by Kariss Lynch
“Eliezer, you’re hurt. Let me see.”
“Everyone is hurt. Why do you care?’
“I care. Let me see if I can help.” She released Abraham and stumbled toward Eliezer.
“Where is your God now, white woman? Haiti has crumbled, and my people are joining the spirits of their ancestors. Our graves overflow. Does your God care? No! If He is real, He let this happen.” He spat at her feet. “You serve Him, so this is your fault. They are buried in mass graves. They are forgotten and disrespected. Your fault. You and your government. You and your God.”
He pointed a bony finger in her face, his breath warmer than the afternoon air. “You should never have come to Haiti. My people die because of your God. Where is He?” A manic laugh burst from his lips, and Kaylan shrank back in fear. “Where is your pretty friend, white girl? She dead? Your God abandoned her too. And yet you live. Her death is on your hands. Curse you, and curse your God.”
Tears burned in her eyes. Abraham stepped in front of her, shouting at Eliezer in Creole.
“You should never have come to Haiti.” Heads, shaken from despondency, turned toward them in the street.
“Eliezer, your face could be infected. Let me help you.” She remembered Sarah Beth’s cuts and stepped forward again, unwilling to let him suffer when she could ease his pain.
He spit again. “Don’t touch me. I do not want your help. Leave Haiti. This is your fault. Your God is to blame.”
A crowd began to gather, and Kaylan glanced at Abe, his eyes filled with anger and fear. Tucking her under his arm, he hurried them down the street.
My fault Sarah Beth is dead. All my fault. I shouldn’t have come to Haiti. All my fault. Where are You, God?
Her leg buckled, and her head pounded. Abe shouted in the distance. Spots danced before her eyes, and the ground welcomed her fall. Her last thought was of the food she had failed to procure. She would have to try again tomorrow.
Chapter Twenty-Two
PORT-AU-PRINCE RESEMBLED THE site of an explosion. Bodies littered the streets amidst ruptured and scattered structures. People, catatonic or frantic, wandered the streets in desperate attempts to locate food, shelter, clean water, or loved ones.
Micah resembled a ticking time bomb. Nick wasn’t sure how he would get him through the hours to come if they couldn’t find Kaylan—or, worse, if they found her dead.
Their plane had landed before dawn Friday morning. Supplies sat at the airport, unattended and incapable of being moved. Nick and Micah hopped on the first convoy into the city.
“You boys ready for this?”
“Ready for what, exactly?” Nick eyed the camouflaged soldier riding with him and Micah in the back of the truck.
“Haven’t you been watching the news? We’re driving into a war zone. The people are going crazy, looting. One of the prisons collapsed, and some of the worst criminals from the slums are on the loose. The air reeks of dead bodies and desperation.”
Nick smelled smoke and leaned out the back of the truck. A flash of white sent him jerking back into the truck before he realized the headlights had reflected off the frightened eyes of people camping along the road leading to Port-au-Prince.
“They’re getting out of the city. There’s no food or water, and they don’t expect to be able to distribute much for the next few days. It’s Katrina all over again. Haiti’s government officials are scattered and hiding, and we’re left to defend the people and pick up the pieces. Kinda messed up.”
“What’s burning?”
The man hesitated, and Nick no longer wanted to know.
“Bodies. Mass graves. Some are worried about disease, and there are too many to bury individually. I heard tell some are breaking into their family crypts and stacking as many bodies inside as possible.”
“How many are dead?” Micah spoke up, his voice shaky.
The soldier shook his head. “I heard best case is one in ten. Could be more, could be less. What are you frogmen doing here, anyhow?”
“My sister. She’s working at a clinic here.”
“I’m sorry. Most of the hospitals and clinics are rubble, or so I’ve been told. People are panicking for medical care, and more are dying because they can’t find it.”
Nick could feel Micah’s temper begin to boil. “Is there anything you can tell us that you haven’t heard through the grapevine?” His own fear was morphing to anger, and this soldier sat in the direct line of fire. He popped another piece of Juicy Fruit in his mouth, but it tasted like ash.
“I don’t think there is much anyone knows for sure, unless they’ve been in the eye of it.”
“Are many Americans dead?” Micah’s voice was sharp.
“Not as many as there are Haitians.”
“How long?” The truck jerked and bumped over potholes and cracks. Dust funneled under the canvas, choking Nick.
“Who knows? The road is in even worse shape since the quake.”
Dawn bloomed, and Nick fought to remain calm. Bodies of the living and the dead lined the road. How would they find Kaylan? Was she even alive, or had she died quickly, painlessly?
Nick closed his eyes and bent over his knees, not wanting to worry Micah. His stomach churned. Lord, I need to find her. I need to hold her again. Micah and her family need her home. I can’t fight nature, and I can’t fight desperation. I can’t protect her. Help, please. We need a miracle.
Nick’s eyes flew open as dust assaulted his nose and tickled his throat. Somehow the bumps and jolts of the road had lulled him to sleep. Or it could have been that he hadn’t slept more than a couple hours since he’d found out about the earthquake three days earlier.
“We’ll hand out the few supplies we have here and then find someone from the UN and try to coordinate. You’re on your own. Good luck. I hope you find her.”
The soldier shook their hands, and Nick and Micah jumped from the back of the truck, sending a cloud of dust skyward.
“Did we come to Afghanistan or Haiti?”
“Hard to tell the difference right now.” Nick smacked his gum. A crowd of men swarmed the truck. Clothes and shoes lay scattered beneath the debris of what used to be buildings. A pile of bodies marked the edge of the market. The Haitian flag draped one body. Nick fought the urge to look for Kaylan there.
“I don’t even know where to begin, man. Mom told me the street name where the clinic is located, but there aren’t any streets or signs or . . . ”
“Buildings.”
Nick scanned the people. Many stood in line, their faces expressionless. Many shoulders drooped and a couple swayed, Nick assumed from lack of food and water. Or pure exhaustion. Several men at the front of the line by the supply truck yelled and began to shove, stirring some out of their catatonic states. Angry men. Desperate men needing water, food, and medicine. Several grabbed crates or handfuls of supplies off the truck and began to run, sending the people into a frenzy as they fought for food and water. The docile crowd morphed into an angry mob with no other goal but survival.
They needed to get out of here fast. Nick and Micah elbowed their way through the crowd. A flash of auburn caught Nick’s attention in the middle of the black bodies near the first truck. He took a step closer, straining.
“What? What’d you see?” Micah followed his gaze.
“I thought . . . no, it’s only Haitians. Never mind. Let’s get out of here before this riot gets worse.”
Before he finished the sentence, the crowd scattered. Their traveling companion jumped from the truck, yelling. The Haitians who began the riot knocked others down as they ran into the remains of buildings, determined to carry away anything and everything that would help them survive. It was survival of the fittest.
Haitian troops joined the scene, haggard and haunted as the mob continued to shout. They struggled to restore order, but it was too late. Panicked and hungry people dominated the street. A Haitian soldier, not much older than Kaylan, closed his eyes and fired his gun into the air. With that, Nick
and Micah jumped into the fray, not sure how to help or where to start but knowing they had to do something.
A woman screamed nearby, and Nick swerved toward the sound.
Blood seeped through a bandage tied around her leg barely visible beneath her dirty skirt. Her hair was dusty, the color dull, and her face bruised beyond recognition, but she was white and an American. He could tell that much from her clothes. He started toward her, fighting the crowd to reach her side. A man bowled over her, knocking her down in his attempt to scramble on the dilapidated building at her back. Nick doubled his efforts.
“Kaylan.” Two black teens yelled and ran toward the woman from across the square, dropping boxes in their wake. Nick’s heart skipped a beat. He’d found her.
Nick reached a clearing in the crowd just as a Haitian soldier leveled his gun at the man hovering over her as the man tried to squeeze through a hole in the building she leaned against.
“No!” Nick sprinted across the square but wouldn’t get there in time. He could hear Micah pounding behind him, their morning workouts pushing them in perfect rhythm. It wasn’t enough.
The soldier fired, and the man dropped like a rock on top of Kaylan. His body jerked with her terror, and Nick wanted to pummel the guard who’d shot him. Hadn’t there been enough death, enough terror? Where did it stop?
Nick reached her first and jerked the man off her. His blood soaked her shirt, and her eyes were wild.
“Kaylan, it’s Nick. Baby, look at me. Kaylan?”
She looked at him, eyes drooping and unfocused. She didn’t respond.
Chapter Twenty-Three
WHAT’S WRONG WITH her?” Micah bumped Nick out of the way and picked Kaylan up, cradling her.
“She’s probably just dazed. Possibly in shock.”
“Kaylan, Kaylan.” The two teens who had yelled Kaylan’s name across the street skidded to a stop in front of them. Nick instinctively stepped between them and Micah.
“She is our friend.”
Another barrage of bullets tore through the air, and Nick and Micah instinctively ducked and ran. While Micah cradled Kaylan, Nick scanned the area for rogue shooters. Too many were already dead from the quake. Did their fellow countrymen not care?
They rounded a corner, and the two teens sprinted in front of them, nimbly dancing through debris.
“Clinic this way,” the one in charge shouted and looked back to make sure they were following. Nick didn’t want a clinic. He wanted an American hospital, knowledgeable doctors, pain medication, and clean quarters. But nothing was clean or pristine in Haiti. The streets reeked of death and dust.
Kaylan’s eyes were squeezed shut, her arm draped loosely around Micah’s neck. She looked frail, sick, broken. Nick’s heart ached at her bruises and the blood on her leg. What had she lived through? He knew from experience that the memories hit at the worst times. What would she remember?
Lord, help her forget.
They reached a series of sheets hung haphazardly over metal rods and sticks. People huddled under the tents, statues cracked and disfigured after the events of the past hours and days. At the end of the row, sheets covered several still forms.
“They wait for the truck to take them for mass burial. There are too many to save. Too many to bury. I am Abraham. Kaylan calls me Abe. This is Stevenson.” Stevenson nodded but remained silent. The cuts and bruises on his arms and legs spoke of desperate struggle.
“Come. We will take you to Rhonda.”
A row of draped sheets faced Nick and Micah as they approached the clinic. Abe sprinted ahead, returning with a woman with blonde frizzy hair and dust streaking her face. Nick knew immediately it was Rhonda.
“What happened to her?” Rhonda rushed to Kaylan and felt her head, noting the blood seeping through the bandage in her leg. “This way.”
Nick and Micah followed her back to a matchbox office. “Set her in the chair.” Rhonda reminded Nick of his Senior Chief—quick and efficient, removing emotion and niceties to complete the task at hand. No wonder she was still on her feet. She hurried from the room to collect supplies.
“My fault.” Kaylan mumbled as Micah knelt in front of her.
“Kayles? Look at me.”
“Micah? What . . . ” Her head dropped and Nick wanted to snatch her from the chair and put her on the first plane back to Alabama.
“We’re here to take you home. I need you to talk to me. Where’s Sarah Beth? Kayles? Stay with me.” Micah’s frustration grew. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Let me see.” Nick took Micah’s place in front of Kaylan and felt her head, searching beneath her hair for a bump or cut. A gash ran from her forehead into her hairline and was patched. Her face was blue and yellow with multiple smaller cuts.
“What’s wrong with her, Hawk?” Micah looked like a caged bulldog, and if there was someone to blame for this, Nick knew Micah would hunt them down. “She’s alive, and she’s banged up, so why isn’t she talking to us?”
“She has seen things, done things. You do not know. No one is all right in Haiti. Kaylan has lived through much, as have we all.” Abraham materialized in the doorway, but Nick kept his hands on Kaylan, refusing to acknowledge Abe’s statements. She was his priority until Rhonda came back.
Micah turned on Abraham. “What do you mean? Where’s Sarah Beth? What all has she seen and done? Where was she when the quake hit?”
“I will show you when Ms. Rhonda returns. Best not to relive the details in front of her.”
Micah ran his hands through his hair, his frustration wearing Nick thin. Maybe this was too personal. There was no way to remove the attachment to this situation.
“Chill, Bulldog. We’ll get answers, and then we’ll take her home.”
“Nick?” Her voice was faint.
His head snapped to meet Kaylan’s eyes. “Yeah, Kayles. It’s me.”
“What? How?”
“We came to take you home.”
She gripped the front of his shirt and fell against him. “I can’t leave her. My fault. All my fault.”
He cradled the back of her head, wondering at her lack of tears. “What’s your fault?”
“Sarah Beth. All my fault. I won’t leave her. Please. I won’t leave her.”
“We came to take you both home, Kayles. We wouldn’t leave her here.”
“I won’t leave her. She’s all alone. She needs to be with people who love her.”
Nick glanced at Micah, his face a sick shade of green, his eyes wary. Their gaze darted to Abraham, pinning him to the wall.
“What’s she talking about?”
Abraham’s brown eyes lowered to the floor, and Nick’s stomach dropped like a rock. No. It couldn’t be.
Rhonda bustled into the room. A dirty rag hung from one hand and a needle and thread were poised in the other. Nick stood to give her room and get answers from Abe, but Kaylan wouldn’t release his shirt.
“Please don’t leave me. It’s my fault. I have to help. I won’t leave her.”
He cradled her face and rested his forehead on hers. “I promise I won’t leave you.” He kissed her forehead and carefully untangled her hands from his shirt. Her body drooped in the chair, her eyes closing as Rhonda began to stitch her wound again.
By the set of her mouth and compassionate but brash interaction, Nick could tell Rhonda had long ago ceased to confront the Haitian culture. She had adapted to it, a fact that allowed her to roll with the catastrophes that seemed to strike every couple of years. There was always something wrong with Haiti.
Nick didn’t blame her. From the little he had seen of the country, it felt as if they fought a losing battle. He doubted that her attitude had gone over well with Kaylan, though. Kaylan had come to change culture, to stop the cycle. She was green, but Rhonda had roots here. Haiti had changed Rhonda. Had her short time there changed Kaylan as well?
Nick held her hand. Micah’s eyes met his. They would get to the bottom of this. And they would get her home. Fast. Something
was wrong. Everything was wrong.
Rhonda pulled them aside minutes later while Kaylan rested in the chair. “I’m worried her leg is becoming infected. She sliced it open in the quake and has refused medicine and proper supplies so we could use them for other patients. But she needs attention and quickly.”
“I’m her brother, and this is her, well . . . ” Micah offered a small smile. “This is a friend. We’re taking her home as soon as we can arrange a ride.” Micah’s tone left no room for argument, and Rhonda nodded.
“I think she’s also dehydrated and undernourished. I’ve noticed she’s given the little she had to some of the children and young mothers. We ran out of food yesterday, and I’m not sure when we will have more. She hasn’t slept more than a few hours since before the quake. Her mind and body have reached their limit.”
Nick’s desire to leave Haiti and never come back doubled. “What about Sarah Beth? We need to take her home too.”
Rhonda shook her head and looked down at the floor. “Abraham and Stevenson buried her outside the city while Kaylan watched. She won’t talk about it, so I don’t know what happened. Abraham knows more. I would talk to him. My house is rubble, but if you can salvage anything of Kaylan’s or Sarah Beth’s, do so. It may help her once she gets home.”
Nick nodded and studied Kaylan. What had she seen? What had she been through? He had nightmares of his own, and to help her through hers, he needed to know the extent of her injuries. Every painful detail. Flanked closely by Micah, he crossed the room and stopped in front of Abe.
“I’m sorry if we were rude. But after that scene in the market you can understand why.”
“I understand.”
“I’m Nick. This is Micah.”
Abe nodded. “Boyfriend and brother.”
“You’re right on one account. Not sure Nick has earned that title yet.” The first smile in days tugged at Nick’s lips.
“You braved much to come here. You want to see where I found her?”
“Please. We need to know what happened. Everything.”