“Yeah?” he asked.
I patted the ground next to me.
“I have a couple of questions for you,” I said softly.
Tyrel took a seat on my other side, and I felt Maddyn quiver next to me with excitement.
“What’s up, Hobbit?”
I looked at him with a raised brow. “I thought we discussed you not calling me that.”
The window in one of the bedrooms at the end of the hall shattered, and my heart leaped into my throat. Glass pinged to the floor, along with the rain that was surely falling completely sideways now due to the wind.
“We also discussed you and your habit of not eating, and yet you still have trouble accomplishing that,” he countered, seemingly unaffected by the glass shattering.
I bit my lip.
“I ate today,” I admitted.
“You ate because a boy gave you another muffin,” Maddyn said from my other side.
The entire building felt like it shook, and my breath once again caught.
“That boy sure does make me happy,” I admitted. “Or maybe it’s his dog.”
“It’s the man, darlin’,” Tyrel said. “Trust me on this.”
I snickered and felt my heart lodge somewhere in my throat just as what felt like a bomb went off.
Then eerie silence.
I looked over at the person that was across the hall from me, Sharona, and shared her terror.
“Cover your heads!” I heard called.
I turned and covered my head, feeling like I’d practically crawled into the wall as I did.
I felt Tyrel’s body on one side of me, and Maddyn’s on the other.
Then…nothing.Chapter 7I hate ranting to you. You’ll just use sound reasoning and logic where all I’m really looking for is a person that says, ‘I hate that bitch, too.’
-Text from Liner to Rome
Liner
“Tornado went through town,” I heard my father say. “Took out that bakery.”
My eyes sharpened on my father and I stared as he tried to tell me something. All the while my heart rate felt like it was nearing tachycardic levels.
That was when it all clicked into place.
The bakery.
Next to The Bridge.
Son of a bitch!
“Is it bad?” I asked worriedly.
Dad’s eyes were hard and unyielding. “Place is a mess. The tornado picked up and touched back down right on top of that building…it’s in ruins. So far they haven’t found any fatalities.”
I looked at my computer, bleary-eyed, and wondered if I could go down there under the pretense of wanting to check on the happenings.
Then I remembered I was on the volunteer fire department and didn’t fuckin’ need a reason to go down there.
I had a legitimate reason.
“Can you survive without me?” I asked, standing up and gathering my keys.
I didn’t bother waiting for him to reply. I knew he could survive without me. Sure, he didn’t have to do it all that often anymore, but he was a fully functioning adult capable of pointing fingers and delegating tasks just like I’d been doing all morning.
I’d started my day off outside fixing lines but had moved inside once relief in the form of other branches of Ampere Electric started to arrive.
Once the eighth truck had shown up, I’d gone into the office to get a fresh change of clothes and something to eat. When I’d found Dad swamped as he tried to figure out which part of the grid he should fix first, I’d stayed and started helping him instead.
Which was where I was when he’d gotten the phone call about ten minutes earlier.
“I was doing this before you were even a desire in your mother’s eye.” He slapped me on the back. “Get out of here, kid. And don’t come back without her.”
The smile didn’t reach his eyes, though, and I had a feeling that he thought I might not be coming back with her. More like, coming back with the news that she wasn’t on this planet anymore.
And that didn’t sit well with me.
Not at all.
Not even a little bit.
I was really, really attached, and I wasn’t sure I should be.
That didn’t stop me from walking out the door, though.
It also didn’t stop me from walking straight into the chaos the moment my bike maneuvered past a piece of the gate that used to surround The Bridge.
“You can’t leave that bike there, man.” Wade, one of my club brothers and a cop for Bear Bottom Police Department, grumbled the moment I parked it. “We have an ambulance loading right there. At least when the next one shows, anyway. That’s as close as they can get.”
I nodded my head at my club brother and backed it into a spot where I’d sat just a week ago while waiting for Tyson to come back from his visit to The Bridge.
“This good?” I asked.
Wade nodded. “You won’t be able to get out if that ambulance gets here, but looks like you’re in for the long haul, anyway.”
I nodded my head. “I am.”
For now, anyway. If Theo was hurt, I’d be taking her to the hospital.