by Abby Niles
As Rick circled around, Mac was transfixed by the black swirling mass maybe half a mile away that slowly churned through the heart of Makersville. Slim fingers brushed against his. He glanced down to find Gayle’s hand reaching through the seats and he latched on to it. As she held up the video camera to document the destruction, he saw tears rimming her eyes as her lips moved around words he couldn’t hear.
She was praying.
Rick crept the SUV along. Every once in a while a brilliant flash of blue light lit the air or the inside of the tornado, which was eerily stunning. Flying out from the massive debris ball surrounding the vortex, paper and other light objects swirled around their vehicle. Memories assaulted him of being trapped, helpless, in pitch black darkness. The deafening roar of the fierce winds. Shattering glass, loud crashes, and booms as walls toppled and the roof tore away. The violent sounds becoming muted from the air pressure clogging his ears. The overwhelming smell of natural gas and fresh cut wood. Airborne dirt and debris pelting his skin. Terror-filled screams of the patrons in the freezer, certain death was imminent. He heard it. Felt it. All over again. Like he never had before.
People were going through that right now, right in front of him. He turned to the woman beside him still mumbling a prayer. Her actions had no doubt saved lives today. And could have cost her hers, too.
It took the twister ten full minutes to eat a path through the town. Ten minutes of terror for the people trapped under the destruction left behind by the swirling demon. Ten minutes of terror for those hiding, waiting, and praying for mercy as it crept closer. Mac rubbed his face. Ten minutes of abject horror for him to live through, as well. Helpless. Stricken. Flooded by terrible memories.
As the monster neared the edge of town, the momentum keeping it together slowly unraveled, and it started to lose strength. By the time it moved back out onto flat land, it was less than half its original size. A few minutes later it was gone—as though it hadn’t just destroyed an entire small town.
“Go,” Gayle whispered to Rick. “We can’t leave. We have to help.”
A sumo wrestler might as well have sat down on Mac’s chest from the heaviness suddenly compressing his lungs, threatening to suffocate him. Search and rescue. As the SUV turned back into town, the path of destruction left behind took Mac’s breath away.
“Oh God.” Gayle pressed her hand to her mouth.
The town was simply gone. Asphalt had been ripped up. Stores completely leveled. Vehicles looked as if they had been picked up and crushed in a giant’s hand. All that was left of trees were denuded stumps, the tops completely torn away. Timbers were speared into windshields. A piece of fence was impaled deep into the side of a standing cement wall.
It was Emerald Springs all over again.
Rick maneuvered the car around the wreckage until he reached the worst of it. Horror, sorrow, and empathy bludgeoned Mac as he surveyed the houses that had been wiped off their foundations, piles of rubble everywhere.
Oh God, these people. The shock. The fear. The grief. Emotions clogged his throat and he squeezed his hands into tight fists, digging his nails into his palms. His trauma happened in the past. This was happening to people right now, this minute.
Fires had started from gas line ruptures. Cars were perched precariously on rooftops. A crib lay broken on a lawn. A pained groan pressed out between his desperately clenched teeth.
Gayle squeezed his hand again. “I’m so sorry, Mac. I wanted to save you from this.” Her sentenced ended on a smothered sob. “There are people trapped. We have to help.”
“Absolutely,” he managed.
He felt the same way. Felt so much respect and was in awe of her because of her compassion. But that didn’t stop the demons that had tormented him for the last four years from completely overtaking him.
Rick stopped the car. As Gayle opened the door, screams for help punched him in the gut, hitting him harder and with more power than any heavyweight fighter ever had. A man stumbled out into the road, blood coating the left side of his face. Gayle immediately hurried over to him, put her arm around him, and helped him sit down. Rick came up to the man and handed him a water bottle. Where he’d gotten it, Mac had no idea.
But the sight of the two of them helping reached deep inside Mac. He hadn’t been able to help Ally. No one had been able to help her. She had most likely been taken from this world before she’d even hit the ground. But he could help someone now.
He opened the door and climbed out. From where the tornado had demolished a line through the heart of the town, he could see for miles in each direction. People were slowly emerging from damaged buildings on the perimeter of the tornado’s path and were making their way over to the destruction that lay before them, while others were crawling out from under rubble and climbing out of storm shelters.
The cries for help went through him like knives. He met Gayle’s devastated but determined gaze, gathered strength from her, and leapt into action. A young teen was pinned by a collapsed wall. Mac lifted it and she crawled out, sobbing. Other than a few scrapes, she was relatively unharmed. A miracle.
Ambulances, police cruisers, and fire trucks slowly made their way through the debris. But there still weren’t enough rescuers. As he helped the girl to one of the EMTs, he felt a tug on his shirt. He glanced down. A small girl, maybe around the age of three, with blond hair and blue eyes. Blood ran from a cut on her forehead, and her clothes were soaked and caked with dirt. But it was the innocence in her eyes that knocked him hard in the heart.
The blond hair and blue eyes reminded him so much of Ally. And she was right around the same age as their child would’ve been… His heart wrenched painfully as he squatted in front of her.
“Hey, sweetie.” His voice was thick with repressed emotions and he had to clear it.
“I can’t find my mommy.” Tears welled in the child’s eyes as her chin started to wobble. She touched the knot on her forehead. Her little fingernails were painted a cheerful pink, such a contrast to the devastation around them. “M-my house is all gone, so is my m-mommy. I want my daddy.”
He didn’t know if he had the strength for this. “It’s going to be okay,” he soothed, seeing the shock of whatever she’d been through was wearing off. “I need you to be brave for just a little bit longer so we can find your mommy. Okay? Do you know where your house was?”
Taking hiccupping breaths, the little girl looked around, and he could tell she wasn’t sure. How could she? Everything was leveled. Then she pointed a tiny trembling finger down the road a bit. “That’s my room,” she said, then burst into a wail only a terrified child could make. “Mr. Alligator!”
The child’s distress tore at him, and he gathered her up in his arms, as he glanced over at the one pink wall still standing about forty yards away. The tiny body convulsed against his chest as she sobbed for everything she had lost. God, he hoped he found her mom. Maybe he would…just like he found Ally.
He squeezed his eyes closed. He couldn’t let his mind go there. Not now.
When he opened them, he made eye contact with Gayle, who was hurrying over. She stopped in front of them and gently touched the child’s back. The little girl lifted her head. Wetness streaked her face as she took shaky inhales.
“Hey there, sweetie. I’m Gayle. What’s your name?”
“S-Sophie.” She scrubbed her eyes with her fists.
“She can’t find her mom,” Mac said, and Gayle shot a glance at him. They stared at each other for a moment.
“What’s your mom’s name, honey?”
“B-Brandi.”
“I’ll go find her,” he said.
Gayle inhaled, then a sympathetic smile came to her lips as she held her arms out to the child. “Honey, why don’t you come with me? I have something in the car I think you’ll like.”
Sophie went into Gayle’s embrace and hugged her tiny arms around Gayle’s neck.
“I’ll have an EMT look at her bump, too,” she whispered to him, then sh
e headed to the SUV. After she opened the trunk, she put the little girl down and pulled out a plastic container, set it on the ground, then lifted the lid. When Sophie swooped in and yanked out a teddy bear, hugging it tearfully to her chest, he wanted to tug the woman beside her to his chest.
Inhaling deeply, he started making his way to the area where Sophie’s house used to stand. If her mom had been sucked from the house by the vortex, there was no telling where she could be, but he hoped that wasn’t the case. He hoped, God, he hoped, she was just somewhere under the rubble.
But Ally had been under the rubble…
A cold sweat broke out across his skin, and his footsteps faltered. Breathing seemed an impossible task. Starry dots formed before his eyes, and his vision tunneled as the image of her lifeless body formed in his mind.
No! He shook himself.
He forced himself to keep walking. As he passed a mound of wreckage, a muffled whimper came from underneath. Flinging large slabs of wood off the pile, he eventually uncovered an elderly man. Another guy hurried over to help the man out and Mac moved on. Seconds later, he heard a low whine. He shoved aside two mangled bicycles twisted together with some yard ornaments and uncovered a terrified, drenched terrier. The dog trembled as it cautiously stepped out. He picked up the animal. A woman about fifty yards away burst into tears and came running. “Minnie. Oh, my God. Minnie!”
She took the pup from his arms, then grabbed Mac in a strong embrace, her heartfelt sobs muffling her, “Thank you, oh, thank you!” but not the relief and happiness.
Four more times he was stopped by muted cries for help. Two of the people were in critical condition. Volunteers helped ease them onto a ripped-off door and a piece of plywood and loaded them on the back of a truck to rush to the hospital. He also found a father and son huddled together in a closet, the only remaining room of their home.
When he finally reached Sophie’s yard, he scanned the area. Déjà vu almost brought him to his knees as four fingers caught his attention. Barely visible, muddied, and sticking out between two pieces of house debris. They were slender with nails painted bright pink.
His entire body went numb.
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t face it. Not a second time.
The fingers twitched. Just a flick.
His heart stuttered, and he stumbled in a rush over debris to reach her. He hurled bricks, branches, and pieces of furniture away like a madman. Then she was there. Blond like the little girl. Injured badly, but alive.
“Brandi?” he asked.
She coughed. Tears welled in her desperate blue eyes, overflowing down her cheeks. “M-my d-daughter?” she managed to ask.
“Sophie is fine. She’s with my girl—” Stunned, he shook himself. “Friend. She’s with my friend. Are you injured?”
“M-my…ribs.”
“Okay. Don’t move. I’ll fetch help.” Glancing around, he motioned to an EMT a little distance away, who hurried over. Then he looked for Gayle. She was nowhere to be found. Panic climbed his throat. Frantically, he searched over the destruction and finally saw her about thirty yards away digging through wreckage of a building. The tightening eased.
He spotted the little girl, too, and had to smile. She huddled with a group of other kids on the street, each clutching a new stuffed animal. They all still looked scared, but were no longer crying. “While they get you ready to move, I’ll fetch Sophie.”
As he went to stand, Brandi’s hand caught his. “Thank you. I don’t think I will ever”—she took a shallow breath—“be able to repay you.”
Giving her fingers a gentle squeeze, he shook his head and said, “You’ve helped me more than you will ever know.”
As he walked across the debris-strewn lawn to get Brandi’s daughter, his heart felt lighter and freer than it had in years. Gayle had been right. He’d needed to face this. And he hadn’t just faced the most traumatic day of his life. He’d relived it. Every emotion, every memory, brought to the surface, flaying him alive, making him bear witness to the destruction—but from the outside this time. It gave him the chance he hadn’t been given four years ago. He’d helped. Even though it wasn’t his wife under the rubble this time, he’d been able to do the one thing that had bludgeoned him with guilt since her death. He’d been here to save someone’s life. And he’d spared a daughter, and a husband, from living in the pure hell he’d been forced to live through for four years.
He’d desperately needed to banish his inner demons, and today, because of Gayle, he’d finally done it.
He had a lot to thank that woman for.
Exhausted both physically and emotionally, Gayle sat on the edge of the bed. It was a damn miracle they’d found two motel rooms, because of all the displaced people and rescue workers descending on the town. Thank God, because she didn’t know what she’d do without a safe place to tame the emotions roiling inside her.
She, Rick, and Mac had worked well into the night. Though most of the town had been leveled, there’d been only five fatalities. More could tally tomorrow. But considering the catastrophic damage and the homes without storm cellars, she knew the death toll could’ve been so much worse.
The destruction was devastating, showing how powerful this tornado had been. She’d found a roof tile embedded in a wall, and a kitchen fork driven so deep into the trunk of a debarked tree she hadn’t been able to wiggle it out—she was pretty certain this one had been an EF-5.
As she yanked off her hiking boots, a searing burn scorched her palms and she gasped. Mac immediately spun around. “What?”
She gently pressed her tender palms together. “Nothing.”
After what other people had lost today, she didn’t have the right to complain about a couple of blisters. He knelt before her and tried to take her hands.
She tugged them away. “I’m fine.”
“Baby, let me see.”
Sighing, she held them out.
“Jesus,” he hissed. “What happened to your gloves?”
“They only lasted about three hours.”
Open blisters exposed raw bleeding skin. A cut ran across one palm from a piece of twisted metal she’d lifted off a young woman. Since she kept up-to-date with her shots, she wasn’t worried about tetanus.
“Yours can’t be any better,” she mumbled at his horrified look.
He showed her his palms. He had a blister or two, a scrape here and there, but nothing like hers. “I fight, Gayle. My hands are used to taking a beating.”
“I suppose they are.” Tears pushed to be set free and she blinked, easing out a long breath.
The traumatic events of the day had festered all the emotions she normally kept carefully suppressed, and she was close to breaking down. Not surprising. She always had a really good cry after days like today. She couldn’t do it in front of Mac, though. She was so proud of him and the way he’d dealt with everything, she wouldn’t let her weakness bring him down. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“Fine, but as soon as you get out, I want to treat your hands.”
She attempted a smile. If it made him feel better…
After she closed herself off in the bathroom, she awkwardly stripped and stepped under the steaming hot water, thankfully without too much pain. But as soon as she started lathering her hair with shampoo, her palms ignited in fire and she almost cried out. Trying to massage the soap in, let alone get it out, proved futile. Anytime she curled her fingers, intense throbbing heat pulsated through her hands. Soap slid down her forehead, stinging her eyes, too. She was close to losing it completely.
“Mac!”
“What’s the matter?” came from behind the curtain an instant later, filled with concern.
That’s all it took. The day’s emotions engulfed her all at once, and a sob bubbled in her throat. She pressed her lips together, fighting to keep it contained.
“Gayle?”
When she didn’t respond, he jerked back the curtain. All she could do was stare at him, tears blurring her
vision as water from the overhead spray flowed down her body.
“Baby, are you okay?”
The sweetness of his words tore away at the last of her control. The dam burst.
She covered her face with her palms, no longer feeling physical pain, as sobs heaved out of her. Strong arms engulfed her, and she was dragged forward, her cheek meeting saturated cotton. The man had stepped into the tub with her, fully clothed, shoes and all.
Taking comfort in his embrace, she leaned into him, sliding the backs of her fingers up his back as her body shook from the force of her emotions.
What was she doing? After everything he’d been through today, everything he’d had to face, the memories that had resurfaced… She tried to pull away, reaching up to swipe at her eyes. He’d been so damn brave, and here she was being a—
He tightened his grip around her, refusing to let her go. “Gayle, you put the Man of Steel to shame. Let me be strong for you for a change.”
She hesitated for a brief moment, then she let go and buried her face in his chest and allowed herself to be weak for once, allowed herself to seek comfort from someone else—allowed herself to cry in front of someone. Really cry.
When she finally lifted her head, he didn’t say a word, just reached around her and squirted the shampoo in his palm. He turned her and massaged her scalp until there was a good lather. After he rinsed her hair, he did the same with the conditioner.
She faced him again. He gazed down at her for a moment, then cupped the back of her nape and took her lips with his. She searched for the hem of his saturated shirt, but he gently knocked her hands away and peeled it over his head. The wet fabric plopped heavily onto the tile, followed slowly—excruciatingly slowly—by waterlogged boots, jeans, and boxer briefs.
It was just the respite she needed to finish taming her chaotic emotions. As she watched him undress, a different kind of emotion filled her—need. Need and desire for this amazing man who’d put everything on the line today. She shuddered out a final breath, letting go of the pain, her heart swelling instead with love.
