Firestorm
Page 18
I walked into the small living room where Meagan was sitting on the couch wearing her matching clean white robe. I plopped down beside her and gave her a shaky hug.
“Your hair looks much better, Meg. Smells nice, too.”
“You too. You hair is so pretty and shiny when it’s clean.”
We chuckled as we tried to build each other up but I knew that she was worried about the guys as much as I was.
“Meg, do you think this was the last straw for us? The guys seemed so quiet and distant in the car, almost as if they couldn’t get away from us fast enough. Not that I blame Brad. All I ever do is drag him into dangerous situations and that’s a lot for a new boyfriend to take.”
“Yeah, I’m a bit worried too, although I think with a bit of time I may be able to show Ali that life can be fun without all this. I just hope that this adventure hasn’t been that one too many, you know?”
I grabbed a tissue from the coffee table and wiped my nose.
“I’ve never had a real normal date with Brad, you know. I wish I could and I’d love it to be a quiet time where all we do is eat pizza and watch a movie, talk and get to know each other. But I think I blew it and now I just want to go home and get ready for college.”
Meagan held her hand out and fiddled with the ring on her finger.
“Ali gave me this as a friendship ring. Well, we don’t have time for dating anyway. Like you said, we’ll be off to college soon and we’ll all be busy studying.”
We sat on the couch wiping our tears and I couldn’t even feel the relief of being alive anymore because I knew that I had probably lost the best guy in the world. We’d head home tomorrow and whatever we had or thought we had would be over and we’d all have to get on with our lives. Our old friend Amanda was just waiting for the moment to grab Brad and my heart was aching because I had just given her the opportunity she’d been waiting for.
We must have sat there crying and comforting each other for an hour until we were interrupted by a knock at the door. Meagan wiped her eyes with a fresh tissue and then got off the couch.
“I’ll get it. The guy at the front desk said they’d wash our clothes that were in our bags and return them to us all cleaned. Although, this robe is so warm and comfy I almost hate to take it off.”
She took a deep breath and opened the door to a short elderly woman with white hair who was dressed in the blue motel uniform. She smiled at us and handed Meagan a page that listed all of our laundry. We were both excited to have clean clothes and Meagan helped the woman wheel the trolley into our little hallway.
“Oh, thank you so much. Wow, our own little rolling closet. This is really great.”
As she turned to leave, the woman noticed an empty hanger and glanced at the list in Meagan’s hand.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Your green cardigan must have fallen off the hanger by the elevator. I’ll go and get it and I’ll be right back. Just give me a second.”
We left the door partly open so the woman could come right back and then Meagan rolled the stand to one side of the hallway. It did feel good having clean clothes to wear so I picked out my pink hoodie and shorts.
“She’s a sweet lady, isn’t she, Meg? Well, at least something good came out of all of this – clean clothes.”
A few seconds later there was another soft knock at the door and since I was closer, I pulled it open to let her in, but it wasn’t her. My heart fluttered as I stared into Brad’s twinkling eyes.
“We have a pizza and a movie that we’d like to share with two beautiful girls. Can we come in?”
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About the Author
:
Ronnie Dauber is a Canadian published author who puts a bit of herself into every story she writes. This book, FIRESTORM, is the second book in her young adult action-adventure series called The Misadventures of Sarah Davies. The first book is MUDSLIDE where our heroes meet; the third book is WHITEOUT where their first college break turns into a chilling, fast-paced race against time, and the fourth book is RAGING WATERS where Sarah and her friends undergo a fearful and emotional search for a little boy with autism. Ronnie has also written one adult suspense/thriller called WHITEOUT and one Inspirational book called Let Faith Arise!
Learn about other titles by Ronnie Dauber at Smashwords.com
Connect with Ronnie Dauber
Smashwords author page: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Ronniedauber
Ronnie's website: http://ronniedauber.ca
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Ronnie.Dauber
Facebook: http://facebook.com/ronnie.dauber.author
Ronnie's Author blog: http://ronniedauberauthor.com
Ronnie's Christian blog: http://ronniedauber.wordpress.com
Here is a sneak preview of the next book in the series called Whiteout
Prologue: The Dream
Meagan and I had been invited by Brad’s cousin, Holly, to her parent’s luxury home in North Dakota to enjoy a few days of outdoor winter sports and a formal dinner party with her and her fiancé, Ryan. It was the winter break during our first year of college and we were thrilled that we could go skiing on the big slopes, but even more than that, we would finally have the opportunity to dress up for Brad and Ali.
Everything was planned so carefully and Meagan and I were excited and ready to go. We boarded the bus in the middle of the night with Brad and Ali, and after the initial excitement of the trip began to wear off, I found the gentle movement of the ride so relaxing that it put me to sleep. A while later, though, I woke up in a startle with my heart pounding and fear surging through my body from a dream that seemed so real and threatening, I just wanted to turn around and go back home. I wanted to talk to someone about it but everyone was asleep, and so I leaned back in the seat and tried to analyze everything in my mind.
I’m not sure where I was, but I was cold and shaking and the pain that was shooting up through my body was slowly overtaking my senses as I ran into the dark unknown to stay alive. The wind was howling past my head and the skies began to light up again with another foreboding crackle of lightning. Seconds later, the ground was trembling from the echoes of thunder that sent more chills across my neck.
It seemed as if I was running in slow motion through knee-deep snow that was becoming deeper with every step. There was an overpowering light of some kind that was threatening me and I had no idea what it was, just that I had to escape its clutches before it caught up with me.
Suddenly, there was an explosion that blew me into the air and then shoved me deep under the ice and snow. I screamed for help but no one heard me, and as I struggled to get out the walls of snow slowly closed in on me.
I began pushing and kicking but nothing would move, and then everything went quiet. I couldn’t hear a sound, not even the rampant storm that was raging all around me. My heart was pounding and my ears began ringing out in fear. It was becoming harder to breathe inside this cold, dark tomb that was holding me hostage. I thought of Meagan and the guys, and I began to worry if they would find me in time, or if they would find me at all.
It became more difficult to breathe and I was terrified, so I held my breath and then pushed with all my strength to get out, but it was impossible. My lungs began to hurt with each breath after that, and my head became fuzzy. I didn’t have any strength left and so I collapsed and closed my eyes as the deafening sounds of silence overtook my senses.
Then suddenly, I heard someone laughing in the distance. My skin shivered and I opened my eyes slowly, only to realize that I was still on the bus and that the laughter was coming from two people at the front.
I wanted to cry because I couldn’t shake the fear or the horrible sensation of dying alone. I've had warnings before through my dreams and I knew that something horrible was going to happen on this trip. And I was terrified that this just might be my last because I was buried alive.
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