“I will.” Once the rain hit my face, the full consequences of what I was doing slammed into me. A tornado nearly destroyed this town almost a decade ago. It would be stupid to assume that it couldn’t happen again.
I threw the bag in my passenger seat and fired up my car. I had already hit Rucker Boulevard when my phone synced to the car. “Call Avery,” I said clearly as rain pelted my windshield.
“He-hello?” her little voice came through my car speakers.
“I’m on my way, okay? Stay away from the windows, and when you see my car, come out.”
“I don’t want you out in this, but I’m scared.”
Tree branches danced above me as I halted at the stoplight, their movements creaking, cracking their trunks. “Me, too.”
Lightning split the sky.
“Avery, do you have the radio on?” I leaned over my dash, getting a better view of the sky. Was it getting lighter? That wasn’t right.
“Yes. They’re saying to take cover.”
“I’m coming, I promise.”
Green light. Go. I gunned the gas, passing the other lone car out here. Call-waiting beeped, and I glanced at the screen long enough to see Grayson’s name.
He would know what to do. He always did. But I couldn’t hang up on Avery. Not when she was alone.
“The sky is yellow,” I said softly.
“That’s not good!” She panicked.
Shit, I should not have said that out loud. “It’s okay, Avery. You’re going to be okay.”
Now if I only believed that.
“Shit!” I shouted, slamming on the brakes as a branch crashed in front of me.
Oxygen filled my lungs in great, heaping breaths. I couldn’t panic. I wouldn’t.
“Sam?” her voice pitched high, terrified.
“I’m okay.” I backed up and detoured around the limb. A few blocks later I breezed through the biggest intersection and got a view of the funnel cloud.
“Holy. Shit. Avery? We need to shelter there. I don’t think we’re going to make it back to my house in time.”
“Okay.” Her breath came in rapid, short spurts.
Lightning flashed again, and the power died around me, killing the stoplights and storefronts. “Sam?”
“I know. I’m almost there.” I’d never been more aware of how little protection my soft top offered.
One hand on the wheel, I unzipped the bag next to me, finding the flashlight, and tucked it into one of the front pockets of my hoodie.
Grayson beeped in again: I’m okay. I want you. Where are you? Are you safe? Please be safe. My finger itched to click over, but I couldn’t do that to Avery.
“Thirty seconds,” I said to Avery. I pulled into the parking lot and slammed on the brakes before hitting the curb and killed the engine. The emergency brake cut into my stomach as I leaned over, grabbing the duffel bag. “I’m here!”
“I see you!”
I hung up the phone and shoved it in my back pocket as I tripped out of the car, hitting the pavement on my knees. The sound of metal crunching blended with Avery’s screams. Glass busted above me as a tree limb was thrust through my window, narrowly missing me. You’re okay. This is okay.
The roar was deafening, but the sound of shattering glass and metal crashing were far worse.
“Sam!” Avery’s shrill cry propelled me to my feet, and I stumbled to the open door where she waited, grabbing her by the arm to pull her in behind me.
“What’s the centermost room?” I asked her. Rocket Man sounded from my pocket. Avery crashed into my back and the ringing stopped as I assessed the gym. All this equipment would be one hell of an arsenal of flying projectiles.
“The storage room.” She raced ahead of me, and I followed as a glass panel behind us exploded, flinging glass through the gym. My arm stung, and I shifted the duffel to the other side as Avery opened the storage room door. Once we were inside, she closed the door, and I flicked on the flashlight from my pocket.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“You’re bleeding!”
“Avery, are you okay?” I asked louder, shining the light toward her face.
“Yes,” she answered.
I blanched. Behind her were shelves loaded with free weights and equipment parts. “Oh, hell no!” Was this a fucking horror movie? We’d be slaughtered in here.
I jerked the door open and pulled Avery behind me, running for the locker rooms. They were internal. “We need to get to the locker room! The showers!” I yelled to be heard above the all-encompassing roar that I knew was about to slam into us.
We cleared the door and I slammed it shut, throwing the deadbolt. Avery rounded the corner to the showers just ahead of me and slipped, crashing to the ground. The roar was louder, if that was even possible.
“Avery!”
Please, God. She’s so young. I’m so young. Grayson, I love him. He has to be okay. They have to be okay.
I dropped the duffel bag and reached for her, stepping over her to help her up.
“Sam! Look out!”
I covered her head with my arms as I looked behind me.
Oh. God. The lockers. They were—
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Grayson
“Sam!” Her name tore from my throat as the phone went dead. I was already out of the front door, keys in hand. She didn’t realize she’d answered the phone.
I’d heard everything.
The funnel cloud headed northeast. It had missed us by what I guessed was less than a mile. The wind almost blew me backward before I caught my balance, and then I raced toward my truck. It was still standing. Undamaged.
Thank you, God, for small miracles—what the fuck is that?
A huge piece of debris plummeted from the sky to the left of me, decimating the sports car two houses down. Holy shit. It was a car. On top of a car. Two cars.
Get a grip. Once I climbed into my truck and pulled out on to the bypass, I calmed, taking deep breaths. My phone hooked up to the wireless Bluetooth. “Call Sam.”
It rang. And rang. And rang.
“Hi, you’ve reached Sam. Leave me a message, and I might call you back…if I like you. Bye!” Beep!
“I don’t know if you’ll get this, but I know you’re at the gym. I heard it all. Everything. I’m on my way, Sam. I’m coming. I love you so damned much. Just hold on. You’re tougher than this. You’re a fucking squall, nothing is taking you down, so you hold on.”
The longest fifteen minutes of my life passed as I made my way to the gym. I cut across half a dozen yards, and got out at one point to move a fallen tree with three other guys.
Fire trucks passed, sirens blaring.
The devastation was… Damn. There were no words. Roofs were ripped from houses, trees downed, people stood aimlessly in their yards, surveying what was left. I flipped the 4X4 switch and crept over the debris that lay scattered into the road, and then threw it into park when I reached the remains of the gym. There could be people under there. Sam could be in that mess.
The windows of the gym were all blown out, and the roof was gone. It was a bare-bones structure, only the support beams remaining intact. I saw more than one treadmill attached to the trees that surrounded the gym.
“Avery!” Maggie screamed behind me.
She’d parked her car behind the truck. “She’s with Sam,” I answered.
“Oh, thank God. Where are they?”
I shook my head at the pile of rubble in front of us. “They’re in there. They made it to the locker room before it collapsed.”
She bent over at the waist, gasping for breath.
“Wait here, Maggie.” I wanted to comfort her, but I didn’t have anything to give.
My eyes scanned the debris field as I climbed over it, making my way slowly to the gym. Water sprayed from somewhere in the corner. The showers. I picked my way over equipment, careful to watch where I put my hands.
She was here. She was alive. She had to be.
There
was simply no other option.
I forced the terror further back in my mind. It would do her no good right now. My foot fell through a hole in the rubble, and I hissed as the wood scraped my shin. Oh yeah, that was bleeding. I pulled my leg free and wiped the blood away. Just a scrape.
Another couple minutes and I stood at the frame for the locker room. The handle twisted in my hand, but the door wouldn’t budge. She must have used the deadbolt. Smart girl.
Using my hand, I dug through the wood and mangled metal until I got to the floor so I could open the door. I had to be able to get her out. “Sam! Avery!”
“Here!” the muffled sound came, and I nearly collapsed in relief.
“Avery, I’m coming! Is Sam okay?”
“I…I don’t know. She’s not moving, and there’s blood. A lot of blood.”
I had to get in there now. What could I use to break the window?
Where was it? The stupid fucking window breaker tool she keeps? Where is it? The water was creeping in, and she still wasn’t breathing.
I blinked and banished that memory. Sam wasn’t Grace. Sam was stronger, tougher, less likely to take the shit fate handed out lying down. She was a fighter. She was alive, damn it.
I looked up to see rebar sticking out of the framed wall. Crouching low, I jumped, and grasped the metal in my hands. It protested, but held my weight as I pulled up and then swung my leg over the top of the wall. I landed in a shower, careful to absorb the impact.
“Avery? It’s Grayson.”
“Here!” The sound came from the left, so I walked that way and saw a stream of light shining from under a pile of concrete.
She’s alive. Just dig. She’s there.
I startled as my phone rang, then pulled it out of my pocket. Jagger.
“What?” I snapped.
“Are you okay? Jesus, this place is destroyed. Not the house. We’re okay. Paisley, Josh, we’re good. But Grayson…we can’t reach Sam.”
My throat closed as I started pulling the concrete cinder blocks from the top of the pile, wedging the phone between my ear and shoulder. “I know. I’m digging her out now.”
“Fuck. Is she…”
“I don’t know. It’s bad. Jagger, I don’t care if you have to get your fucking father on the phone, you need to get an ambulance here. We’re at the gym. Please. Do this for me. Do this and I’ll never ask you another thing. I’ll fail the next test and give you the OML spot. I don’t care, just help me.” My fingers were already scraped and raw as I lifted brick after brick off the pile. Off the girls.
“I’ll do my best to get an ambulance, but this town is blown to shit.” He swallowed. “I love Sam like a sister, Grayson. We’ll get someone there. I’m with Josh, and we’re already at the intersection of Rucker Boulevard and Eighty-four. We’ll be there in a couple minutes. Let me make some calls.”
I hung up without waiting for him to finish. He needed to get a fucking ambulance here, not baby me. “Avery?”
“Yeah?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“I need you to tell me if you start feeling more pressure, okay? If I do anything that squeezes you?” I flipped another brick.
“Okay.”
“What’s on top of you? Is it hard? Heavy? I need an idea of what’s pinning you.”
She was quiet.
“Avery?” I pushed the bricks faster.
“Sam.”
“What?” I paused.
“It’s Sam. She’s on top of me. She covered me when the lockers fell.”
My eyes closed as pain tore through my chest, at war with the overwhelming pride I felt in her. “Of course she did,” I said. “She loves you, Avery.”
“I know.” She squeaked the last part.
I dug and dug until I was joined by other hands. Josh and Jagger.
“Fuck. Grayson, look at your hands,” Jagger said, pulling at my arms.
My fingers were raw, dripping blood. “I can’t feel it. I don’t care.”
“Let us take over,” he urged while Josh started pulling the support beams off and away from the pile.
“If it was Paisley?”
Fear lanced through his eyes, and he clamped down on my shoulder. “We’re going to get her out.”
We dug, soon joined by other people, some in uniforms, some not. Finally we reached the blue metal lockers. “She’s directly under these,” I said so they didn’t fuck up and hurt her.
Six of them gripped the sides of the wall unit and then lifted slowly while I crouched next to the floor. As it rose, I saw her fingers dangling. “Stop! She’s wedged in one of the lockers!” I couldn’t pull Avery out, not without knowing if she had neck trauma. “Step three feet toward the showers.”
The group did so, and I crawled under, then rolled until I was directly beneath where Sam hung in a macabre suspension, her eyes closed. Don’t think about it. Don’t you dare. Her arm was twisted in an unnatural angle that sent saliva into my mouth. Livable. The other had a gash that was steadily dripping blood, but not pulsing. Cosmetic. It was the blood that ran in a steady stream from her hairline, down her cheek, and dripped off her chin that worried me.
I carefully dislodged her hips from where they held her pinned, and then worked her shoulders out one by one. I was slow, exceptionally careful not to jar anything that could break her spine. If it wasn’t already broken. Shut the fuck up. There was never a complaint from the crew that held up the heavy locker system.
Freeing the last inch of her shoulder, she dropped the twelve inches to me, landing heavily on my chest. “She’s free!” Slowly I lifted my hands to test her pulse.
Steady. Strong. Thank you, God.
Her nose lay in the hollow of my throat, her forehead resting under my chin. I felt every breath she released, and kept rhythm with my own breathing, like I could do the work for her. Slowly the lockers moved until all I saw above me was blue sky.
The storm was already gone.
“Is she okay?” Avery asked, lying next to me.
“Don’t move. There are paramedics ready to take you, but don’t move in case you injured your back or your neck.”
“Is she okay?” she repeated.
“I don’t know. Did she wake up at all while you were under there?” Please.
“No.”
My eyes squeezed shut against the panic that crept up my spine, infecting every nerve with the need to fight, to do something. Anything.
The paramedics came for Sam first, laying the backboard on top of her and then maneuvering the straps between our bodies until she was tight. They kept asking if I was okay. Was I hurt? Was I uncomfortable?
What did any of it matter?
She wasn’t awake.
She was warm but lifeless. Nothing would wake her, nothing would bring her back. I pushed her long blonde hair out of her eyes and prayed. We’d made it out of the car, the water, but this I couldn’t pull her out of. I was powerless.
Fuck. Sam wasn’t Grace. I couldn’t compare the two, but that was all my brain wanted to do.
I followed the paramedics out, passing Maggie, who was being held back by a first responder. “Avery’s okay,” I told her.
They lifted Sam into the ambulance, and I climbed in with her. “Sir…”
“Where she goes, I go.”
I stared him down until he nodded his head and let me in.
“I heard somewhere that this helps with the nausea,” Jagger said as he handed me a ginger ale and sank into the empty waiting room chair next to me.
“Yeah, and what asshole told you that?” I took it and popped the top. The taste put me back in another hospital. Another waiting room where I’d sat alone, waiting for news. Waiting for them to release Owen from the small line of fucking stitches he’d needed, to give me news on Grace.
“This guy who’d lived through a hell of a lot more than I had and somehow came out the other side.” He leaned back against the waiting room chair. “I called Ember. She’s on a flight with Sam’s mom. Josh is headed to
Montgomery to pick them up.”
“Good. That’s good.” I braced my elbows on my knees and leaned over, trying to force air into my lungs.
“You need to get your hands checked out.”
“Yeah.” At some point. Right now? Not high on my priority list.
I fucking hated hospitals, and yet here I was again. This time was a little different. The waiting room at Southeast Medical Center was full. All the hospitals were, with Enterprise out of commission. The wounded poured in, and the families did all they could…waited.
The other waiting room in Nags Head had been nearly empty except for the family who told me I wasn’t to blame, but the looks they’d given me sure as hell said differently. Especially Parker, once she’d shown up, hissing at me that I should have taken his keys, should have never let him drive.
Yeah, the waiting room was different, but everything else felt very much the same, right down to the unparalleled fear rushing through my veins.
I should have been with Sam. I never should have let Grace sit on my lap, no matter how harmless it seemed at the time, never let her kiss me. I should have told Sam sooner, made her see how much I loved her. If she’d known, she wouldn’t have moved in with Morgan. She would have been with me.
She wouldn’t have ended up under a pile of rubble.
“She’s going to be okay, Grayson. I’ve never met anyone with as much grit as Sam. She’s a fighter, she’ll be okay.”
My spine snapped straight and my eyes narrowed at him. “You don’t know that.”
“She’s—”
“She’s been through a tornado, crushed, and hasn’t woken up in the four hours that we’ve been here. Her pupils were uneven and dilated. You. Don’t. Know. Anything.” My shoulders sagged. “None of us do.”
“You’re right, I don’t. I know that you’ve been through hell already, and lost one woman that you love, only to have her come back while you lose the other. Emotionally, of course. Fuck, I didn’t mean like…lose her, lose her. I don’t know what to say.” He raked his hands over his Red Sox hat, curving the bill. “To be honest, you’re usually the one who says…the thing.”
“The thing?”
Jagger shrugged. “You know. The thing. You always know what to say. I don’t, and I really wish I did. Especially now.”
Beyond What is Given Page 29