She laughed. “Nah. Correction’s good. Correction means he’s got his eye on you, that you’re worth his effort. I won’t be Odette and Odile, but I could be a Spanish or Russian dancer in Act Two, and a cygnet, maybe. A little swan. I’ll hope for those. I’ll work for those.”
“Not that little,” he said doubtfully. She wasn’t, actually, not compared to some of them. Fairly tall for a ballerina, if more whisper-tiny than ever, her body seeming to be made solely of tendon and the longest, leanest muscle. So her partner could lift her, and so she could lift herself. Could turn better and jump higher.
“Baby swan,” she said. “It’s a pas de quatre. Four swans dancing together. Very famous. All about being synchronized, being perfect.”
He took her word for it. “And that’s good? Doing the ... Spanish thing and the baby swan?”
“Soloist roles. Next step is principal. One more step. A big step.”
“Right,” he said. “Like being the starter versus coming off the bench.”
“Mm.” She smiled at him. “You always get it. That’s nice. And I love you rubbing my feet. Also, I love you.” She snuggled back down on the couch. “You could do it some more, if you’re not hating it.”
Ah. She was relaxing. Believing. And it was time to try again, as he did every month or so.
Casual, he reminded himself. Easy-breezy.
“When does that season start again?” he asked, as if he didn’t know. “The summer ballet one?”
“Mid-October sometime.”
“And you’re likely to have a role in it, eh. Be doing some touring up until Christmas, I reckon.”
“I hope so. Go big or go home, as you’d say. Flat to the boards.”
Here he went. “Seems to me, then, that you may want to give some consideration to that idea of ours. Moving in with me, that is.”
He wondered, as he did every time, whether he should be accompanying the suggestion with a ring. He was ready. He’d been ready. He was fairly sure, though, that it would make his job harder, not easier. Gun-shy was a thing, and marriage-shy was another. He knew by now how traumatic it had been when Rich left her at the altar. Not by what she said. By what she didn’t.
One step at a time. Determination. Patience. The same qualities that brought you back from injury. Fortunately, he had heaps of both. He’d keep showing her, and he’d keep asking.
It took him a ridiculously long time to realize that she hadn’t answered him. She was lying there, her fine hair, being grown out for a ballet bun, lying in silken disorder around her face, her chestnut-colored eyes thoughtful. And his heart picked up the pace.
He didn’t ask her again. He just looked at her and waited. Three seconds. Five. Ten. And finally, she said, “It would be so nice.”
Careful. Careful. “It would.”
“Especially when you’re with the All Blacks. Gone even more, eh. And Holly and Noelle, too. It would be better for them.”
“It would,” he said again. His sisters seemed to be drawing closer, taking ballet together, cooking with Chloe three nights a week whether Kevin was home or not. There were still squabbles, but they lacked the nasty edge he’d seen at first. And when things flared up? Chloe had a way of bringing the trouble out and helping them work through it. She wasn’t a big talker, but what she did say was good, and the example she set was better.
Call him a bad brother, though. At this moment, he didn’t care much about his sisters.
“Maybe then,” she said. “Maybe in October. So I’d be with the girls for those six weeks when you’re in Europe, and it would be easier with Zavy, too. And I’d feel ...” She hesitated. “Better. Secure, you know. And maybe you would too.”
He wasn’t rubbing her foot anymore. His hand was wrapped around her bare ankle instead, as if he could hold her that way. As if, now that she was almost within his grasp, he could hold tight and keep her. Pity it was the opposite, that he had to keep his arms open to hold her. “You’re right,” he said. “I’d feel better. That’d be the best present you could give me before the Northern Tour. Christmas come early. You and Zavy in my house? Yes.”
“I’d have six months left on my lease, of course. Could be tricky.” She glanced at him from under her lashes, a Mona Lisa smile playing around her pretty mouth. “Going to charge me rent?”
“No.” He put her foot down, reached into his back pocket, and took out his phone. “If that’s what’s been stopping you, you could’ve said. Give me the landlord’s banking numbers, and I’ll pay it off. Right now. All ... whatever. Nine months of it.”
He wasn’t doing so well on “casual,” and “easy-breezy” was a hopeless cause. Flat to the boards, exactly like she’d said.
Sometimes, you danced and wove and sidestepped. Other times, you went straight for the line, mowing down every obstacle in your way.
She was opening her mouth to tell him, and he was poised like he was about to take off and do just that. Up the guts and over the line.
Neither of them got the chance.
The lurch was so sudden and unexpected that for the first half-second, Chloe thought Kevin had somehow tipped the couch.
As quickly as she’d been tossed forward, though, she was tossed back. And everything was rattling. The window frames. The ornaments on the shelves. The couch was shaking, and it was so noisy.
Earthquake.
She watched a pot plant on the bookshelf across the room walk to the edge, teeter, and crash to the floor, the pretty hand-painted china pot shattering, the dirt spilling, scattering. And heard other, more distant crashes. The kitchen. Dishes.
Kevin was sitting up, somehow, grabbing hold of her, holding her close. More shaking. More rattling. One last crash from the kitchen. And then the rattling died down, and the night was filled with a different noise. Car alarms whooping and wailing from the street outside, offering up discordant music into the stunned silence.
She was already standing, and so was Kevin. It seemed as if her head turned to look at him in slow motion, and he said the word first.
“Zavy.”
He was at the door, grabbing his shoes and hers, bringing hers back to her. Not jandals, which would have been faster. Trainers.
“Broken glass,” he said, shoving his own feet into his shoes and going for their anoraks. “We’ll take your car. Car seat.”
She was two steps behind, literally and figuratively, his words registering a second after he spoke them. But yes. Of course. If Zavy was scared, if the damage was worse over in Mt. Eden, they’d need to bring him home. She’d insist.
Kevin headed back to the coffee table again, and she wanted to say, What? Hurry, but before she had the words out, he was back with her phone. “I’ll drive,” he said. “You ring him up.” He grabbed her keys off the hook on the wall, and they were out the door.
Various neighbors were out of their houses, talking excitedly, comparing notes, but Chloe barely saw them. She followed Kevin to her car, climbed into the passenger seat, and rang Rich’s number as Kevin turned the car around and headed for the bridge.
Good thing I chose this place, she thought, seizing on another stupid detail. Two blocks from the motorway and the bridge. Traffic was light—nobody was going anywhere, she guessed—and Kevin was clearly speeding.
More seconds went by before she realized that she was holding her phone to her ear, but it was Rich’s voicemail picking up. She said, “This is Chloe. Ring me back. We’re coming to check on Zavy. Ring me back and tell me. How he is. How it was there.”
She rang off and held her phone in her lap, staring down at it. Kevin said, “No answer?”
“No. Could be he went to bed.” It wasn’t even ten, but he had Zavy with him, and Zavy would’ve been asleep for hours. “But he’d have woken again, surely.”
“Hasn’t turned his phone on, maybe.”
“Maybe.”
Kevin said, “See if you can get something on the radio.” He was concentrating, switching lanes, just like that day when Zavy h
ad been locked in the car. Exactly like that day.
Radio. Right. She punched buttons to find a station, stopped when she heard a man’s voice saying, “... registered 5.1 on the Richter scale, and was centered ten kilometers south of Auckland. The quake’s shallow depth, barely a kilometer beneath the surface, magnified the effects, but we’re hearing reports of minor damage only. No injuries or deaths are reported ...”
“Minor,” Kevin said. “He’ll be all good. Scared, maybe. Excited, even.”
Chloe was ringing him again all the same. And getting voicemail again. She said, “It’s Chloe. Call me,” even though it was stupid. Kevin was off the bridge and headed through the city, nearly to Newmarket.
The phone rang in her hand, and she slammed it to her ear and said, “Hello? Rich?”
“It’s Mum. Goodness, what a shake. You must have felt it.”
“Yes. We’re going to get Zavy.”
“Oh. Is he frightened, then? Did Rich say?”
“No. I can’t get hold of him.”
The radio was still blaring, saying, “... landslips due to the recent heavy rains and saturated ground,” and Chloe reached to turn it down as Kevin took the exit for Mt. Eden. Finally.
Her mum said, “Be reasonable about it, Chloe Ann. Don’t put Rich on the defensive, as if he’s somehow done something wrong. Be careful about insisting on taking Zavy home, too, or whatever you’re thinking. It wasn’t really a very big quake, and Rich is doing better with him.”
“I know.” In fact, Chloe felt a little foolish now. There were fewer cars on the road than usual for a Saturday night, but more people outside, talking to their neighbors, the odd car alarm still sounding here and there. Other than that, though, everything looked completely normal. No fissures across the road, no houses at crazy angles. Some broken crockery, and that was all.
“He’ll probably just think he’s had an adventure, brave little fella that he is,” her mother said.
“I hope so.” Kevin was turning, then turning again, knowing the way even though he’d only been here twice, when he’d come with Chloe to collect Zavy after one of his weekends. Rich was still in the same condo where Chloe had lived with him, a tasteful modern affair in one of the most prestigious neighborhoods in Auckland, with the enormous extinct volcano as its back garden.
One more left turn, and they were on Rich’s street. More activity here. Much more. People milling about, though, that was all. No panic, but why all the action?
Chloe didn’t say goodbye to her mother. She just rang off. “What’s happening?” she asked Kevin.
“Dunno.” There were too many people in the road to keep driving, so Kevin pulled the car to the curb, and Chloe was jumping out even before he’d turned it off. Even so, he was beside her in an instant.
“What’s happened?” she asked an older couple. The man’s arm was around the woman. For comfort, it looked like.
“Land slip,” the man said. “Came straight down into the back garden, bang up to the house. Oddest noise you ever heard. We weren’t sure at first what it was. We got out in case there was more to come, but looks like everyone’s going back in now, eh. All over. Quite the mess to clean up. Not going to tackle that with a shovel.”
Chloe barely heard the last part. A siren sounded in the distance. Faint, but getting louder. She was hurrying along the pavement, Kevin at her side, toward the modern block at the end of the street where Rich lived. Searching the knots of people as best she could in the dark, looking for a man and a boy. And not finding them.
They were twenty meters away when she heard it. A low, deep rumble, and then a soft, dull whump. Rich’s building seemed to move, almost to jump, and there was a sharper sound, a cracking sound. And then a stunned silence.
Kevin was running, so were the others around them. People running toward the building, and people running out.
Three stories, eighteen doorways. People in blue jeans and dressing gowns, slippers and jandals and, in one or two cases, bare feet. And still no Rich. And no Zavy.
Another whomp, a different one this time. and the dark night was lit by a sudden flare. From the building. From the back.
“Gas main,” a man shouted. “Is everybody out? Who’s missing? Assemble here! Assemble!”
The brightness increased, and you could smell it, and feel it. Heat, and a smell like a campfire. Or a rubbish fire. The smell of a building starting to burn. And somebody running out from around the back of the building. Somebody in dark clothes.
Rich. Carrying something.
Chloe was running too, but Kevin was there first. Grabbing Rich by the arm, swinging him around, his voice a roar. “Where’s Zavy?”
The motion caused the thing Rich was carrying to fly out of his arms. A crash, a tinkling sound. His laptop.
“Couldn’t get him,” Rich gasped. “Smoke. Fire service is coming.” And, indeed, the siren was louder, getting closer.
Kevin was already gone.
He was running. Around the building, the way Rich had come. To the left-most apartment at the back.
The building wasn’t standing straight anymore. It was skewed, off its foundation. Just around the corner, something black blotted out the night. A wall of mud, the smell rich and loamy even over the stench of the bonfire.
The fire wasn’t here yet, though. It had started on the other end of the building. Kevin barely had the thought before he realized something else. The door to the condo was blocked by mud.
Then how did Rich get out? He looked, and had his answer. Window. Shoved open, the curtains blowing out from it like white flags.
He jumped, got his palms on the edge, heaved himself up with a mighty shove, and went tumbling inside. Into blackness. Into smoke.
Down. Get down. He dropped into a crouch, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and turned on the torch.
A king bed. Rich’s bedroom. He forced his mind into calm, and remembered. The front door, and a lounge to the left with the kitchen next to it. The other bedroom had to be to the right of that front door. Separated by the bath, probably, from the master in the corner.
He was running on the thought, still crouched low, headed for the bedroom door. Then he was through it and calling out. “Zavy! Zavy!”
He listened desperately, heard nothing, shone the torch, and found the next door. Bath, as he’d thought. He scooted inside, swept the torch around, and called out.
Nothing. Nobody.
The smoke was thicker now, making him cough, but his torch cut through it well enough to see that other door. Closed not quite all the way. He was through it, inside, sweeping the torch over the bed.
A small bed. A twin bed, the duvet rumpled.
Empty.
“Zavy!” he called, and coughed hard.
Had that been something? He called again, and heard it again, too. A whimper, surely. From the bed. But there was nobody in the bed.
Hiding.
He flung himself to his knees, to his stomach, and army-crawled, calling Zavy’s name. Shining his torch, but it was too cramped. He couldn’t see.
Another whimper. Closer. And somebody scooting forward, a sobbing little voice saying, “Kevin!”
He got hold of Zavy’s arm, and he was backing up, pulling him out into a world gone gray and black. He was coughing hard, and so was Zavy.
Mask. He yanked the boy’s pj top up and over his arms, fastened it around his mouth and nose, and tied it in the back. “It’s a mask!” he shouted over the roar of the fire as Zavy reached up to wrench it off, and Zavy stopped. Understanding, Kevin hoped. He coughed again, then did his own shirt. Fast.
Window. He had no sooner thought it before he realized that the window was blocked. That pile of mud.
Go. He leaned over and yelled in Zavy’s ear. “We’re going to stay low. We’re going to crawl. I’ve got you. I won’t let go.”
He wasn’t sure the boy heard, but it didn’t matter. He had his arm around Zavy’s middle, was tucking him tight against his body, holding
the torch in that hand, and was crawling three-legged, on one arm and both his legs, moving fast.
Faster than in the gym. Faster than in the game. Faster than he’d ever gone. Out the door, into the passage, toward that other door. The master bedroom, with a window that led to safety.
Zavy was half-scrambling, half being dragged beside him, sobbing quietly. His arms flailed as they went through the door into the bedroom, Kevin’s hand knocked against the frame, and his phone fell. With its torch.
There was light, though. A beam of light, shining across the room. He was going fuzzy, the coughing continuous, but he focused on that beam.
He followed the light. He followed it all the way, until hands were taking Zavy from him, lifting him up and out, then reaching for Kevin, dragging him up.
“Stand up,” she told him fiercely. “Stand up. Don’t you dare quit on me now.”
Chloe. He staggered, and he stood, and she grabbed his hands, set them on the sill, and said, “I’ll push you. Lift up. Lift yourself. Go. Now.” She had her hands under one of his feet, was boosting him, and he was up, out the window, tumbling down, being caught by unseen arms. And that was all.
He was lying down. He’d been asleep, and he had a cold. He was ill, and he was never ill. His head swam, and his throat burned.
Flu. He had flu. He was going to miss the All Blacks training.
The light was too bright. He wished somebody would turn down the light. It hurt his head.
It smelled bad, too. Like a rubbish fire in the country.
Fire.
He opened his eyes. He was looking at blackness. Oh. Sky. He was outside, it was night, and something was burning.
Rich’s house. The fire. Zavy.
Zavy.
He tried to sit up, but hands were there, pushing him down. Something on his face, and he felt for it, patted around it.
“Kevin. Darling. Kevin.”
Chloe. She was there, her face taking the place of the dark emptiness, the whites of her eyes gleaming, her body backlit by something. By flames. Leaping, bright yellow, as men shouted and footsteps pounded by.
Just Say Yes (Escape to New Zealand Book 10) Page 33
