Marcus pulled hard, Tia reaching up with her free hand to cling to his arm. But a sharp tug from below told Tia that the more she scrambled to pull herself up, the closer she was coming to falling straight into the jaws of death below.

Tia’s heart was pounding, lungs barely able to function in the panic of the moment.

But Marcus’s second hand joined its partner and together they managed to get a secure grip on Tia’s wrist. He pulled her up slowly, her legs kicking to get a foothold and aid in her own rescue. Her bare feet slipped against the metal safety rail as Marcus wrenched her up and over the side.

He pulled her into his strong arms, a loving and comforting embrace as he pulled her to the other side of the bridge and down the stairs to the other side. The waters were pulling back, allowing the crowd to run farther up the coastline and to higher ground. Tia and Marcus took up the rear to make sure nobody in their charge was hurt or left behind. They ushered the crowd quickly, knowing the waters would return to do even more damage, a thicker tide of deadly debris.

The danger hadn’t passed, and nobody’s safety was assured.

Marcus and Tia waited for the waters to settle, leaving little of the cabanas and beach homes. They joined the search crews, walking through the homes to make sure nobody was trapped inside. Tia scrambled right alongside him, stepping carefully around the debris scattered around the wreckage of the homes.

“¡Ayuda! ¡Ayuadame!” The voice was shrill and cracked, muffled from inside one of the collapsed houses.

Marcus called out, “¿Cuántos de ustedes están ahí?” Questioning if there was anyone else in there with her needing help.

“Sólo yo, pero no puedo moverme, estoy atrapado!”

Marcus turned to Tia. “She’s alone and she’s trapped. I’m going in.”

“No, Marcus!” But Tia knew there was no keeping him out of that building. Her only choice was to go with him. “Not alone,” she added. The two of them prowled around the collapsed house, finding a broken window to enter the house. Marcus grabbed a piece of waterlogged wood and smashed the glass in, clearing the shards from the damaged frame. They looked in to see an old woman pinned under a fallen beam, water slowly creeping in around her. She saw them and reached out, eyes wide, mouth gaping, fingers trembling.

“¡Por favor, ayúdame! ¡Me ahogare!”

“No te preocupes, te sacaremos de ahí,” Marcus said, reassuring the lady they would get her out of there. He turned and looked around amid the debris, finding a slat of wood and shoving it into the window, explaining to Tia, “We’ll need to walk on this to get her out of there.”

She nodded, finding another long piece of shattered plasterboard, soaked and heavy, and shoved it into the window.

Marcus turned to Tia, a last moment of possibility passing between them. Marcus asked her, “Are you sure about this?”

But Tia didn’t need to reconsider. Her nod came quick and certain, and Marcus said, “Okay, I’ll go first, then guide you in.”

“Date prisa, el agua está subiendo!” The water was rising, and fast.

Marcus stepped in through the window, the house creaking around him as he turned and extended his hand, helping Tia into the crippled structure. They walked carefully on the big scraps of wood and plaster, sinking into the water, the darkened house groaning with damaged wood. The building was dying a slow and certain death, and it seemed to know it. The only real question was how many people, if any, would it take with it to a watery grave.

Marcus and Tia staggered through what would have been the living room, the old woman pinned under a fallen beam. He struggled to get a footing, then to lift the beam up off the old woman even as the water crept up over her mouth. She spat and gasped, reaching out while Tia pulled her to her feet.

The house creaked, the floor unsteady beneath their feet. The ceiling seemed to shift above them, the whole house threatening to fall forward, deeper into the swollen tide.

“Hurry,” Tia said as Marcus took his place on the other side of the old woman to escort her out.

They shambled across the demolished room, back onto the sagging plasterboard and rotting planks toward the window. But the room had shifted, and the window seemed smaller than it had been when they entered, a lot smaller.

Tia said, “The wall’s collapsing!”

Marcus said, “You first, you can pull her out.”

“No, Marcus—”

“There’s no time, Tia! Do it!”

And as much as Tia wanted to insist that Marcus free himself first, that he’d earned it, that she was ready to sacrifice herself for his benefit, there wasn’t time and he wasn’t about to let her make that sacrifice, Tia knew that.

And the only way to save the old woman was to do what Marcus told her and to do it quickly. Tia crawled through the window, carefully extending her naked leg, grimy and bruised, through the misshapen opening. Tia weaved her way through, the building creaking and moaning around her before she stopped and turned to help the old woman out. Tia slipped her hands under the woman’s shoulders and pulled her through, face-up, with Marcus lifting her legs to slide her through unscathed.

Once the old woman was clear of the window frame, she set her feet down and Tia led the woman a few vital steps away from the crippled house. Tia turned to help Marcus, who was already halfway out the window when the house began its slide deeper into the swampy ground.

The wall crumbled, the window closing down on him like a toothless, decrepit jaw, the old mouth of some hideous dying monster. Marcus grimaced, teeth gritted as the house dragged him down into the mire. Tia grabbed his hand and pulled, the house pulling her down with him.

“It’s no use,” Marcus shouted. “Get away, save yourself!”

“No, Marcus, no!” Tia kept pulling, the house shifting with irreversible might and certainty. Her feet slid into the swollen water and it was up to her knees before she realized.

But the wall crumbled around him and finally released him, chunks of plaster and wood falling out around him as Tia stumbled back. They fell into the water, the house crumbling just a few feet away. The house leaned hard, tilting with its final death throes. Its new lean blocked the sun, Tia and Marcus looking up to see the decrepit structure about to collapse on top of them.

They scrambled backward and up away from the water, shoving the old woman out of the way just as the house imploded behind them. The pressure of the collapse was a dying gasp from the old house, shoving them forward and spitting out splinters of wood and hunks of plaster.

The three stumbled away from the wreckage and back to dry land, the old woman panting and sobbing in Marcus’s arms.

“¡Gracias, señor, que Dios los bendiga!”

They delivered the woman to safety, Marcus holding his belly, teeth gritted. Tia said, “Marcus, you’re hurt!”

“No, I’m…I’m all right.”

“You’re going to the hospital.”

“They’ll be packed with people who really need it. It’s just a deep bruise. If I can still walk, I’ll be fine. Gimme a day or two.”

“Why do you have to be so goddamned heroic all the time?”

“Force of habit. We’ve got to get down to Machala, see how bad my house got hit.”

“You…you own a home here?”

Marcus surveyed the area. “I did. Let’s go find out.”