Read Online Wild by Jill Sorenson - Free Book Online

without looking down, over and over again.
    Josh wasn’t oblivious to her struggle. He went slow and murmured words of encouragement. It seemed to take forever. She was thirsty and tired, even though she was accustomed to strenuous activity.
    “We’re almost there,” he said, his voice reassuring.
    She wondered if he was suffering any ill effects from the blow to the temple. His knuckles had probably gotten scraped during the first quake. The impact must have knocked him off his feet, too.
    As they reached the lower edge of the guard, Helena heard a subtle, ominous sound. It was the almost indiscernible whisper of padded footsteps. The vague impression of shifting molecules and stealthy motion; the soft snick of a single twig.
    “Wait!” she cried out to Josh, just before the lion pounced.

CHAPTER SIX
    C HLOE HELD HER daughter to her chest and wept for several moments.
    It felt odd to have an emotional breakdown with a stranger sitting next to her. Mateo made no move to comfort her. When the moment passed, she rubbed her runny nose against her shoulder and took a deep breath. Emma stared up at her in concern, sucking the first two fingers on her right hand. She was a beautiful child. Golden-haired and brown-eyed, like Chloe, but with Lyle’s signature features. His cruel mouth was a perfect cupid’s bow on Emma. His winged brows gave her an elfish, Tinker Bell look.
    Emma’s angelic face fooled everyone. She was a handful. Her favorite word was no .
    Chloe glanced at Mateo. He was staring out at the water, not at them. His chest rose and fell with labored breaths. The swim had exhausted them both, and he’d done all the work. Her blood was starting to cool. Soon she’d be shivering in her wet clothes.
    It occurred to her that there were worse things than witnessing and surviving a disaster of this proportion. Dozens of people had just fallen to their deaths, and that was horrific, but she didn’t know any of them. The same might not be true for Mateo. Had he lost a close friend or family member?
    “Were you with someone?” she asked, sniffling.
    He looked at her in confusion.
    “Your family?”
    “Mi familia?”
    “Yes,” she said. “Are they…out there?”
    He followed her gaze to the bay. “No familia. Solo mi equipo. Todos mis compañeros.”
    She didn’t follow.
    “No family here,” he said in stilted English. “Panamá.”
    He pronounced it with a heavy emphasis on the last syllable. She’d never heard it said that way before. Did his family live in Panama? It was a place in Latin America, if she remembered correctly. They had a canal.
    “Y tú?” he asked.
    “Me?”
    “Tu familia,” he said with patience.
    “No,” she said, shaking her head. “My parents and my brother—” She broke off, uneasy. She didn’t know where her parents were, or if Josh was okay. “I wasn’t with them.”
    Emma took her fingers out of her mouth. “Unco Josh.”
    Chloe was about to tell her daughter that they couldn’t visit Uncle Josh yet when sirens started blaring. The sound was unfamiliar, and chilling. Not an ambulance or a police car, but short bleats at regular intervals.
    Emma wailed in distress. “Mommy!”
    “Tsunami,” Chloe said, her heart in her throat. It was a tsunami warning.
    Mateo needed no translation for this word. He leaped to his feet, studying the bay with trepidation. Some of the boats in the harbor had broken loose from their moorings. Other than that, the water was deserted.
    So was the sky. They were less than a mile from the airport, so she imagined that flights had been canceled and planes grounded. But why were there no helicopters over the bridge? This was major news.
    In the time it had taken Chloe and Mateo to swim to land, all of San Diego had fled. The embarcadero, a popular tourist destination, was deserted. They were alone on the grassy plateau. Normally there were joggers on the paths and people in the nearby park. Shops and restaurants lined Seaside Village,