Never Let Go (The Storm Inside #4)

by Alexis Anne

  The good news was that we could talk. And so far everyone was reporting in healthy and unhurt. We counted off one by one and got to a total of forty.

  Forty of us blind and trapped.

  We’d been waiting in a corner of the mall not too far from the mall exit where the bus was loading. It was the safest for kids to run around and play. I think it was that concrete box stability that saved us. As the mall collapsed under the buckling weight and damage, this section remained strong. The only question was how long that would last.

  Would someone come for us or did we need to find a way out? Would moving make things worse? This was one situation where I felt completely helpless.

  “Zoe?”

  “Yeah?” her voice was a whisper beside my left ear.

  “I’m really sorry.”

  She chuckled. “I’m pretty sure this isn’t your fault.”

  “I’m still sorry.”

  “Is it weird and totally uncalled for that I have full confidence Jake is going to personally drill his way into this?”

  Her words zinged straight into my heart beside the crack Sam had just put there. It did something funny and lovely and made me happy. Heck yeah Jake was going to find us.

  “Not uncalled for at all.”

  “Good.” I could hear the smile even though I couldn’t see it. “Because he totally is.”

  And that sentiment is what we held tight to as the minutes stretched into hours and the sounds around us became abrupt and terrifying. I wasn’t positive but it felt like the ground was vibrating from more sections of the mall collapsing.

  Why hadn’t we gone outside with the others? Because you thought it was dangerous with all the debris. Funny. It turned out to be a heck of a lot safer.

  Okay, maybe funny wasn’t the right word.

  And now I had Alanis Morrisette singing Ironic stuck in my head.

  “Please don’t hum that,” Zoe groaned. “We may be living that song but no. Just…no.”

  “When will we see again?” Sam asked, completely oblivious to the power of the earworm I’d just planted in Zoe’s ear.

  I shrugged and then realized that was kind of pointless. “I don’t know, baby. I don’t have a flashlight and no one can seem to find a way out.”

  “What about your phone?”

  A couple of people had theirs out at first, but then the batteries started dying.

  But not me.

  I had turned my phone off during the storm to save the battery and totally forgotten it was there. I slid it out of my pocket and powered it back on. “Good call, Sammy. I have half a battery still.” And zero signal or data.

  “Can I play Angry Birds?”

  “Sure,” I laughed and handed my useless phone over. At least it would be a good distraction. Sam drew a small crowd of people desperate to see and do anything other than sit in the dark and contemplate whether we were going to be crushed before we starved.

  I had to admit that I was dying of thirst.

  But Angry Birds seemed to have more power than the human need for water.

  23

  JAKE

  I stood in front of a nightmare. The mall looked a lot more like one of the demolition projects I’d worked than a building that had people inside it. The south end of the mall was stripped bare. The roof peeled up like a can of sardines. Signs ripped away from the building leaving only the faded outlines.

  And that was the good part.

  The north end of the mall was a different story altogether. The roof had collapsed into the second story and the second story had partially buckled under the weight. There wasn’t a pane of glass left intact anywhere. The gas station across the street was nothing but two rows of pumps. The aluminum overhang was gone. The signs were gone. The windows in the cement block building were gone. There was no roof. Just two rows of pumps and the skeleton of the cinderblock walls.

  It was the same everywhere we’d passed on the road up to the mall, and it continued for as far as I could see. I wanted to lose my lunch.

  “So the east wall is essentially holding everything up?” Greg and Chuck had their heads together looking over a series of digital photographs from the drone they’d flown over the building.

  “As far as I can tell, yes,” Chuck replied. “You know how malls are designed, they’re basically an open cavity and the way the roof collapsed…it took out the central support structures. Luckily,” his eyes shot over Greg’s shoulder to me, “all the evacuees had gathered near the east entrance. They are in the only section of the north wing that isn’t buried under a ton of concrete.”

  “Can we get any heavy equipment in here to help shore up the wall?”

  A half dozen heads started shaking. Of course they couldn’t. Not only was the equipment we’d need nowhere close by, but the debris would make the roads impassible. Fuck, the only option was flying stuff in and that wasn’t going to happen.

  “How many are trapped inside?” My voice was barely louder than a whisper—it took too much power to push more air through my lungs and I’d gone into some sort of holding pattern. Reserving all my energy for whatever insanity I was willing to do in order to find my family.

  My heart.

  The National Guardsman that seemed to be in charge glanced down at a clipboard. “Fifty. They had triaged the evacuees and those on the low priority list had gone outside to wait in the fresh air. Only the final two high priority groups were waiting inside.”

  And they’d already confirmed that Eve and the girls were not on either transport that had already left. Which meant there was a very good chance my family was inside a mall that was about to collapse.

  “Here’s the bottom line. We have a very short window to find and evacuate the survivors. We need you guys to tell us how to do that safely—or if it can be done safely.”

  “And if it can’t?” I asked.

  Silence settled over the group. Chuck was the one who finally spoke. “It can be done, but we need an engineer to lead the team. It’s not something we can do from out here.”

  “I’ll do it.” That wasn’t a question.

  “You’re not a structural engineer,” Greg murmured, chin down and away from the group.

  I gave him a pointed look that told him he could go find the nearest lake and jump right on in. “It’s true, I’m not a structural engineer, but I know what I’m doing. And I’m the best there is at creative solutions and thinking on my feet. I’m doing it.”

  Eyes swung back to Chuck—the actual structural engineer of the group, the guy who would, most likely, go in without hesitation anyway.

  He locked eyes with me and for a few brief moments I wondered if I was going to have to do something stupid like run inside before anyone could stop me, but then Chuck gave me a nod. “He’s more than qualified and I don’t think any one of us is more motivated.”

  There were a few grunts of agreement and then it was decided. We geared up in record fashion while Chuck determined the safest point of entry. There was more groaning of metal and the occasional sounds of something giving away, but other than that, the world was oddly quiet. No power and no cars on the highway did that, I supposed.

  “Here. We’ll stay in touch the whole way.” Chuck shoved a heavy-duty radio into my hands.

  “Thank you for this.”

  He patted my arm. “No thanks needed. It isn’t my call to make.”

  “Yes it was.” It really and truly was. I may own the company, but Chuck was the expert.

  He shrugged. “Go find your family.”

  THERE’D BEEN this one storm when I was a kid. I was too young to remember what it was called, but it was the first time I got to stay home from school because of a hurricane. It was like a holiday to me because everything was different and my dad was gone the entire day. Maybe my mother was too interested in watching the news to care what I did, I’m really not sure, all I knew was that it was a magical day and I wished for hurricanes every year after that.

  I’d never, ever wish
for another hurricane ever again.

  Of course six-year-old Jake wasn’t actually wishing for a hurricane to come destroy his neighborhood, he’d simply wished for a break from his life.

  And that’s where I was different from that kid. I never wanted a break from the life I had now. I’d built exactly the life I dreamed of having and I’d be damned if a freak storm destroyed that.

  “Point the light up there where the column is braced against the wall,” I instructed. “I need a better look.”

  So far we’d managed to safely clear debris away from the entrance and get inside. The second story was pressing against the final standing walls, but there were large pockets where the collapse hadn’t penetrated into the next cavity. My hope was that by some miracle the evacuees were waiting inside one of these and all they needed was a pathway out.

  “How long do you think we have?”

  “Based on the fissures and the strength of this concrete?” I crumbled a fist-sized rock and said a silent prayer that there was enough rebar reinforcing the concrete to keep the whole thing from going down. “We might have an hour.”

  And it was just then that I heard something, but the crew I was helping was busy debating strategy for getting maximum ground covered in the next fifteen minutes so I couldn’t quite make it out.

  “Shhh!”

  They all blinked at me like I’d lost my mind. I held my finger to my lips and cocked my ear in the direction I thought I’d just heard music.

  Sure enough…

  “Is that—”

  I grinned. “Angry Birds.”

  24

  EVE

  An hour later, Sam was still playing her game and the crowd around her was cheering her on. Meanwhile I’d quietly spoken with as many adults as I could find in the dark. Unfortunately no one had any brilliant ideas. Everyone had tried his or her phones but there was no signal. As I suspected, the rubble and debris had sealed us in against the inner wall. We knew this because we tried to push our way through one of the stores thinking we could get out through a back door, but nope. It wasn’t going to happen. The second floor had collapsed in on everything but the area we were trapped inside.

  I had just settled back down by the gaggle of kids when it hit me that unless we did something drastic, we were going to die in here. Maybe we could go through the stores again. One of them had to be in a better situation than the rest. We just needed a straight shot out of the building.

  Of course if it were that easy then someone from the outside would have come for us. It had to be bad. What if the debris has shot outward and hurt the people outside, too? Maybe it was so bad out there that they hadn’t had time to worry about us.

  Clearly my mind was capable of imagining every possible scenario—and that wasn’t helpful. I needed to stop wondering about things I didn’t know and focus on the things I did.

  I took one last look at Max and Sam happily playing Angry Birds before I worked my way back to the group.

  “Anything new?” I asked.

  “Bristol thinks we should try to dig our way through the cell phone store,” Bill said.

  Bill had two boys the same age as my girls. He was as anxious as I was.

  “I like Bristol’s plan. Let’s do it.” It was as good a plan as any.

  Unfortunately that plan only lasted about fifteen minutes before we realized we were making things worse not better. As soon as we moved one block or beam more debris rained down to replace it. It was like trying to dig a trench to the ocean between waves.

  “Now what?” Bristol asked, panting.

  “We try a different store and do it all over again,” I said. Trial and error. Eventually we’d find something that worked. “Let me check on the kids, then I’ll be back. Let’s move to the photography place in the corner.”

  “My phone battery is at five percent,” Bristol said. “Who still has some juice?” We were using the phones to light our work.

  “The kids are using mine but I can see if we can use Zoe’s phone.” Even as the words were leaving my mouth I could feel a heavy weight of doom settling inside my heart. How much longer could we keep the kids entertained? How long could we go before dehydration and starvation set in? Or would the ceiling come down on us before anything else?

  And why the fuck couldn’t I think my way out of this? I was smart and healthy. Yes, this was a freak accident and the deck was stacked against us, but surely I could get us out.

  And yet, I couldn’t. I’d exhausted every idea and the reality of our situation was sinking in. And I didn’t think I could handle it.

  I was pushing away the dread when suddenly everything changed. The sound of powered machinery filled the air followed by thumping and banging. All of those questions I’d been asking myself had an answer: someone was outside and they were at least attempting a rescue.

  I hurried the last few feet to the kids. Zoe grabbed my hand.

  “I don’t know whether to be excited or nervous,” she whispered.

  “Both. I’m definitely both.” It would be bad luck to think we were safe until every single one of us was outside.

  In careful strokes, the machinery cut through the cinderblocks, creating a doorway. The blocks in the middle were pushed, pulled, and destroyed until an exit was created. And then an honest to goodness rescue crew stepped through in special hats and coats and a ton of bright lights.

  I recognized the third man immediately. Never in my life have I been so relieved to see someone. Not when Jake suddenly showed up on my lawn after so many years. Not even the first time I looked into Max and Sam’s eyes. All of those moments were special. Important. Life changing.

  But none of them compared to seeing Jake walk through that hole in the wall and know we’d all have a future to live together.

  “Daddy!” Max squealed, throwing herself into his strong capable arms. She snuggled immediately into the crook of his arm and shoulder. He pulled her in close and murmured something in her hair, all with his eyes locked onto mine.

  A second later he bent down and scooped up Sam in his other arm. She immediately burst into tears. But he didn’t stop. He didn’t miss a beat. I stood up on shaky legs just as he got to me and crushed the four of us together in the most overwhelmingly amazing hug I’d ever experienced.

  I pressed my cheek to his and slid my arms around his waist.

  “Oh thank god,” he whispered.

  I nodded, absorbing every drop of comfort his solid chest had to offer.

  “Daddy,” Max murmured over and over as she burrowed deeper.

  “I’ve got you now baby girl. I’ve got you and I’m never letting you go.” He nuzzled into my ear. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded quickly, hot tears stinging my eyes. “Yes. We’re all okay. Are you?” My voice squeaked up a few notches. God, I hoped he was okay. He looked okay. He looked…like my hero, actually. Tall, dark, and determined. He was dirty, that was for sure, but so were we all. His dark hair had chunks of concrete scattered through it, but his green eyes were shining and bright in the lamp light of the rescue crew. He had two-day stubble and the unmistakable smell of a man who’d been working hard to find his family.

  It was the sexiest he’d ever been or ever would be.

  “Can we get out of here?” I looked up and into his eyes.

  “Absolutely. The faster the better.” Then he kissed me solidly on the lips. It sent a shock of relief through me. It was electric and different from anything else. “Oh, baby,” he groaned as he switched to shorter, little kisses. “I missed you. I missed you all. I was so scared.”

  “I was too. I’m still scared.” I kissed him back.

  Max giggled. “Daddy, why do you keep kissing mommy after you’re done with the words?”

  Jake smiled down at me, shaking both our heads at the same time, then kissed me one last time. “Because kissing is fun.”

  “And,” I winked at Max, “because when you love someone as hard as your mommy and daddy love each other you can ne
ver get enough kisses—even when you’re talking.”

  She wrinkled her nose at first, then broke out into a giggle. “Okay. That’s the way it should be.”

  “I agree,” Jake said as he kissed her on the cheek.

  “Daddy, you’re so scratchy.”

  He rubbed his beard against her cheek. “Yeah, well how about I go shave the scratchy off and we have a day at Aunt Jennie’s farm?”

  “Yeah!” Both girls cheered.

  “Do you want me to take Max?” I asked.

  Jake scowled at me. “I’m not letting them go. You just get out of here safe and sound, woman. I’ve got our babies.”

  And so I took great care in following the rescue team back through the maze of rubble and out into the falling dusk.

  AS SCARED as I’d been and as scared as Jake had been, my poor family and friends were blind and clueless. They’d gone half mad by the time we got word to them that we were all okay. The homecoming when we finally arrived at their house was intense, but it was also surprising in ways I never imagined.

  As we pulled up the long gravel drive to the farmhouse a crowd gathered on the front porch.

  “There are a ton of cars here…” Jake drawled as he gave up trying to find somewhere to park and just stopped in the middle of the drive.

  I was partially distracted by the mob that surrounded the car. June and Cassandra both ripped open a door and yanked out a niece, so it took me longer than it should have to register everything I was seeing. It wasn’t just a bunch of cars. It was entirely too many cars for the number of people who should be at Jennie’s, unless she’d suddenly taken on a significant number of extra friends.

  How many people were here? Who were they? My family was all here next to the car showering my daughters with love. That’s when I realized that Jake was incredibly quiet and his hands were wrapped around the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were turning white.

  I finally focused enough to register the faces I was seeing. I was stunned, to be perfectly honest. Stunned and shocked and confused. But mostly giddy.

  “Your family is here, Jake.”