shoes, trying to trap me with every step. My throat burned with my warnings, my attempts in vain for her to hear me.
    It was coming, a mudslide like the target of a missile, and we were right in its path. Trees, their roots weakened from the drought, fell like dominos. Like massive chocolate chips in a muddy batter they poured toward us.
    I’m fifteen feet away as she turns back toward me. Other than a small jump when she sees how close I am, she seems frozen in her seat. With both of my hands, I motion for her to get out of her car.
    Her eyes are wide, her face a picture of terror. Coming unstuck, she drops her phone and pushes open her door. I’m ten feet away. My voice gone because I have not, not once, stopped screaming for her to move.
    Still I scream. There’s no real sound to it, only a raspy breath acknowledging that air is leaving my body. I’m seven feet away, my arms already reaching even though I know I won’t get there in time.
    A massive branch hits the outside edge of her open door. The force of it spinning her car around before the door comes off entirely.
    Like quicksand, the flowing mud and whatever debris it has picked up in its path surrounds her car. She screams, the sound stolen by the raging flow of earth. It’s her mouth, opened as she cries out that I see. If the mudflow was a river, I am on one of its banks while she is in its center.
    I turn, and run back toward Jake’s truck. It is currently just barely outside of the flow. Mud licks at its tires but somehow does not grab hold.
    Skirting the truck, I run, my legs on fire, staying on the edge of the flow and chase her. The flow is faster than I am but the progression of Sydney’s bug is hampered by the trees the mud does not pull down.
    It crashes into them, and stays there, pushed against a tree until the car swings around and becomes a part of the flow again.
    She can’t get out of it. If she did, I don’t know if I’d be able to get to her before we both drowned in a river of mud.
    Her car is crumpled and dented from every angle but is currently the only thing protecting her from the swirling branches, rocks and god knows what else the mud has grasped.
    Each time she hits a tree, I pray that the side now missing a door is away from the force of the mud. When it isn’t, the mud flows in, covering her legs as it fills her interior. As much as her bug is protecting her, if I can’t safely get her out, she might die in it.
    There’s only one direction of the flow, downward. Like water, it moves in the direction of least resistance, snaking through the edge of the road I drove up and into the forest on the other side of it.
    In theory, once we hit the base of the road, where dirt connects to pavement and the elevation levels off, the flow should slow.
    It won’t stop; there’s still too much pushing behind it.
    If I wasn’t a runner, wasn’t already used to canyon trails, there’s no way I ever would have been able to keep her car in sight. The flow is unpredictable.
    At times, too far ahead of me, her car has come close to the side I’m running down. Other times, she’s clear on the other side. Her car is a kayak in a hurricane.
    She hits another tree, the sound of it muted over the angry gurgle of the mud. With each hit, each crash, I watch helplessly as her body jerks.
    From where I am, I can’t tell if it’s blood or mud that coats her skin. Her car is held there, against the creaking tree she hit. I no longer feel my legs as I push to run faster when I see her slump over in her seat.
    Her belt holds her up, but her head and torso pitch slightly toward the center of her car. She’s twenty-five feet ahead of me. “Hold on,” I pant.
    Her car rocks against the tree, the flow trying to pull it back. Then a massive tree branch hits it, further denting the passenger side.
    The force of its impact causes my stomach to drop. Her head doesn’t move. The tree does manage to hold her car in place. That’s the