A sound like thunder turned her blood cold and yanked her attention from the man to the mountain. Snow sprayed over a high ledge into the air, quickly tumbling downward. The wide surf of tumbling, sliding white snow flung rocks ahead of it, the mass turning browner as it gathered more snow, soil and trees. A new fear skittered up her spine.
“Avalanche!” she screamed.
“Hang on,” he ordered at the same time as he boosted the ATV to a reckless speed.
She splayed her fingers on his chest and held tight, heart pounding in rapid tandem with the beat of his against her palm. The roar up the slope increased and a glance up proved the snow slide was gaining more speed than they were. My God, they’d get eaten alive by the snow.
“Go faster,” she implored.
“We’re at top speed now,” he shouted back.
Not fast enough. That realization played over and over in her mind, a litany of doom to come. One by one, the trees disappeared under a wall of snow and soil, the crack and splintering louder than violent cracks of lightning over the hum and rev of the ATV. Massive boulders vanished, torn from their mooring of earth only to shoot out amid sprays of ice and dirt ahead of the wall of dirty white, tumbling into a hellish maelstrom that raced toward them.
“Can we outrun it?” she gasped, holding on to him for dear life, heart in her throat.
He flicked a glance back at the deathly gray slope, blue eyes hard as flint and tinged with terror. “I hope to hell so. If not...”
She knew from her last glance that the horrendous slide was too close. The tumbling tide of snow in front of the avalanche was less than twenty feet from engulfing them and gaining fast. Too fast. A glance ahead had her guessing how far they were from the safe zone.
They had a fifty-fifty chance. If that much.
The fear and horror of her past paled in comparison to this horror. No terror compared to the nanosecond the spray slammed into them, tossing them off track.
Luciano spat a curse and the ATV revved and roared, swerving and bucking for a heart-stopping moment. She couldn’t make out any details, not even the man she clung to. Snow and mud rained down on them, soaking her with muck and fear. Stones pummeled her head, her back so much she wanted to scream out the pain.
Somewhere came the crash of snow and trees. Deafening deadly sounds. Ice pellets pounded her back and arms and head. It soaked her in seconds, matting her hair to her head. Each labored breath was torture.
Something hard, a limb, or perhaps rocks slammed into the back of the ATV. She whimpered, eyes blurring, at the same time Luciano swore violently. Her fingers scrambled to find purchase on his soaked clothes, her head spinning and aching.
Tired. She was so damned tired of clinging to him. And afraid, more than she’d ever been in her life. Their chances of outrunning an avalanche had been slim. Surviving one was a rarity.
“Hold tight!” Luciano shouted.
She jerked and did just that, plastering herself against his broad back, knowing he was taking the brunt of the fallout, wildly thinking this was what clothes felt like tossed in a washing machine. Soaked. Wrung out. Limp.
She took a breath and gagged. Tasted the mud on her lips.
The ATV engine whined and roared, shooting them through a wall of muck that blinded her. The tight pinch to her stomach and heightened rev of the engine told her they’d propelled into the air. Into what? Would they get buried under a massive drift of snow-covered debris? Would the force slam them into boulders or the jagged ledge? Or would they end up propelled over the mountain’s edge?