His profile was thrown into sharp relief by Mother Nature’s light show. I realized once again I had Trip to thank for being my rescuer. I shivered in my soaking state and Trip wrapped his arm around my shoulders. We bounced and splashed through the storm until we reached the cabin and raced into the main room dripping stinking mud all over the floor.
I expected the whole team to be seated at dinner, but there was no one.
“Where is everybody?” I looked up at Trip.
“They all jumped.”
“What? All of them?”
“Yeah, we were all gathered around the fire pit, about to head inside. I asked Corey if he’d seen you and he said you’d taken the golf cart and headed north.”
That was strange. Why would Corey tell him I had gone out alone?
“The clouds were looking pretty bad and I was worried you would be caught out in the storm. So I jumped up and walked about ten feet when the sphere fell.”
“On the whole group?”
“Yeah, Mel and Donnie were also taken.”
I shuddered and he took my shoulders and turned me toward the girl’s dorm. “Warm shower for you, kiddo. Go.” He gave me a gentle nudge.
“I’m going, I’m going.” I grumbled and headed off to the invitation of warmth and dry clothes.
When I returned, Trip was in a clean dry jumpsuit, had cleaned up our mud droppings and was taking hot mugs out of the microwave.
“Do you like tomato soup?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
He carried the mugs over to the sitting area and sat them on the coffee table. I grabbed a box of crackers and two cokes and joined him.
“Why were you out in the rain, Katie girl?” He touched my cheek gently.
I didn’t know why Corey didn’t tell him we had gone out together. He must have thought it through thoroughly and come up with a good reason, so I left him out of it. “I needed some time to think.”
He sipped his soup and cracked the top on a can of coke. “I am glad we have some time to talk.”
“Yeah.” I wasn’t hungry and the thought of hurting yet another person I loved did not make the soup any more appetizing.
“We haven’t had any time together since we got back from the jump.”
I turned to him and searched his eyes. Something was different. I tilted my head to the side and studied him. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something had shifted.
“You seem different.” I stated.
He let out a huff of laughter. “Do I?”
I nodded. “Trip, tell me what happened to you on the jump.”
He set his spoon down and turned to face me. “You should already know. You did it.”
I shook my head in confusion.
“You did something in my head, when you were hooked up to that chair, thingy, didn’t you?”
I pressed my lips together and picked at my thumb nail. “What do you remember?”
His voice lowered to a mere whisper. “You were glorious. When your mind touched mine, it left behind this imprint. Like a map stamped into my head.” He touched his temple. “I could see the way to freedom, but there were locked doors along the route. You took me through each door and helped me face the pain behind the door.”
“I did that?”
“Yeah, don’t you remember?”
“I remember it differently.”
“The last door trapped me in a room with a fierce warrior. We fought, I was losing. Then I heard your voice. You said you loved me. I could actually feel you near me. I heard Tara’s voice and others. They were all saying they loved me. I reached up and lifted the face plate of the warrior’s helm and saw myself. Literally, I had been fighting with myself. As you said those wonderful things about me, I began to see the warrior as someone who could be trusted. I wrapped my arms around him in an embrace and the next thing I knew, we were back.”
Tears spilled onto my cheeks. “Trip, that is…” I swallowed hard and shook my head. There were no words for it. “…wonderful.”
He touched my tear with his finger and wiped it away. “Thank you.” His eyes burned with sincerity.
I leaned into his hand and blinked, no words seemed to fit.
“So, I feel different.” He touched his chest, “here.” He took my hands. “Katie girl, I am not going to fight over you. Corey is a good man. I know you love him differently than you love me. I am not going to try to compete with or stand in the way of that. Your connection with him is…”
“Yeah.” I whispered and looked away. I didn’t want to talk about my connection with Corey. I took a deep breath. “So we are just friends, you and me?”
“Good friends.” He wrapped me in a hug and kissed the top of my head. I guess I should be glad that he was breaking it off with me. At least I didn’t have to hurt him. So why did I feel like my heart had just been to the butcher and back?
“Oh, good then…heheh.” I laughed awkwardly, probably from the knife sticking out of my heart. I stood up. “Well, I’m really tired.” I started backing away from him.
He frowned. “Katie?”
“I’m. Just. Gonna. Go. Get some sleep.” I turned and ran from the room before he could see my tears. I burst through the door of my dorm and flung myself on my bed and sobbed.
How could things go so horribly wrong? I had gone from two gorgeous and big hearted boys fighting to take care of me, to no one. The pain was unreasonable. I hadn’t really known either of these boys long enough to be this invested. I shouldn’t be feeling such intense rejection from both of them. It dredged up memories of rejection from my dad. He was the one who left first. He was the one who opened this jagged wound in my heart. He was the reason I was such a basket case. I was so mad at him. I screamed into my pillow and then started pounding it with my fist.
“Daddy? Why? Why did you leave us?” Sobs tore from my throat into my pillow. My mom and dad were the ones who taught me what love was. If what they had wasn’t love, then I had no clue what love was. How was I supposed to navigate these tumultuous relationships if my whole view of love was skewed? I was mad; mad at my dad, mad at myself, pretty much mad at the world. I took the opportunity of having an empty dorm room to empty all of my pain into the soggy pillow.
When I was spent and my throat raw, I just lay staring up at the top of my bunk. “Daddy?” “Daddy?” I whimpered into the dusk.
When all light had faded from the world and my cries had turned to snubs, Trip’s strong arms gathered me into his lap and I clung into his chest. He cradled me and rocked me back and forth singing sweet songs of comfort. When I was completely spent of emotion and energy, Trip tucked me into my bunk, kissed my forehead, then sat on the floor beside my bed and stroked my hair until I fell asleep.
I woke with a splitting headache. Trip had crawled into the empty bunk at the head of mine in the middle of the night. I rose from my bunk and went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and ran a comb through my hair. When I came out, Trip was gone.
I walked through the empty cabin wondering why the team wasn’t back and if they were at the QHR for debriefing. It seemed like a really long jump compared to the other two. The longest jump had been under three hours. This jump was going on 12 hours and they still weren’t back? My gut clenched in a knot. I couldn’t help but worry about my team mates, my friends, my Corey. The silence of the empty cabin was deafening.
Trip came out of the boy’s dorm and we searched each other for answers. I could see worry creasing his face, too.
“Let’s go up to the village and see if they are back,” I suggested.
He nodded, took my hand and we headed out of the cabin. When we stepped through the screen door and saw the wreck we had left the golf cart in, we decided to clean it up first. Maybe by the time we were finished, they would all be back. Trip pulled out the water hose and I found some glass cleaner in the kitchen. I kept glancing up the hill toward the village, willing them to return traipsing down the hillside. They never came. Working together, we had tha
t cart looking spiffy in record time, but the tension mounted with each moment the team did not return. We jumped into the cart and drove as quickly as we could up the hill and into the village.
Trip parked the golf cart in front of the Staying Well.
“Hey, Kate!” Dirk sat on the edge of the fountain with a skinny ginger-headed kid.
We walked over to him. “Hey, Dirk.” He held out his fist and Trip and I bumped it.
“This is Gregory. He just arrived a few minutes ago.” Dirk introduced us.
“Hi Gregory, I’m Kate. This is my friend, Trip.”
“How’s it goin’ Trip?” Dirk asked with a bob of his head.
“Well, not sure. We were going to go see if we could find out what is keeping our team so long. They’ve been gone about thirteen hours now.”
“Thirteen Hours! Wait. The whole team jumped?”
“Except for the two of us.”
Dirk let out a whistle.
“Is that bad?” I asked. My concern for Corey was growing.
“It’s not normal. That’s for sure. There are rules…”
He didn’t get a chance to explain the rules because just then the screeching sounded over us and the four of us were sucked into a quantum sphere.
We were dropped in the center of a super cell storm. Lightning cracked around us and in the flash of the brightness a horrific dance of twin tornados spiraled in our direction. Dime sized hail shattered at our feet on the concrete.
We were on a city block sandwiched between a graffiti encrusted storefront and a cinderblock high rise. Not a sign of life was evident on the streets.
“We have to take cover!” Trip yelled as he tucked me into his chest and held his jacket over my head.
“This way.” Dirk ran toward the storefront and kicked the door in. We filed in and he slammed it shut behind us. “Spread out and see if we can find a lower level.”
Trip dragged me along to one side of the building while Gregory and Dirk headed in opposite directions. Peering through empty halls and abandoned rooms, we jogged until we reached a back kitchen area. I noticed rotting food lying around as though the cooks had left suddenly. Strange.
We heard Dirk call from the other side of the building. “Found it. Come over here guys. Let’s get into the basement before those twisters hit!”
We rushed to his voice and scrambled down the stairs into a dark windowless room and hunkered down to wait out the storm. Trip pulled me down into his chest and we huddled into a ball. The building above us creaked and groaned, shuddered and squealed.
Crash!
The windows shattered and debris slammed around upstairs. We covered our heads and rode it out. On and on, chaotic banging assaulted us. Screeching wind and roaring tunnels bombarded our senses.
“Dear God, why is it taking so long?” I cried.
“It seems to be sitting on top of us.” Dirk yelled.
Gregory slumped against the cinderblock wall with his hands wrapped around his head, while sediment rained down around us. Dirk squatted near him and watched the ceiling almost nonchalantly. I peeked out of Trip’s arms, amazed at how calm and cool Dirk was under the circumstances. Trip draped himself over me protectively and I shuddered and whimpered with every loud crash.
The whistling ceased as the tornado moved down the street. Trip unfolded from his hunched position over me, lifted me and checked me over to make sure I was unscathed. Satisfied that we were both okay, we turned and looked at Dirk, flummoxed.
“What’s going on, Dirk? Is this natural?” Trip waved his hands back and forth between all of us.
Dirk stood, walked a few steps away, then suddenly turned back. “Okay, I’m gonna level with you guys.” He cut an eye to Gregory. “You okay, there, buddy?”
Gregory nodded with wide eyes and pushed himself up to a sitting position.
“I have never heard of a jump that mixed teams. We shouldn’t be jumping together. You shouldn’t be jumping without your Jump Commanders.” He pointed to us, and then turned to Gregory, “and you shouldn’t have jumped at all until you finished orientation. Then there is the whole issue of jumpers coming back injured. That isn’t supposed to happen anymore.” He sighed forcefully. “I don’t know what the hell is going on.”
“So, does this mean one of us is still targeted for the jump?” I asked.
“Well, yeah, I assume…I mean there is no purpose for a jump unless someone is being targeted for treatment.” Dirk said. “So it could be for any of you.”
“Not me.” Trip said. “I already had my jump.” He reached down and took my hand.
“Well, it’s not likely that it would be you this quickly. But people are targeted more than once, not usually until everyone else has been through a personal jump, of course.”
“Most likely it is for Kate or Gregory.” Trip asserted.
“I don’t even know if Gregory is in the system, yet. I mean we literally just drove him into the village when you guys arrived.”
Great. Me, then. I groaned. Trip turned to me and leaned down to catch my eyes, then pulled debris from my hair. “It’s gonna be fine, Katie girl.” He soothed and wrapped me in a hug.
“What should we do next?” I asked. “Do we go up and try to figure out where we are or do we stay here for the night?”
“We might as well stay put at least until we know the tornados are really gone.” Trip turned to Dirk, “Don’t you think?”
Dirk nodded. “Yeah, no use going up there anytime soon.”
“Where are the people?” Gregory asked.
We all turned to look at him.
“I mean, it isn’t just that this building is abandoned. We should be hearing sirens, news teams, workers, something. There aren’t any people.”
So Gregory was smart and observant. I made a mental note. “I noticed upstairs that the kitchen seemed hastily abandoned, as though they had walked out suddenly.”
“Hmm, I also noticed a few abandoned cars on the street, but I figured people were just running from the tornadoes and had taken cover.”
Trip ground his brows together and cocked his head to the side. “Are they coming back?”
We all listened and noticed the sound of the tornados growing louder.
“Take cover!” Dirk commanded. “This could be a long night.”
Trip dragged a metal table to the corner and motioned for me and Gregory to get under it. Dirk turned another one on its side and hemmed us in.
“Trip!” I called. He stuck his head under the table.
“I’m right here, Kate.”
“Yeah, but I want you right here.” I held open my arms and waved him toward me.
He grinned then crawled under the table. Gregory shifted to make room.
Trip was so big that he seemed to fill the space all by himself, but the minute he was next to me, I felt safe. I wrapped my arms around him and pressed my head to his chest. He enfolded me in his arms and rubbed my back.
The tornados struck the building again with a vengeance. Dirk ducked under the edge of the table, closing us off from the raging storm. The building rattled and shuddered and groaned in protest to the scourging that the tornados gave. At one point a loud crashing sound pierced the howling winds and a large beam fell through the ceiling and crashed to the floor mere feet from us.
I screamed, someone cursed, and we all pressed more tightly together. The air was yanked from my lungs and I couldn’t seem to draw a breath as the atmosphere around us was vacuumed away.
Heaven help us! The tornados were unrelenting in their destruction as though they were seeking us out. The thought gave me the creeps and I pressed even closer to Trip.
I had never heard of tornadoes lasting this long. Didn’t they usually move along a path and then go back up into the clouds at some point. They didn’t usually hang around one area, then turn around and come back to the same area, did they?
We crouched in despair and terror through the night as the tornados sought us out. After hours of br
eathless terror, they finally dissipated.
Dirk emerged from our table shelter first and then lifted the table off of us. I stared up into what should have been the ceiling, but saw a rosy sky and the first hints of dawn.
We stood and stared at the devastation all around us. The store front building with all of its graffiti artwork was completely gone. Only chunks of metal and steel jutting out of the substructure remained to testify to its existence.
“Well, that answers one question.” Trip said.
“We move.” Dirk agreed.
We made our way toward the edge of the building, gingerly picking out the best footing. Dirk climbed a beam to the street level. Trip lifted me and Gregory up to him and then climbed out last. We gazed up and down the empty street. Some buildings were completely unscathed and others had minor damage to them. There was only one building completely destroyed, ours. The tornadoes had focused their destructive power on the very place we had taken refuge.
“How is that possible?” I gaped around. “We picked the only building that was hit to hide in?”
Dirk walked to an empty cab parked at an angle in the middle of the street. The driver’s door was open. He slid in behind the wheel, started up the engine then called out. “Climb in. Let’s go find the owner of this cab.”
Trip and I jumped into the back seat and Gregory skidded around to crawl into the passenger seat. Before the doors were slammed, Dirk righted the car and took off. We drove several blocks, hoping to see someone, anyone, who could give us an idea of where we were. Not a living soul was anywhere to be seen. Blocks and blocks of abandoned cars, bikes, grocery bags, strollers, and brief cases littered the empty streets.
I couldn’t imagine what had happened to make everyone abandon what they were doing and disappear without a hint of where they could be. The sun broke through the sky scrapers casting bright and cheerful light on such a disconcerting scene.
“Where did they go?” My voice sounded like dry parchment crackling. None of the guys had an answer.
The Torn, Book One of the Holding Kate Series Page 11