by Megan Hart
They kissed for a long time, so long she thought maybe he intended only to kiss her and nothing else. The thought of that, making out like this for hours without him even touching her anywhere else, excited her unbearably even as it disappointed.
Abbie could no longer count on two hands the number of men she’d fucked, but she could still remember their faces, if not their names. She could remember how each one sounded when he moved inside her. None of them had been meant as a notch on the bedpost, but quite a few of them had been just a way to pass the time. Lackluster sex and shamed faces in the morning, though never hers because she always figured if she was going to do something she would at least own the consequences.
But Cal…Cal’s mouth, tongue, hands, the press of his erection, nothing about this felt boring or shameful, and Abbie rocked herself on his lap until he gave her what she’d been craving. A moan. It slipped from his lips on a breath in between kisses, and it made her laugh a little. Then he laughed, and in another moment the two of them were giggling and guffawing even as he rolled her onto her back and slid between her legs with that long, lean body.
That’s when he touched her. All over. Big hands slid up her legs, undid her jeans and peeled them down her thighs and past her ankles. The buttons of her shirt and the shirt itself. In her bra and panties, Abbie tensed as she always did, hands wanting to cover the scars but forcing herself not to.
She had to own the consequences.
Cal ran a fingertip along the longest scar, the ugliest one. The others had faded into silver marks no more intrusive than the stretch marks from pregnancy, visible only in certain light. But the one that curved from over her right breast and along her ribs, down to her abdomen, was cross-hatched from the stitches. The surgeon who’d saved her life hadn’t cared much for making things pretty, and she’d chosen never to have plastic surgery to fix it.
Most men asked her what had happened. Cal didn’t. He bent to press his mouth to the slope of her breasts, then over the soft cotton of her bra, down her ribs. His lips traced the scar, and his touch should’ve tickled but as always she felt nothing except the heat of his touch and that just barely.
Abbie closed her eyes when he got to the end of it. Her hands fisted in the comforter. When he pulled her panties off, her mouth opened but nothing came out but a hiss of breath. Not even the “yes” she was thinking managed to escape.
Then, nothing.
She opened her eyes to look down at him studying her. Those nice eyes with that hard gaze. Noticing things. What had he noticed about her?
Whatever it was, he didn’t say anything about it. He sat back and unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of it before moving over her again to kiss her. Together they worked at the button and zipper on his jeans, the dark boxers underneath. Mouths working, hands roaming, at last they were both naked and he was touching her in all the places she wanted him to. Needed him to.
Abbie never faked her pleasure, and few of the men she’d been with ever even noticed if she wasn’t getting off. Probably hadn’t cared. There was no faking it this time. Cal moved in every right way.
He was looking in her eyes when she came. Abbie almost always looked away at the moment she broke, but this time she was looking into his eyes too. He shuddered and murmured something that could’ve been endearment or curse as he came too.
When he rolled off onto the pillow next to her, one long arm thrown up behind his head, Cal let out a sigh. Then a chuckle. Abbie rolled to face him, a hand tucked under her cheek. Their legs tangled. Sweat cooled. She rubbed her toes along his calf.
Cal looked at her. “How long are you staying here?”
She had no timeline. No place to be. She could go wherever and whenever she wanted, at least until the money ran out. But that meant she could also stay the same way.
“I was going to leave tomorrow,” she said after a couple seconds’ thought. “But…I don’t have to.”
She thought perhaps she’d misjudged him. Maybe she shouldn’t have made herself an offering. Then he turned toward her and brushed the hair away from her face without saying anything, and she didn’t worry about that any more.
2
They slept.
Abbie dreamed, as she often did, in full color and stereo surround sound. At first her dreamscape was a jumbled mess of faces and places she hadn’t seen for a long time. And then, as in the way of dreams, it all changed.
She was on a train. Going fast. Too fast. She looked out her window at the scenery passing outside, trees and farms and small towns lit up in the night. The train clattered on the rails, too high above everything to be a real train, she knew that even in the dream, but even as she got to her feet and gripped the back of the seat to keep herself steady, she was unable to force herself to wake. And she wanted to, because though this wasn’t yet a nightmare, it felt well on its way to becoming one.
The chug-chugging got louder. The train hissed and steamed. She was riding in a dragon.
The train lurched, and Abbie stumbled forward. Strong hands caught her, kept her from falling, but when she looked up to see who it was she could find nothing but darkness. Something reeked, the stench thick in her nostrils. Choking. It smelled of blood and shit and puke; it was the stink of lying in a ditch on the side of the road in your upside-down car while you waited to die.
The EMTs would load her on a stretcher and take her to the hospital. It would be her first ride in an ambulance. They would not bother with a siren, because she was already gone. There was no white light, no tunnel, no chorus of angels or parade of loved ones waiting for her. She’d left everyone she loved behind her in that ditch, long ago.
“Abbie.” Someone shook her, then again. “Abbie, wake up. Now!”
Not the voice of God. Not a doctor. Abbie clawed her way up and out of the dreams to find Cal bent over her, his hair so shaggy and in such disarray she moved without thinking to push it off his face. He captured her hand, his grip too tight. Mouth a frown. Expression urgent.
“Get up,” Cal said. “We need to get into the bathroom.”
“What?” Blinking, the taste of beer and sex furry on her tongue, she couldn’t focus. He was shouting, she realized. He had to shout over the sound of the train.
Not a train.
The wind.
Cal pulled her out of bed. He was naked. She was naked. Together, they stumbled across the grotty carpet. She stubbed her toe on the leg of the bed, but there wasn’t time even to yelp. She wouldn’t have been able to hear herself over the roar of the wind if she had.
In the bathroom, Cal didn’t even pull back the curtain. He pushed her into the tub. Abbie’s knees hit the cold, slick porcelain, and this time it was hard enough to shove a cry out of her.
Then he was there with her, his body covering hers. Warm. Slick with sweat. She remembered how they’d moved against each other and how he’d touched her with those strong hands, but there was nothing sensual about the way he grabbed her now. Cal pushed her down, down, down, her cheek against the bottom of the tub. Her teeth cut into her skin. She tasted blood.
He might’ve been shouting something, but she couldn’t make out words, just rough, hoarse shouts. Her own screams bit at the inside of her throat, but her clamped-tight teeth wouldn’t let out a single sound. Cal pushed her down harder, harder, even though this tub was barely big enough for one, not large enough to hold two even if they were in an intimate embrace as they were now, intimate but graceless, nothing kind or generous about it.
The tub rocked.
The floor creaked. The walls strained, rattling the light fixtures so fiercely the glass globes covering the bulbs fell onto the linoleum floor and shattered. Abbie could see nothing, but the song of shattering glass was a noise she knew well enough to understand.
This was…something. Her brain wanted her to understand what was going on, it wanted to clear itself of the haze of alcohol she’d once again been so cruel to subject it to, but though fear could always give the appearance of sobriety, n
othing but time would clear her bloodstream of her favorite sweet poison. She was drunk. She was a drunk.
Silence didn’t drop over them like a blanket or a hammer. The sound of the walls shaking in their foundation eased and the hoarse chuffing cacophony of the runaway dragon train faded and left behind the equally hoarse sound of Cal’s breath in her ear. It warmed her cheek, just like his bare flesh warmed hers. It seemed wrong for her to be so chilled, but then Abbie realized she was also soaking wet.
As Cal pulled himself off of her, Abbie looked up. Blinking into the frigid spray, she saw the shower head had come completely unhooked from the wall. Water gushed out in fits and spurts, soaking the wall and the place where the ceiling ought to have been but now showed only the first pale and hesitant blush of morning sky.
Cal sat back, legs drawn up, and rubbed at his eyes. “Holy shit. Holy shit.”
Abbie sat too, her joints creaking and scars singing the way they did even when she slept in the softest of beds — she could only imagine how she’d feel in a few hours. Water pattered down all around them, but though it was cold enough to force her teeth to chatter, she couldn’t muster the energy or coordination to get herself out of the tub.
She did find some words. “What…was that?”
“Cyclone.”
“You’re fucking with me, right?” Laughter bubbled up and out of her, incongruous and painful as it shook her aching back and shoulders. “A tornado? At night?”
Cal pushed up with one hand on the side of the tub, stepped over, slipped on the wet floor but caught himself against the edge of the sink. He fumbled for a towel, and she had time to be embarrassed again that she hadn’t had the maid service come in to change them. Not that it mattered, they were on their way to being soaked. Besides, he’d had his mouth between her legs, would he really care if he wiped his face with a towel that had been in the same place?
The sound of a car horn drifted to her over the patter of water and her own delirious chuckles. Abbie took Cal’s outstretched hand and let him pull her upright. He wrapped a damp towel, not as wet as she’d thought, around her and shoved her through the doorway into the bedroom…or at least what was left of it.
The windows had blown inward, scattering glass across the carpet. Hail the impossible size of her fist gleamed on the dresser, the floor and the beds, which had been stripped of sheets and comforters but otherwise incongruously left untouched. It melted even as she watched. One wall of the room had buckled, showing glimpses of the parking lot outside. Wet pavement. Downed trees. She could see a red pickup truck tilted on its side. The blaring horn died as she listened.
Abbie clutched the doorframe as Cal stepped around the glass to stand in front of the windows. He didn’t seem to care that he was naked — but she suddenly did. Blinking, she sought any sight of her suitcase, which had been left open in the corner of the room now exposed to the daylight. It seemed unlikely the storm had taken the sheets and comforters and left her underpants, but she took a step or two in that direction anyway.
“Watch it.” Cal grabbed her elbow to keep her from stepping on a jagged shard of glass. “Jesus, Abbie. Stay put.”
“I want my clothes.” She sounded petulant and pouting and hadn’t meant to, but tears were suddenly thick in her throat. She covered her breasts with one arm, but it wasn’t enough. The world had forced its way inside this shelter, and not even a suit of armor could protect her from that.
“I’ll get your clothes.” He swiveled carefully on the rug and took both her upper arms. “Look at me.”
She did. Cal didn’t smile, but his gaze pinned her. He made sure she was looking into his eyes before he spoke again.
“This is going to be all right.”
The world tipped a little. Too much drink. Not enough sleep. Oh, yeah, and a tornado that had torn apart her motel room.
“Almost everything I owned was in my suitcase.” Some of it had been in the dresser drawers, but those looked like they’d been emptied too. Some of her belongings were in her car, but she didn’t dare hope it had escaped the red pickup’s fate.
“We’ll find your suitcase. Your things. It’ll be okay.” Cal rubbed her arms with his fingertips.
She shivered and sucked in a breath, feeling at least a little more sober. A little less tipsy-topsy, as she’d always said to her boys when they were out of sorts and she was trying to humor them into happiness. Let’s be a little less tipsy-topsy. They always laughed when she said it, but she couldn’t manage even a chuckle now. Abbie dug her toes into the carpet and closed her eyes, concentrating on the air she pulled with so much effort into her lungs. Held it in. Let it back out. When she opened her eyes again, he was still looking at her.
Abbie straightened her shoulders. “We both need clothes.”
He smiled, just a little. “Shoes first. If we can find them.”
She nodded and squinted, searching for the ballet flats she’d worn the night before and his boots. Her memory was hazy, but she thought both pairs had ended up under the bed…and there they were. She pointed, and Cal took one long step, then another, setting his feet carefully between the shards of broken glass, to pick them up. He tossed her shoes at her, and wonder of wonders, she caught them.
She put them on, the world already settling under her now that her feet, at least, were protected. Cal shoved his feet into the boots and crunched across the rug, bending to look under the beds for his jeans, which he found still turned inside-out — though that was how he’d left them, not something the wind had done. Abbie found a t-shirt — the one Cal had been wearing under his long-sleeved shirt. Also a pair of shorts that were too big and hung too low on her hips, but were better than nothing. Cal, in jeans and boots but shirtless, pushed aside the desk chair and looked around the room with single-minded determination, but couldn’t find his hat.
Still, they both managed to get dressed in a reasonable amount of time. Incredibly, Abbie’s stomach growled, and she sent up a prayer to the patron saint of alcoholics, whoever that was, for giving her an appetite instead of a hangover. This was not the right sort of morning to be hunched over and heaving into a toilet. She found an unopened bottle of water on the nightstand and cracked off the top, drinking half before offering it to Cal.
He waved it aside. “I’m going outside, see if anyone needs help.”
“I don’t hear any sirens or anything.” Abbie paused. “Maybe…maybe we’re the only ones who made it?”
Cal slanted her a grim look. “I don’t think so. Depending on the path of the storm, we might not even be the worst hit.”
She nodded and took another sip from the bottle. She was far from clear-headed, but at least she felt sober. “I’ll go with you.”
She thought he’d say no, but Cal nodded and held out his hand for her to take as she stepped across the broken glass. The door was not only still locked, but shut so tight into the warped doorframe it wouldn’t budge no matter how hard Cal yanked on it. He looked over his shoulder at her, then shrugged and moved a few inches to the side to kick out what remained of the window. He climbed through, then leaned in to help her through.
Outside, everything was still. No wind. No birds, no revving engines, no muffled laughter from the motel restaurant or from across the street at The Hole in the Wall. The reason was clear enough. Both the restaurant and the bar were simply…gone.
The motel had been sheared neatly in half from the room next to Abbie’s to the road. A few sparking wires still attached to the phone pole were still there, but the rest of it was gone. Abbie blinked and blinked again, eyes searching the empty space so she could convince her brain the building was still there, but not even her vivid imagination could put back wood and metal and glass in place of the shredded earth.
“Jesus.” Cal wiped a hand over his mouth, and Abbie couldn’t be sure if he were cursing or praying. “Jesus Christ.”
She’d taken a few unsteady steps toward the empty space when Cal grabbed her. She pulled against his grip, her hand
s out, her fingers already feeling the dirt. She needed to feel it, to sweep her palms against the empty space. She needed to touch the nothing.
“Abbie, stop. There’s live wires over there.” Cal pulled her firmly back against his chest. “It’s not safe.”
His mama had raised him right, as her grandma would’ve said. A gentleman. That’s when she realized she was crying.
Silent sobs wracked her. Cal turned her toward him, and she buried her face against his chest while his hand cupped the back of her head. She gasped in a breath, then another, but couldn’t seem to fill her lungs. That’s what happened when she got too upset — not all of her scars were on the surface. Her lungs had suffered in the accident more than anything else. That’s what having a steering column puncture your chest would do.
“Breathe, Abbie. Breathe!” Cal shook her. “Focus on me.”
She couldn’t tell him it wasn’t just a breakdown. She wasn’t succumbing to womanly vapors. She really couldn’t breathe.
The world had dimmed and faded by the time she managed to get out of his grip and sink to the ground to put her head between her knees. She closed her eyes. She counted slowly, forcing her muscles to relax and ease, to let her diaphragm expand. She pictured her lungs as balloons slowly filling with air, though she knew the truth was more like they were sponges in which too many holes had been cut. Someday, she’d need to be on an oxygen tank. She’d never smoked a cigarette in her life.
“I’m okay. Just give me a minute.” She glanced up. He looked concerned. She wanted to cry all over again. She straightened. “I’m okay. Really.”
Cal shaded his eyes. The day had dawned bright and bold, the sun harsh enough to sear unwary eyeballs. When she closed her own eyes, red spots still danced in her vision. But she no longer felt like she was going to fall over, and the pressure had eased in her lungs. She was far from fine, but she was going to be okay.