Jemma: Sorry to bother you. Weatherman says more rain coming, possible tornadoes.
He answered her right away.
Angel: Yes, Pops has all of us here and sending us out as needed. Probably be here all night.
Jemma: Miss you.
Angel: Miss you too, baby. Stay inside. Love you.
Jemma: I’ll stay inside.
Angel: Good. I don’t want to be worrying about you. But keep an eye on the creek. It may flood the front field but don’t think it will reach the front of the house or barn. Stay away from the bank. Love you.
Jemma texted several hearts and put her phone down on the coffee table. She was in for a lonely night. She got up and headed to the kitchen and glanced out the window again. The creek had risen. And it was moving much more quickly than usual. She wasn’t surprised. That happened every time it rained. But the bank seemed to be holding. She had no desire to go out in the torrential rain. Thunder claps shook the house and rattled her new windows.
She glanced toward the barn. If the front field flooded, the house was high enough not to have to worry. But water might pool inside the barn. Thankfully, there were no animals in it yet. She and Angel needed to either build up the bank once he moved in or build some kind of retention wall to prevent it from being flooded in the future. Especially if he planned to use it for some of his clients.
Jemma made herself a small dinner, but she just picked at her meal. She shut off the television, too. She couldn’t take hearing the same thing over and over again.
“And tonight, look for strong thunderstorms and damaging winds well over fifty miles per hour.”
Yes, she got it. It was bad out. She texted Calliope numerous times, but could not reach her. She knew she was nearby, doing her thing, chasing the storm, but hearing the pounding rain and whipping winds terrified her more than she could imagine, more than watching the storms on television. But she was safe in her home with a new roof and windows that were made to weather these conditions. She was more concerned about Angel and Calliope who were out in the storm.
Just before midnight the shrill sound of sirens woke Jemma up from a restless sleep. Angel had texted her to let her know he would be staying at the station for the evening around eight and though she missed having him in bed with her, she also knew he needed to be with the other firefighters in case the situation with the weather got worse. And from the sound of the sirens, it just had. She was familiar with the CDS sirens from drills at work and when she’d experienced a few tornadoes as a child. Her father had drilled it into her. Take nothing, go to the hall, and head immediately to the storm cellar. And that was what she planned to do.
The Civil Defense Siren continued to whine its shrill warning which meant a tornado had been spotted nearby. Jemma sent up a silent prayer for Calliope and Angel and the other first responders working out in the storm and quickly got out of bed. She half ran down the stairs, only stopping at the bottom to slip into her waders, big rubber boots that usually went over her shoes. She opened the hall closet, grabbed her rain jacket and a flashlight. Her dad’s old kerosene lamp and other supplies were probably in the shelter, but she didn’t want to take the chance that she couldn’t get the lamp lit. She was a child the last time she’d been in it. The shelter was to the right of the house, and her grandparents had built it years ago for just such occasions.
She was about to slip into her jacket when there was a pounding on her door. Jemma gasped in shock at the unexpected noise, but thinking it must be Angel, she raced toward it. Without checking she swung the door open to allow him entrance. But it wasn’t Angel. It was Frank Reynolds, drenched and furious.
Before she could even take a step back, Frank screamed at her.
“You bitch!”
He struck her across the face so hard she saw stars. The sting of it caused her to reel backward, and she almost fell down. Only the doorframe leading into the living room saved her from losing her balance.
Shaking her head to clear it, she cried out in pain, “What are you doing here, Frank? Stop!” she yelled, clutching her cheek.
In the next moment she felt his cold, wet hands grab her neck as he began to choke her.
“You cost me my job as chair, you humiliated me. You chose that stupid Neanderthal over me. You’re just a dirty little bitch. I should have seen it sooner.”
Jemma’s hands scratched at Frank’s hold on her throat. She tried to break his grasp, but she couldn’t breathe. She felt like she was going to pass out any second. As he continued to choke her, she fought for air. Darkness began to creep into her vision. She kept trying to scratch at his fingers, desperate to get some air. She tried to kick him, and missed, but it was enough for him to suddenly release her, and she collapsed onto the floor, gasping and coughing. Her lungs burned as the oxygen re-entered her lungs.
After several deep breaths, she glanced around to see if she could figure out a way to escape. She saw the front door wide open. The rain had stopped. It was eerily quiet. The tornado was coming. It might be close. She needed to escape. But where? How? Then the rain started again, the sound thunderous. It slanted sideways, and she knew she’d lost her chance to make it to the storm cellar.
“Frank, the storm, the tornados.” She tried to distract him and plead for him to listen to reason. “We need to get to the storm cellar.” Though, she had no plans of sharing it with him. If only she could race by him and get there first.
“I saw it coming. It’s to the east of us. The tornado isn’t going to kill you.”
Fear crawled across Jemma’s scalp, and a terrifyingly cold chill ran down her spine. Frank moved toward her, and she knew she was running out of time. She began to scramble backward on the floor.
Frank emitted an evil laugh above her. “You can’t get away from me, and your boyfriend is much too busy tonight to think about you. Perfect timing, if I do say so myself.”
He lifted his foot and kicked her in the leg. Pain shot through her. Jemma kept moving further away until her back hit her sofa, and she couldn’t scramble away anymore. She tried to get up, to get away. Frank had clearly become unhinged, and whatever he had in store for her wasn’t good, not good at all. She had a better chance of surviving the tornado that raged outside instead of the madman that raged in her home.
Jemma tried to plead with him and yelled over the roaring winds whipping over her house. “Please, Frank! Just stop! This isn’t you. You don’t want to do this.”
“You don’t know what I want because you never cared enough to ask.”
He grabbed her by the arms, and though she tried to wrench free, he was just too strong.
“Please, Frank. Please,” she begged.
He didn’t hear her. “All I ever wanted was for you to love me!” he cried before he crushed her mouth with his. His teeth smashed against her lips, and she tasted blood as he tried to jam his tongue into her mouth.
Jemma continued to fight back, but he placed one strong hand on the back of her head that wouldn’t allow her to break free of his revolting assault. She tried desperately not to choke as he forcibly moved his tongue in her mouth. When she felt his grip loosen on her arm, she pushed him away as hard as she could, managing to move him away a few inches. She wrenched her arm free and turned to run.
But the hand that held her head was now wound into her hair, and he simply pulled her back to him and threw her once more onto the ground. Before she could think to move, he fell on top of her, grabbing her breast with one hand and attempting to unzip his pants with the other.
“No!” she screamed in the sudden silence. The rain had stopped again. She kicked out with her legs. She made contact.
This time it was Frank who screamed. He let out a garbled sound like a wounded animal. She hit her mark. But this was her only chance. As both his hands went instinctively to his groin, Jemma scurried out from under him and ran toward the open door. She knew the tornado must be close. The sudden stopping and starting of the rain could only mean one thing. She lo
oked to the east and a flash of light revealed to her a terrifying image, one she would never forget. She saw not one, but two twisters, touch down no more than a mile away and it looked like they were headed directly toward Tarpley. They were going to miss her home, thankfully, but the town, oh dear God, the town, would be destroyed.
A noise behind her alerted her to Frank getting up.
“Bitch, where are you?” he yelled. And then his yelling blended with what sounded like a stampede of cattle as the wind resumed its monstrous roar across the fields to Tarpley and golf ball sized hail began to fall.
Jemma ran. Her life depended on it. Her plan was to head to the storm cellar and lock herself in. But a sharp pain gave her pause. She looked down and saw the red welt on her forearm. Her arm stung where she’d been hit by one particularly large piece of hail. She was in incredible danger⸺from Frank, from the wind, flying debris, and the hail. She ran, making her way to the side of the house.
Suddenly Frank appeared in front of her. He bled from a nasty gash on the side of his head. He wobbled. Something had struck him. Knowing she couldn’t get past him, she turned and headed to the creek. It was the only thing she could think to do. She ran to the bank, the dangerous one, that Angel had been worried about. The one he’d warned her to stay away from. A plan formed while she ran. She’d lure him there so that the bank collapsed and he’d be swept away.
Just as she reached the bank, Frank grabbed her wrist, and she yanked away as hard as she could, pulling him toward the muddy bank. Her plan backfired, though, when a wave of water she hadn’t seen coming pounded the side of the bank and knocked both her and Frank off their feet. In the shock of falling, Frank thankfully released her. Flailing under the water, she bobbed up briefly and gasped for air. But only cold water entered her lungs.
Push off the bottom. Let yourself sink. Angel’s voice rang in her head. The flash flood had come out of nowhere. Jemma gulped air at the surface before she went under again. She held her breath like Angel taught her, but didn’t know if she could hang on for long. It was harder and harder to get back to the surface, and she grew tired as she struggled in the raging current. But she couldn’t give up.
Again and again, she pushed off the bottom and surfaced. She lost count of how many times she took a breath and went under again. Terrified, she nearly blacked out until her body slammed against something so hard it knocked the wind out of her. She’d hit a large rock, and she clung to it. Dizzy and exhausted, she puked brown water, but at least she was out of the flood. The hail stopped. She didn’t recognize where she was. She touched her head, throbbing with a dull pain, and felt a swelling there.
Ten feet from the still raging creek she knew she was too close if the water continued to rise. She began to crawl in the mud on her knees, scraping the skin against buried rocks, but knew she needed to crawl to safety, crawl to Angel. Just a few more feet, she prayed. A few more steps, she told herself. Then the world went black, and Jemma collapsed onto the soggy muck.
Chapter 22
Pops was calling the shots from his command post at the station when Angel reported in yesterday. He’d been sent out to another car wreck around the same time he’d gotten the call to head back to command. Tornadoes were expected to touch down in Tarpley. The moment he walked in Pops hollered at him.
“Short Shit, I need you on the phones!” he snapped. “Keep me posted on any new information from the NWS.”
Angel nodded and ducked inside Pops’ office but left the door open so he’d be able to hear if Pops needed him elsewhere. He pulled out his own phone and sent a quick text to Jemma. She surely must have heard the sirens. With one hand on the landline phone on hold with the National Weather Service, he kept his ear on Pops’ orders to the others and watched his cell phone for Jemma’s response. She’d probably gone to her storm shelter, and probably hadn’t grabbed her phone, or perhaps, she’d even lost cell service, he told himself, trying to keep his nerves in check. In the fire station he heard Ross and Tank arguing about Deputy Cross. But Pops intervened quickly.
“Guys! Carly’s a grown woman! She’s going to do what she feels she needs to do.”
After a few more words were exchanged between the two, Pops gave some orders to Dub-step. “You’re on the DL, so we’ll find you something to do that’ll be safe for you.” Then to everyone else, “We’ve got trees and power lines down all over the place. What we’re really watching for are fires that’ll break out because of electrical problems, but we’ll also be helping to clear the roadways for emergency crews, and we’ll be doing extractions. I don’t know what—”
Just then the NWS piped something into his ear.
“POPS!” Angel yelled as he came out the doorway. “We’ve got one bearing down on the east side of town, ETA two minutes.”
“You heard him, guys. Anything else?”
Angel let him know NWS saw another tornado headed into Banderas. Pops began to bark more orders. Telling them to load up the trucks with water, blankets, gloves, and axes.
“Don’t forget the EMT kits and your chainsaws, fellows!”
Angel began to follow Pops’ orders to make their vehicles ready for anything. Beside him, Ross held his head.
“My ears popped.” He looked confused for a moment, and then it dawned on them all.
“Holy shit!” Tank warned everyone, and looked up as the sound of the wind hitting the station like a Mack truck made everything but yelling at the top of their lungs impossible to hear.
“Here it comes!” Dirty -D mouthed, though Angel couldn’t hear a fucking word.
Without waiting for an invitation, Angel jumped under the bench he stood next to, and watched as the other guys did the same. All found cover in case the building collapsed. A twister was right on top of them, and it was hungrier than a motherfucker from the sounds of it.
It was mere moments of terror before it dissipated, but Pops was at the helm commanding once more.
“Get on the roads, stat, and, guys, be sure to call in frequently and tell me what you see out there.”
Angel made a dash, but Pops called him back. “Check Indian Mound Road for me. We have three ranches out that way. Sawyer Creek may experience a flash flood. We don’t want the families there to be caught up in it.”
“Yes, sir.” Angel smiled with relief. Jemma lived on Indian Mound Road. In full gear, he climbed into his vehicle, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.
The moment Angel turned onto Indian Mound Road, he picked up the pace. Fallen trees indicated the tornado had passed close by, and he could see from the road that the creek had breached the bank in many places.
As he pulled into Jemma’s driveway, he prayed to find her okay, but seeing her front door wide open did nothing to put his fears at rest. The house looked fine. The windows didn’t appear damaged by the hail that lay melting all over the grass. He jumped out of his vehicle and ran to the house, screaming her name. “Jemma!”
He raced into the kitchen where he discovered her rain coat on the floor and a flashlight. But the moment he stepped into the living room he freaked the fuck out. The sofa sat at a strange angle against the wall. The coffee table lay on its side along with a broken lamp on the floor.
“Jemma!” he screamed again.
Still nothing. His heart beat a wild staccato in his chest. He dashed upstairs, taking the steps two at a time. He glanced into her room, and realized she must have been sleeping when the sirens went off. He could tell by the ruffled bed sheets. Angel frantically checked each of the other rooms, but didn’t find her in any of them.
He ran back downstairs and straight out the front door to the side of the house. The storm cellar was closed, and when he pulled open the doors, he found it empty as well. Panic began to set in. He glanced toward the barn and then took in the creek. The right side of the bank had collapsed and the field in front was flooded, though the water was receding. Fuck, where was she?
Clearly there’d been a struggle of some kind, and the
bank had collapsed. What did it mean? She wouldn’t have gone near the bank in the storm unless she was trying to get away from someone. The struggle. His worst fear, losing her, was now a possibility. His heart thudded in his chest as he raced to the edge of the bank and saw one of her waders trapped in the mud. He also saw what looked like the impression of another person standing next to the edge, too.
Oh no! He ran back to his vehicle and called it in. “Short Shit at 3100 Indian Mound. The Haner ranch. Jemma Haner isn’t on the immediate premises, but was earlier. Looks like a struggle occurred in the living room. Please send assistance. I think she got caught in a flash flood. Two sets of footprints lead to the western bank. I’m going to head downstream to see if I can find her.”
Pops heard him. “Assistance will be en route. Good luck finding your woman, son.”
Angel fled on foot. There was no way he could bring his vehicle close to the edge of the creek so he took off at a full run keeping his eyes focused on both banks for signs of Jemma and whoever had been with her. The cresting waters could have taken her a couple of miles by now, but he knew this creek had some sharp turns in it up ahead, and he hoped she had washed up on shore.
Please let her be okay, he prayed as he rushed headlong toward wherever Jemma might be. He pushed his pace to the limit, causing his breathing to become labored. He began to shed some of his gear, but kept charging. He ran for over a mile, seeing nothing but debris the river puked ashore.
Angel made the turn with the creek and saw something on the other shore. Not something. Someone. His stomach knotted in fear when he realized it was a body. Jemma had just learned how to swim, but in this kind of water, she wouldn’t have survived for long. Fear gripped his chest. It was a body, but as he got closer, he thought it might be too large to be hers. It was across the creek, and though he didn’t want to stop, he had to know who it was, and provide assistance if possible. Perhaps it was whoever had been with her.
Fighting For Jemma Page 18