by L. B. Carter
There was a short reticence.
"Just find the freaking tower," Val snipped.
"As you wish, m'lady. I am but a peasant to appease your whims." Reed gave a salute.
"Shove it, Romeo. Think you can find it? I left you a nice trail of blood. Oh, or you could just look for where your sorry ass left a puddle of tears in the dirt with your dignity."
"Guys," Nor snapped at Reed and Valerie. "We're all stressed right now. That's not helping. Val, think you can climb up here and keep an eye out for our destination? I'm no use; I don't know what I'm looking for."
"Fine." There was a scuffle as Val clambered over people and seats with grunts, and Nor slipped back into the middle seat between Henley and Ace.
Reed didn't once recognize his new passenger who got right to work scrutinizing the scenery on her side of the car for the water tower. "Ace, Henley, can you try to calculate how much time we have? Nor, keep an eye on my baby's temperature." He couldn't do that and evade the obstacle-rich road. They'd reached a particularly tornado-ravaged area. Fingers were crossed that familiar destruction meant they were close.
"Shit, I didn't think of that," Nor wriggled forward to see the gages. He was seat-belt-less, but crashing and getting ejected from the vehicle was not high on everyone's list of concerns at the moment.
They drove for an uneasy few minutes with no change, everyone on high alert.
"Ace, status report? Can you guess a rate?"
"Hard to tell. Tsunamis can travel hundreds of miles per hour."
Reed looked at their odometer. They were pushing two hundred. "ETA?" Reed clarified.
"About five minutes, plus or minus a minute or two," Henley offered, voice strung tight.
"Stupendous. Valerie? Anything?"
"Not yet." Thankfully, she answered his demand without giving him any lip.
"Nor?"
"Just crossed over."
"Fuck."
"Can she go another five minutes like this?" Nor asked.
"I'm not sure. I've never pushed her this hard."
"Won't matter if we can't find a freaking water tower in those five minutes." Val unbuckled and pushed the window down. Dust swirled in on the eddies billowing around the car's aerodynamic structure. Then she sat her ass on the window ledge, sticking her head out of the car.
"What are you doing?" Nor was incredulous.
"Not again," Reed groaned.
Val ducked her head back in for a moment. "You want me to be able to see, don't you? Keep going and keep her steady. I'm going on top."
"What?" Reed blurted, eyes popping, cutting back and forth between Val's disappearing legs and the road, because at their speed, if he made any sharp moves or hit anything even minuscule, it could send them flipping or screeching off the road. And Val maneuvering around was shaking the car and knocking his baby off-balance. He braced his arms tightly on the wheel.
Val's shoes perched on the window rim, her slim calves leading up like young birch trees. Then one disappeared, and the second vanished. Some clunking on the roof alerted them to the fact that she hadn't yet toppled off. The grating up there that Reed used to transport large equipment gave her a bar with which to brace herself.
"She really does like standing on your roof." Nor was amazed, gawking at the open window.
"Nor, status?" Reed snapped his brother back onto his task.
"Shit," was the reply right about when Reed realized it wasn't just dust swelling above the hood of the car. His baby was steaming.
"Fuck. I've got to pull over somewhere." Reed leaned toward the passenger seat. "Val," he called. "Get your stubborn, moronic ass in here!"
Only the whistle of wind whipping past the opening replied.
"Val!" Several voices shouted in unison.
Her face popped down, "What?"
"Get your ass in here or lose it," Reed roared.
Without question, her face vanished, and her legs slid back into the car.
Reed jerked the wheel, veering for the corn field. He didn't know how this was any better than the road, but he wanted to be stopped and not trapped in the car when the wave came. Most people drowned in cars because they couldn't get out. If they were all free, they could at least swim for it and hope rescuers arrived soon to check the area. The helicopters that had been passing over the area in conjunction with the caravan had flown out of the way when the wave first appeared, but Reed prayed they'd be back as soon as it passed.
Val tucked her head into the car right as they hit the dried corn stalks, brittle and sharp enough that she'd have had lacerations if not have had her head sheared clean off.
Reed breathed out.
She wound the window up and reported back. "Keep going about thirty-five degrees from the road."
"Can't keep going. We're on fire."
Val blinked at the hood where Reed indicated. "Fires of hell."
"Truly," Reed agreed. "I have to stop."
"No! It's not far." Val bit her lip. "Just... keep going. C'mon, baby." Val patted the dash and folded her fingers together. "You can do it. Do it for mama!"
Reed laughed. "You hate this car. Now it's ‘mama,’ huh?"
Val pouted. "I don't hate her. Just don't like her. If she's going to save my life, then I'll do whatever it takes."
"You were jealous of a car, huh? All you had to do was ask if you wanted me to call you baby." Reed slipped right back into their banter. Maybe it was an effort to pretend everything was fine and happy and not depressing as shit when they were about to meet their maker.
Val's chin raised. "Baby is for adolescents. I'm a babe."
Reed quickly scanned her up and down. "Won't argue that." He grinned.
"Fire," Henley screamed.
Reed's hands jerked and their blind drive through whipping cornstalks veered slightly. "Shit." He had lost the correct angle. Well, his baby was indeed on fire, flames shooting from the joints where the hood met the body of the car. He started to brake.
"No, not yet," Val barked.
"She's going to blow. I gotta." Reed wrenched them to a stop.
"Mother freak. Let's go!"
Everyone toppled out and chased Val through the corn as she pelted forward as fast as her spindly legs could carry her, which was pretty damn fast. Her legs really were long. Reed might need to pick up his running speed the next time he went for his morning exercise... if they didn't die.
"Two minutes," Ace declared from behind Reed.
Reed wanted to be chivalrous and drop to the rear of the group to ensure everyone made it. But it was as if he had no control over his legs, similar to when he'd been plodding along to the water tower the first time. He couldn't slow even if he wanted to, his heart hammering hard in his ribcage and breath scraping thickly through the saliva coating his mouth. He'd never fully recovered from his heat stroke, dehydration plaguing him and hindering his adrenaline-fueled dash. The only one he cared about was Nor, and he was keeping pace with Reed. That told Reed all he needed to know about how weak he'd become while holed up at the Juarez's.
"We're not gonna make it," Henley wailed.
"Yes, we are," Val hollered gleefully from somewhere ahead.
Reed abruptly broke free from the corn, recognizing the hay bale circle. He swiftly deviated right, aiming for the water tower that appeared so much shorter than last time he'd seen it. Desperation skewed reality one way the first time and the other the second. It would have to do.
He ground to a halt at the bottom and looked up, ogling Val's ass as she hiked up the ladder as fast as she could.
"Go, go, go," Reed urged, ushering first Henley then Ace ahead of him. Nor joined Reed on the other side of the ladder, encouraging the other two first.
"Go," Reed burst out at Nor, pushing him ahead and then trying to move as rapidly as he could.
He heard a tumult from above. "Val, help her," Ace bawled. Henley's false hand must have been struggling to grip the metal bars since she'd lost the rubber coating.
"Got her?"
Reed anxiously paused on his rungs, his palms slippery even though he should have no moisture left in him.
"Yes!"
Nor carried on, and Reed rushed, missing steps and his fingers slipping in his haste. He tried not to look down, but as the wind started whipping him, he slanted his eyes over his shoulder. The sight sent a surge of panic that both locked up his fingers and sent his heart thumping rapidly, limbs unable to keep up with his frantic scale.
He'd been wishing for water for days. Now, the water was almost upon them, a churning mass charging toward them with a frothy, hungry mouth, consuming everything in its path, flooding the land with saltwater. Water, water everywhere and still not a drop to drink.
Chapter Eleven
Val persuaded herself to avoid glimpsing the overhanging threat zooming toward them, although she could hear its roar like she was standing next to the jet engine of an airplane. However, she did see when it arrived. Even if she were as blind as Mrs. Juarez, she couldn't miss the swarming impact.
Standing with feet braced wide on the arched dome of the water tower and palms open beside her hips, she stumbled as it jerked the tower, testing the rigidity of its struts.
The crest crashed past within the blink of an eye, swirling and rushing with obscene force. Smashing into Reed's baby and immediately whisking it away, flames and all, the water level rose fast as the rest of the surge followed, licking up the side of the tower's frame. The two remaining standing walls of the farmhouse next to them creaked and groaned and snapped as fragments as big as boulders broke off in the onslaught.
Nor grabbed Val’s proffered hand and yanked himself up, stumbling behind Val, joining where Ace was comforting a hysterical Henley who had almost slipped to her death.
Val inched toward the edge on her knees. The rounded top was not very reassuring, but there was a curved metal pipe wrapped around the top about four inches from the metal sheeting as if the tower wore a halo—it deserved one for saving her and Reed. She pressed her breasts painfully into it, heart pounding against the piping, stretching her arm as far as it would go. Unable to keep from watching, her attention drifted to the water churning and splashing against the bottom of the water reservoir. It began to inch its way up, eating the ladder.
"Reed!" She shrieked. "Now!"
He was goggling at the inundating rush. At her alarm, willful green eyes latched onto hers and then shifted to her hand. Did he not trust her? Freaking shit, now was not the time! His feet disappeared beneath the roiling eddies. He didn't climb closer. He just stared.
Frenzy shot Val's stomach into her mouth, and she could no longer shout out a warning. Her breath chipped at the terror gripping her lungs, sawing in and out in short pants, pressing her ribcage into the railing. The tendons in her arm popped as she lengthened it, splaying her fingertips to strain nearer to him.
Without warning, he launched himself, his hands flinging for hers. Val shot her second arm over, letting go of the barrier and frantically praying her body and the metal held. Her eyelids scrunched shut as his slippery palms slapped against hers, nails digging into her forearms.
"Arghh." She growled as his weight wrested her shoulder sockets.
Then, the water enveloped his waist and buoyed him up, lifting the strain. In the next second, the tug shifted. The flow flushed him to the side, yanking Val with him. She cried out as her knees skittered across the smooth surface. Her shirt twisted as her breasts slid along the barrier, the flood heaving her to the other side of the tower.
Nor darted over and snagged onto Reed's forearms, pressing up against Val's side to prevent her from skidding further.
Reed's expression was stoic, his jaw clenched. His palms were sweating—or maybe hers. But he simply stared at them. Val shifted to press the soles of her feet into the barrier and attempted to leg press Reed closer to safety. But the grip the water had on him was unrelenting and forceful as it continued to whirl around. Her feet slipped as the water breached the top of the tower, crawling up toward Val with a bone-deep chill. She lost purchase with one foot, dropping Reed a few inches, dunking his head under the surface for a heart-stopping moment.
She grunted, curling her arms in. Reed's fingers brushed her sternum, his eyes on her again as he gasped for air, when one arm slipped free from her clutch. Something floating along in the stream had collided into Reed.
She shot forward, and with quick readjustment, they reoriented for better anchor. Now, she bore the brunt of one arm and Nor clamped onto the other. Both of them were precariously teetering on the edge. Reed's nails were sharp, piercing Val's muscle as it shook and shuddered trying to win the tug of war with the seiche. His entire body was submerged up to the neck; he appeared beheaded.
He smiled with lips that had turned blue, teeth clacking together as he shivered.
"No. Don't you dare." Her voice broke with its intensity.
He didn't heed her vehement denial. "Take care of them. Don't miss me too much." Reed gave a wink. His eyes flicked to Nor. "Never give up. You're better than I ever could be."
And he gave up.
Reed just... let go. Between breaths, he'd slipped right out of their grasping hands and was swallowed before either of them could understand and cry out. Val couldn't even see his head bobbing along among the jetsam. Ace heaved her and Nor back as the water level forced them all into the very middle of the dome where they huddled in a group and waited as seawater lapped icily at their feet and knees but thankfully rose no higher.
Val continued to frantically search the deluge, blinking tears away. Her arms wrapped around Ace and Nor, all of them shivering though the heat of the air combated the freezing temperatures of the water. The cries expressing all their emotions were drowned in the rushing around that surrounded them and their island of despair.
Every director of disaster management should be forced to experience a natural disaster or two first-hand. No amount of simulations witnessed, news footage viewed, or phone calls from officials received accurately conveyed just how devastating such events could be. There was no wholly understanding gained until Valerie Acton became part of it. Now, she truly saw how someone's entire world, literal and figurative, could change—how her world could change.
Just saw, not comprehended.
As the flood waters started to recede an eternity later, measurable by the sucking ebb of the draw down and by the expanding amount of bare, dripping metal of the water tower that was exposed, Val's brain remained in denial. It was processing at an almost glacial pace compared to the nearly instantaneous influx and seep of seawater.
For a moment, the entire Earth resembled a water world, and the isolation had sent a pang of anxiety flashing through Val's core. Even as she perched on her knees, wrapped around her family—her brother and her future sister-in-law—she felt exposed and alone. The feeling had been so unexpected, Val had actually let out a gasp that was lost to the deafening rage of the wave as it thundered through their lives. It had consumed the cornfields, the farmhouses, the barns, Reed's baby...
It had claimed Reed.
Unlike Val, Nor wasn't in shock, openly sobbing by the ladder as he whispered frantic pleas at the water to return what it took. Each foot it lowered, so did Nor, one rung at a time. He had recently experienced the tumultuous rip from his heart when his mother died. It was enough to send him into irrational desperation. He thought Reed would be out there. That he could just go grab him. That he'd be fine.
Val knew the statistics of natural disasters. She knew the astronomical numbers of missing people that gradually trickled into the killed category like sand grains in an overturned hourglass.
Reed was gone.
She didn't even like him. Hell, without him, no one would be constantly busting her chops over Jennifer—or her name. Without him, there was no one slowing her down. No one she had to tow a freaking car to save. No one trying to steal the girl she'd worked years to acquire. Nor was pro-Earth. He'd understand, and he lacked that stubborn assholey characteristic his b
rother flung about.
But she was... jarred, unsettled. There wasn't quite the right word. Confused as well. One second he was there, winking at her and poking her to see what comeback she could come up with, and the next, there was just... nothing.
It was like he never was.
Had it been like that for Jennifer too? Erased? Val had gotten close to losing her father, but even though he'd become disinterested in life, he was there.
Val reassured herself that Reed hadn't been a figment of her imagination by observing Nor's resolute determination as he dropped another rung, now about hip-level with where Val had sunk to her knees, motionless and despondent. Pins-and-needles stabbed into her calves and feet, and her knees ached from being pressed into the metal. That wasn't enough to make her move. She stared around as the tips of houses began to peek out of the sucking water surface. All emerged at haphazard angles, disconnected from their foundations, some bobbing on the water, others snapped into pieces. They coasted around as if they were guard dogs called back to its owner after successfully defending the location from intruders.
Reed hadn't been an intruder. He was a freaking Earth-hugger. How was that fair?
But nature didn't discriminate. Not intentionally. Usually, it took the weak, the ignorant, the deniers who refused to face the reality of the dangers of the planet on which they lived. Reed was none of those. Yet, he'd been taken.
Nor lowered again until his face was level with Val's, and when his eyes made contact with hers, the color of the water that stole his brother, Val got up and joined him, pacing downward. One step every two searing breaths. She realized why Nor was doing it. It felt like she was making progress as they descended.
Once Val was level with Ace, who watched her steadfastly, Henley buried into his chest, he gave his approval with a nod. "We'll stay. Once they send rescue, we'll need to be on high ground to be visible." Sorrow flashed on his expression briefly. "If you find his baby, see if you can find a flare we can use to hail help."
