Sky Fall (Book 3): Solar Storm Page 3

  “Every half hour, if possible.”

  Lila nodded and moved away as if she couldn’t wait to be free of the conversation.

  Lanny had heard and seen it all, start to finish. “That’s not going to be good in tight spaces, now is it?” Her worried eyes glanced between Keith and Clive. Two children were with her, one in her arms, one around her leg.

  She gave a half smile, adjusting them both. The weary mother expression was so familiar to Clive his heart ached to see it.

  A flash of Sara half asleep, nursing one of their children in the rocking chair, and Clive undoing her braid to run his fingers through her soft hair, hit him so hard that he felt dizzy.

  Clive shook his head. “Nope. It isn’t.”

  “You sure that kid’s telling you the truth?”

  He bit back a ‘What do you know about it?’ and traded the harsh words for a grunt and then he strode across the place until he was deep in a pocket of total strangers who were speaking about their horrors out in the world that was slowly dying.

  At least they weren’t talking about how they were going to stay in shape. Clive wanted to remind everyone that they could starve first.

  Even above, they could starve. Eventually, they all might.

  And that was it, wasn’t it? The world wasn’t going to heal. Get better. Or come back. It was dying. They were just staving off joining it. And his family was out there. And he prayed to God if Sara needed it, someone was ripping the head off anyone who bothered her and the kids like this Keith character bothered Siri.

  Perhaps he was projecting all of that onto the kid unfairly, but his gut said he wasn’t.

  He shook his head at those thoughts. Since when was he so morbid? Since when had he given up so much hope? He had a family to look for. He had to believe they were out there.

  With that thought came a wave of claustrophobia.

  He felt sweat trickle down his spine.

  Keith walked across the space and caught his attention. Suddenly, he wasn’t thinking about his family or a dying planet.

  He was thinking about a drifter with a steady, dark, deep gaze, and a past with someone he was growing quite fond of.

  Clive was thinking about two hippies who seemed liked they’d been terrible parents---foster parents---for Siri and who didn’t trust her over some bum at all.

  And then his heart softened. Had she ever had anyone in her corner? Like truly in her corner?

  His brother had so many times brought him into trouble only to then be in the wrong. Clive was still there for Darryl, wasn’t he? Every single time. Because that’s how that went sometimes.

  You stuck it out.

  No flinching.

  5

  North Texas near Dallas

  “No flinching!” Darryl shouted, and the kids laughed and dodged his fake punches.

  “All right. Time for sleep.” Sara tried not to check her watch. As if time mattered. As if anything mattered except thinking about Clive out there in the world…alive. He had to be alive.

  “Hey,” Darryl said, noticing her quietness. He’d come back in from putting the kids to bed while she sat at the dining room table, staring at an empty cup. He’d been so helpful. “Hey, listen. My big brother’s fine. Trust me. Clive has outlived far worse things than…okay. Probably not worse than this…ugh…never mind.” He chuckled and pulled Sara into a hug up on her feet.

  He rocked her gently in a slow dance.

  “But he doesn’t even know where we are,” she whispered into his shoulder.

  “He’ll figure it out. Houston is underwater, so that’s out. Your aunt is an obvious choice here above Dallas. He’s the smart one, remember? I got the looks!”

  She chuckled but didn’t feel it deep inside.

  “And aren’t we glad we came here when we did?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  Darryl held her tightly. “Clive will find us. Trust me on this.”

  Sara shrugged out from within his arms. To tell herself the truth, it felt too good and she wasn’t sure she liked how familiar her husband’s brother had gotten. But that wasn’t what bothered her most. It was that she also needed it. Craved it. Not because she suddenly and inexplicably loved Darryl, that’s ridiculous. But because she was lost.

  Sara wasn’t accustomed to needing anyone, let alone someone like Darryl, but here she was, totally and utterly unmoored. No one could blame her if she did lean on him…

  She shook her head. “You’re so good with the kids,” Sara said, rubbing her arms. “I mean it. They smile all the time instead of asking me over and over where Daddy is. I really appreciate it.”

  Darryl smiled and pushed a hand through his hair that was leagues longer than her husband ever kept his. “I appreciate you, Sara,” he said with a voice dropped deeper than usual. “Always have.”

  She opened her mouth to tell him he’d gone too far, but he walked away, his head down, forehead pinched. Darryl wasn’t the bad guy here; circumstance was.

  Her aunt was waiting in the doorway with her light-colored brows raised. She had watched the situation closely since they’d arrived.

  Even though Aunt Nell was her favorite aunt, it bothered Sara to no end that she would suspect something of her.

  “Don’t even say it,” Sara said, taking the fresh cup of coffee from her Aunt Nell. “Mmm,” she moaned, tasting the bittersweet familiarity in a world of the unfamiliar.

  Everything was death and destruction out there; but here, her family had over seventy acres hiding in a pocket that nearly seemed untouched. There wasn’t anyone for miles and miles, and so the quiet lulled her into a false sense of security.

  Still, her uncle had a gun collection and had Darryl carry one ever since he’d arrived. “Eventually they’ll come looking for the cattle that lived,” her uncle had said. “Starving people ain’t always human.”

  “He’s trouble, Sara,” Nell said now, about Darryl. “Always has been. He knows how to play it up, too. This is his time to make a move. I’ve been watching that boy try to make it since the start. When you and Clive were getting married, you should have seen the way he–”

  Sara waved her away and then walked down the hall to check on the kids. She kissed them both on their heads before she turned towards the door.

  Darryl was there with the light glowing behind him. With his features hidden by shadow, her heart hammered to see Clive in that same bone structure and build. She felt the cup shake in her hand as emotions betrayed her.

  “I just wanted to see them one more time.” She had trouble leaving them alone for more than a few minutes.

  But it made her happy to find them both snoring softly.

  “Will you talk with me a while?” Darryl asked in a whisper and she nodded, her mouth dry.

  They went to the porch of the ranch house together. The still night smelled of a burning creation. Sara inwardly snorted morbidly at the idea; someone should make candles: “End of the world” scent.

  Though it was dead of night, the sky held a weird, pinkish hue like it was infected. The grayness of the dying light entranced you, making you feel like you were in a dream world of ash.

  This far up, Texas hadn’t quite flooded yet, and they were nowhere near the big city, so despite the ash, one could almost pretend a moment that there was a chance things would bounce back.

  “I think I want to go look for my brother now,” Darryl said, catching her by surprise.

  “Yes,” she said, no, almost shouted. “Please.” She set her coffee cup down and latched onto his arm, her fears and aching making her lose control.

  Something broke and snapped wide inside, and she knew it was from when that plane had landed on their house. Then once more when she’d climbed out with the kids but no husband.

  Her nails dug in, and he grunted but bore her pain, no doubt seeing something raw and untamed in her face. She’d heard a voice over and over: “Alone” it had said, telling her that she’d be raising these children without the man who lov
ed them as much as she did. In a crazy, fallen place, she’d have to protect them all by herself just when she needed someone else as passionately in love with their precious lives as they both had always been.

  Mama bear wasn’t going to be enough, and she needed Clive by her side like she needed air. Just to feel like she could sleep finally. Just so she could close her eyes and know someone was looking out as vigilantly as she was.

  And that’s why she wouldn’t give herself to Darryl. He wasn’t half of her.

  Her better half was out there…somewhere. She touched her chest. She could almost feel him.

  “You have to go,” Sara croaked, her throat too tight to speak clearly. “Bring him back, Darryl. Please.”

  “I will,” he said, prying her hands from his arm before gently taking them in his. “I will, Sara.”

  6

  Outside Fort Benning, Georgia

  Patty glanced at Terrance, then back at the man holding a knife on poor, terrified Samuel. They’d broken in without being heard over the storm. It was still raging, and Gina watched wide-eyed as her only son stood far too close to the blade.

  Patty was in a room with strangers, she realized. Terrance, the man who’d stolen her truck, who’d left her for dead, but who had been close to her husband was still a stranger.

  At her farmhouse, the band of them had come together somehow, anyway. And something rose up in her, a strange kinship built on a “I-trust-you-more-than-I-trust-these-bastards” kind of connection.

  She heard thunder right after the lightning flashed.

  “Put it down!”

  She didn’t. Terrance also had a gun and didn’t move.

  If they gave up, they were dead.

  The world wasn’t negotiable anymore. These men would kill them all either way, so why give it to ’em easy?

  Gina was staring at Patty with a pleading expression. Was she going to save Samuel? Would she risk her own unborn baby for this boy she barely knew?

  She just had think.

  Patty only knew that if she gave up her gun, neither of these guys were going to just pat them on the head and let them go; they were here for more than food and items. Though she was heavily pregnant, the man from the store before, the looter, had been eyeing her. She was grossed out, but not stupid. Some men didn’t mind it. She’d be a beauty queen until the day she died. Even covered in ash streaks and days into needing a shower, she would always turn heads, just like her grandmother.

  And the monster was smiling at her in a way that only meant one thing; he’d do what he’d be doing until the day he died, too.

  “Terrance,” Patty said quietly, thinking about how the world was raw, so raw that any wrong move, or even the right one, could lead you down the hole that was chewing up everyone so quickly.

  “Yes.” His jaw was tight.

  “How good are you?”

  Terrance sucked his teeth and gave a scary half smile above his square jaw. “Pretty damn good.”

  “All right then.”

  Boom. The thunder rolled.

  “Now!” she shouted as the lightning blinded them for a moment.

  Two pops rang loud and clear even with their eyes full of stars through the strike and flash from the windows.

  Silence fell before they adjusted to the darkness once more.

  An errant thought drifted to Patty in that moment where she floated between safety and reality. A line from a poem: “I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”

  She’d always loved that phrase.

  The empty black faded, and clarity snuck in. Enough that she could see Terrance had been correct. He was damn good. Both men were laid out, a bullet through their foreheads. Samuel cried, and his mother held him, and Patty sagged against the wall.

  “Blessed be,” she said in a rush of air.

  Her abdomen tightened and she cringed and breathed through the false contraction.

  “When are you due?” Terrance asked with worry clear in his gaze.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she snapped. Not at him, but at her belly. “She’s staying inside.”

  Patty pushed herself to her feet. “There’s more of them out there,” she said. “He’d had more with him at the store. No way it’s just the two.”

  “Let’s try to lock up best we can.” Patty stopped Terrance at the door. “Thank you.”

  He nodded.

  “How’s your head?” she asked.

  “It’s not so bad.”

  Patty grabbed some wood for the windows. “Let’s board these up. If it’s not the bad guys breaking in, it’s gonna be weather.”

  Gina wrestled the wood away from Patty’s hands. The woman still seemed like she was in shock, but she was trying to keep Patty from overdoing it either way.

  Patty’s thoughts were clouded with guilt. She’d hesitated for her own child when Gina’s had been in peril. Quietly, so Terrance wouldn’t hear, she said, “I’m sorry. I just knew that giving up the guns wouldn’t…”

  Gina squeezed her hand. “I know. It’s okay.” She wiped away tears and returned to work.

  When her back was turned, Patty grabbed more of the wood and started to work. Terrance watched her grimly, but she ignored his expression.

  After a time, her belly got too tight to go on, and she stopped and rubbed her back. Terrance paused, too, staring into space, his face pale.

  “What is it?”

  He shook his head, his brows knitted together. He was dark blond, a pensive man, and built heavier than her own husband.

  They probably had worked well together.

  Patty frowned. Terrance was very good. Almost too good. He’d handled that whole thing like he’d done it a million times. Like he was…

  “What type of training did you receive?” she asked him, but he didn’t answer.

  Patty had kept the dogs in the kennel while they worked, and they’d been in there before the storm, much happier together on their pillows. She wasn’t sure if it had been bad or good that they’d not been free when the attack had happened.

  Now, she was glad they were okay and she pet them and gave them treats and hugged them close to her as they both howled in overexcitement and perhaps a little stress.

  She went to pass Terrance by, but he stopped her with a firm grip on her arm.

  Patty couldn’t help the shudder that ran through her. He’d saved them, but he’d almost killed her before that.

  “I don’t think he’s dead,” Terrance muttered, and the blood drained from her face.

  Then she blacked out.

  Cool hands framed her face. Patty sat up way too fast and the blood rushed once more as darkness edged her vision. She couldn’t hear over the river between her ears, but she shouted over the storm. “Tell me!”

  Terrance was watching her from the across the room, his face grave, his eyes probing.

  Her voice was a million miles away when she said, “You remember.”

  He nodded slowly. “Some.”

  But it was more than some. She gently pushed Gina out of the way; though she was trying to help her, Patty felt smothered.

  She sat up more carefully this time and Patty faced Terrance like he was a firing squad. “‘I don’t think he’s dead,’” she repeated. “That’s what you said. Tell me it wasn’t a dream.”

  “It wasn’t.” He uttered the words so fast they were meshed together in a whisper that muddied the phrase. “I don’t think he was dead when I saw him last, is what I mean.”

  But his jaw was tight. His gaze shuttered. He didn’t want to tell her everything. And if that was the case, then she needed to figure out how not to trigger his defensiveness. Patty needed to ease him into it and get every drop of information.

  Too afraid to hear what he might say, or that it would be a lie, she got to her feet. “Let’s board up the windows. Move those bodies outside. Then we can open a bottle of wine, I know I need it. Afterwards you start from the beginning.” She laughed at Gina’s glare. “Just a glass
for me. Doctor said it was fine. Better than the shock, I can tell you.”

  Gina smiled a small curve of lips. “Yes. True. I need it as well.”

  They all worked together, including Samuel, to board up the rest of the windows. The boy was shaken and scared but tough.

  Patty pushed herself too hard and too far, and she was dizzy by the time they were through. Forcing a dry sandwich past the lump in her throat, she drank some wine and felt instantly a little better.

  Terrance had found something stronger; he was drinking Corwin’s good stuff. He raised a glass and then took a long pull before he sat at the dinner table across from her.

  Patty looked—really looked—at the man for the first time it felt like. He was hard as iron, his build all muscle and no fat. He’d trained thoroughly.

  But so had Corwin.

  Maybe she should have asked more questions before, but she’d never felt like she needed to.

  His voice was rough as he began, and they had a lamp between them casting eerie shadows in the night.

  Made sense, since this was her ghost story brought back to life, so to speak.

  7

  Outside Baton Rouge, Louisiana

  Kentucky was singing a song. The waves sloshed gently against the submarine. “Yellow Submarine” was the song. He wasn’t proud of the lack of creativity in the moment.

  He would knock his knuckles against the boat, and sometimes it would knock back. Other times, it was silent like the places around him.

  He was going to die. He wasn’t dehydrated anymore because of the rain, but he had no food and, eventually, the weather would turn enough to knock him from his perch.

  Kentucky sat up, his body listing to the side in a sway. “I need to focus,” he told himself. “Make a plan. Think.”

  But his brain was like mush. He’d always had low blood sugar, so this was torture. “Think!” he ground out, slapping himself a good half dozen times.