by Kayce Kyle
The power flickers once more and finally goes out altogether. I wait for a few seconds for the generator to kick in, but it never does.
The loud repeated bangs on the roof from the hail sound like Godzilla himself is trying to rip my house apart. Suddenly, there’s light from within the closet and it’s coming from the flashlights Clara and Sidney brought in here.
“Why the fuck is the generator not working?” I belt out.
“Honestly, my brother builds this fortress of a house, and he doesn’t bother to build a storm shelter? And, have y’all even used the generator, Jenalyn?” Vanna asks.
I stop to think about her question and realize that well, no, we haven’t. “No. We haven’t had a reason up until now I suppose. That’s a ‘man thing’ anyway. How’s that supposed to be something I know anything about?”
“I’m scared, girls,” Tess says.
“Everyone needs to just try and stay calm. If not for yourselves, then for these babies,” Clara tells us.
My house begins to shake with such force, that even I want to cry at this point. I just want Justice here.
The sound of Vanna singing as she rocks Cami back and forth, holding her head closely to her chest breaks free.
“The itsy-bitsy spider, crawled up the water spout,” she begins, as she looks over at me and I can’t help but be slightly amused at her choice in lullabies. That song is sort of a thing from our past that we haven’t really shared with the others. Although the memory to go along with it is somewhat disturbing, it’s ours nonetheless, and to my surprise, it seems to be calming Cami down.
Tess and I chime in and before we know it, the destruction and devastation surrounding us is momentarily forgotten. The three of us are sitting on the floor rocking the kids back and forth as we sing along, doing the hand movements to show them what’s happening.
By this time, I’m fastly becoming drenched in sweat, and I know the others are too. Worried about Stormie seeing as how she’s eight months pregnant, I look over at her to see her gulping down a water. There is something different looking about her, and I can tell by her inability to get comfortable that something’s not quite right.
“You okay, Storm?” I ask her and my tone comes out a bit more frantic than I had intended it too.
“I’m fine...I,” she stops and clenches her round belly before she cries out in obvious pain. “I’ve got some serious cramping going on!”
Sidney quickly finds her feet and starts hollering out orders. “Pillows and towels, now!”
Both my brows arch. Pillows? Towels? Surely this isn’t really about to happen right here in my closet, and during a fucking tornado? I am in no way prepared to help with the possible delivery of any baby, especially in my closet.
“Ouch! Fuck!” Stormie hollers out again.
I would make a horrible midwife, because I’m frozen like a statue. Clara grabs several pillows from the shelves in my closet, and Vanna passes Cami off to me and she crawls in my lap and buries her tiny head against my belly. I wrap my free arm tightly around her as I watch Vanna grab some clean towels. Yes, I’ll admit, for a fleeting moment I inwardly cursed the thought of my solid white towels being forever ruined with blood, and all that comes out of a woman during childbirth. Snapping back to the task at hand, I remind myself those are replaceable items, and Stormie and her baby are not.
Sidney and Clara begin to situate Stormie with the pillows into a more comfortable position. On Sidney’s order, they roll Stormie onto her left side and again, she cries out in pain.
“Vanna, Clara, I need you two to get over here with several of those flashlights. I need to check her cervix for dilation,” Sidney states, as she begins to remove Stormie’s shorts. “Fuck!”
“What is it?” Tess asks.
Sidney looks at me. “Where do you keep the lube?”
“Pardon?” I ask her, stunned at her question.
“I need it to check her cervix, Jenalyn.” Sidney looks up at Clara. “We need some hand sanitizer, rubbing alcohol, something. You might have to venture out and into the bathroom.”
“Like hell,” I interrupt, “I’ve got an emergency first-aid kit in here with just about anything you can think of. No way in hell is Clara going out there!”
I stand, taking both of my babies over to Tess. “Go to auntie Tess,” I tell Cami. “Think you can handle three kids while I search for lube and grab my first-aid kit?” Well, those are two things I never thought I’d use in the same sentence.
Tess nods her head to gesture yes, and I place Leo in her free arm as Cami crawls into her lap.
“I know where your first-aid kit is. I’ll get that,” Vanna says, before the rumbling of what I can only describe as Satan unleashing demons rips through my home.
“I’ll get the...lube,” I say, before the wrath gives my house such a beating things begin to fall from the shelves. “Cover their heads!” I holler out, looking back over my shoulder to Tess, noticing she’s already crouched over and doing just that.
Turning my gaze back to the task at hand, I hear Stormie scream out yet again. I know that scream, and it’s a good indication of a woman feeling like she’s being ripped in two. Yep, she’s got to be in labor. My hands are shaking, but I find my treasure chest and pull it down.
I begin to dig through it before Sidney starts yelling for me to hurry. Fuck! My hands are sweaty, and I’m shaking and trembling so bad I’m certain the lube is going to just slip right out of my grasp. Inwardly I begin to cuss myself as I read off the labels.
“His and hers. Nope. Warming sensation. Nope. Anal ease. Nope. Fuck,” I mumble these words underneath my breath. Never did I imagine in my wildest dreams I’d be digging through my toys and lube during a fucking tornado. “Astroglide! Yes!” I shout, as I pull it out and toss it to Sidney as she glares at me impatiently waiting. “What?” I ask her as I feel my cheeks begin to blush. “Hey, don’t any of you bitches judge me. I’ve seen Tess’. That shit puts mine to shame and rivals any collection a porn star probably owns.”
“Hey!” Tess scoffs at me.
Clara, Vanna, and myself have flashlights and Sidney orders us to get down on her level with the light as she slides a pair of gloves on and lathers them up with lube. I desperately want to apologize to Stormie for being all up in her lady bits like this, but I just aim and turn my head away.
“Um, girls, I have no service on my phone,” Tess informs us.
“That’s awful, Tess, but can’t you see we have more important matters at hand right now?” I tell her sarcastically.
“Me, either,” Clara says, “And we need an ambulance...something,” she says frantically.
“She’s four centimeters dilated, and fifty-percent effaced,” Sidney blurts out. “Baby is definitely trying to make an appearance, but she’s not so far progressed yet so we might have hope if we can get service on any of our phones.”
I turn my flashlight to Vanna who is sweating profusely, and looks pale. “Water! She needs some water,” I belt out.
Clara grabs Vanna’s chin and pry’s her mouth open and begins pouring some into it. Next, she takes another washcloth and pours some on it and places it on Vanna’s neck. Savanna slumps down against the wall and I notice some of the color come back to her face.
“This is why I’ll never have kids,” she tells us, causing the closet to erupt in laughter.
I kneel down, eye level to her. “Never say never.” I pat her shoulder.
“Anyone getting any service?” I ask.
Different variations of ‘no’ can be heard except for Sidney. “Yes! I’m calling for an ambulance,” she says as she begins to dial out. Pulling her phone away from her ear, she scrunches her nose and a look of displeasure takes formation on her face. “Busy? Fucking 911 is busy? Since when?”
The wind is still loud and growling its anger at us as the large balls of hail continue to pound away at my roof. I check my phone again and I notice I have service, but I’m not sure for how long. I try 911, but also
get a busy signal. So, I take advantage of what time I have and try calling Justice, only his phone goes straight to voicemail. Shit. I bet their service is cutting in and out, too.
“Anyone else able to get through to any of our men?” I ask, “looks like they’ll be our only hope since the emergency line is busy. Stormie, you just hold that baby in there as long as you can.”
She looks up and replies to my last statement with a death glare, telling me all I need to know. I’ve been there, so that probably wasn’t an appropriate thing to say in that moment. Tucking my proverbial tail between my legs, I look back down at my phone to notice I no longer have service.
“Um, Jenalyn,” Clara says, catching my attention.
“Yeah?”
“Water’s beginning to come in underneath the doorway.”
I glance down and see that water is, in fact, starting to slowly stream in. Fuck, guess I’m going to be buying even more towels than I originally anticipated. I grab a few more off the shelf and push them under the door to stop the water from coming inside the closet.
“I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but it’s leaking in from the ceiling too, Jenalyn,” Tess tells me, and I follow her gaze over to the corner where my clothes and shoe collection is. I look around at my huge-ass closet and see the plastic pails that I bought for something and grab them, placing them on the floor to catch the drips. It’s the best I can do right now, but at least it’ll hopefully keep us all a little drier. When we make it out of this fucking nightmare, I’m insisting we build a storm shelter.
Intermittently Stormie hollers out in discomfort and we take turns giving her sips of water, and wiping her face with a cool, damp cloth.
All three kids begin crying again, so I go relieve Tess to console my babies.
Sidney checks Stormie again, and no more progress has been made to Stormie’s dismay and my relief. Sidney tries to give Stormie some Tylenol, but she pushes her hand away. “This shit doesn’t help with a fucking hangnail, there’s no way in hell it’s even touching the discomfort I’m in right now.”
“You know, there’s a story behind Stormie’s name, and I bet you can guess how she got it,” Clara begins, “she was born during a severe storm just like this. Of course, I was at my midwives, and we also lost all power.”
“If it feels like this and I’m only four centimeters dilated, I’m probably going to die the further along I get. Joker’s ass is the luckiest fucker alive right now, because if he were here, he’d no longer draw breath,” Stormie tells us and we all giggle before she screams out again as another contraction hits.
I catch myself rolling my eyes and look around to make sure nobody noticed, but Tess did and she makes sure I can read her lips as she silently calls me a ‘bitch’.
I narrow my eyes at her and flick my head to one side quickly, letting her know I don’t care.
“Okay, I’m not sure how this happened, and delivering babies isn’t my specialty, but Stormie’s one-hundred percent effaced and six centimeters dilated. Girls, we’re going to be delivering a baby here fairly soon,” Sidney informs us.
If I could click my fucking heels three times and wake up from this nightmare, that’d be great. No way to get a hold of emergency when we do have service, and to top it off, we can’t even get a hold of our men. I’ve never in my life been so frightened as I am right now. Not only does Stormie’s baby’s life hang in the balance, but we have no idea if our men are alive or dead.
I look around my barely-lit closet and amongst the kids all crying, see tears streaming down Tess, Vanna, and Stormie’s faces. Sidney and Clara are the true heros right now, and I don’t know how they’re holding it together. I want to be strong right now, and as much as I try, I fail. A slow but steady stream of tears roll down my cheeks and pass over my lips as the salty substance enters my mouth. Justice, please get to us. Please be okay I think to myself as I squeeze our babies close and pull them into my embrace.
Chapter Fourteen
Cara
“Where are Luca, Lily, Landon and Layne at?” I ask DJ as I’m in the kitchen helping her get a stock of non-perishable food gathered to take downstairs and into the storm shelter. Thank goodness for Nan and her quirky ways of thinking, because none of the men had ever thought about protecting the club and family against storms of this magnitude.
“Nan and the prospects ushered all the kids downstairs when we first got here. You’re late to the game, sweetie,” she tells me. It’s not my fault Braxton kept me ‘busy’ at the office while everyone else was rushing here. I can never say no to my man, and apparently that goes for times when we should be following the yellow brick road to safety. I can’t help but think that I’m a bad mother for not being here when my children arrived. I need to see them and hold them in my arms before I’m secure in the thought that they are actually okay and in one piece.
“Blame Braxton and his second brain, it always is on top of his priority list. We could’ve been in a storm tunnel and he’d still be attached to me,” I reply.
“Listen to you getting all bitchy and shit, good for you.” Leave it to my bestie to see the silver lining. She’s always wanted me to be more vocal and stand up for myself and she picks now of all times to give me a high five on my vocabulary.
“We need to get this stuff boxed up and moved downstairs, I want to see and hold my babies.”
“I do too, but we need to make sure we’re stocked well in case it’s awhile before we can get back up here. You know the kids and men are always hungry and I personally don’t want to deal with some hangry assholes while being stuck in a room with only four walls to look at and no escape in sight.”
“Have you heard from any of the other women from the Texas chapters? I’m worried about them as well. I’ve had a chat with Jenalyn a few times and from what I can remember they’re located in the eye of the storm.”
“Been a little busy, haven’t had time to pick up my phone and check on anyone. They’re a smart group of women though, I’m sure they’ll be fine, mama bear.”
“Did you just roll your eyes at me? You know how I am, I can’t help but worry. They’re our friends and I want them all safe and sound.”
“We all feel that way, but right now all we can do is worry about ourselves and our families. I’m not trying to be a selfish bitch here, don’t get me wrong, but we need to make sure ours are okay before we put our attention elsewhere.”
“You’re right, I know you are, but DJ, we’re not in the eye of the storm. We’re only expected to get the backlash of the storm.”
“And the ‘backlash’ that you’re referring to has been known to take a life or two before. I get your worry and concern, the faster we get this stuff packed up and downstairs the quicker we can check on our friends.”
“Fine, but as soon as that’s done I’m making a post and asking them all to check in,” I tell her.
“And I’ll be right by your side when you do, now let’s get this shit done and stop talking about it already,” she sighs.
“Wow! You sure are bitchy today.”
“Just today?” Trinity walks into the room to join us and I give her a high-five. See, I’m not the only one who’s noticed the horns that have popped out of her head more often than not the last couple of weeks.
“Watch yourself over there, Miss Trinity,” DJ states.
“Or what?” Trinity asks her, and my head is going back and forth as I watch the two begin to verbally spar.
“Good for you, look honey, our girl is growing up,” DJ says and I begin to laugh at her. Trinity has grown a bit of a backbone since she started hanging out with us, but honestly that’s all DJ and her influence over all of us.
“Oh for fuck’s sake, let’s get done what needs doing so we can get settled downstairs,” I state. Enough is enough and as the president’s old lady, it’s time for me to reign shit in, especially since we’re gonna be spending ‘quality’ time with one another.
“I posted on the site telling eve
ryone to let us know they were safe,” Trinity says. “Figured that way, they’d know we’re getting shelter and would check in when we could.”
“Any replies yet?” I can’t help but ask.
“Not yet. Oh, and I made sure to plug in everyone’s phones and electronics where they were laying around downstairs. Bandit sure had a helluva idea putting in that charging station and making sure there were cords and stuff,” Trinity says. She’s right, it was a brilliant move because even though I know we’ve got a generator, it’s minimal and will allow us to have the refrigerator that’s now downstairs and lights. We need to make sure that our phones are fully charged.
“He’s definitely something,” Hannah replies, grinning, as she walks through the door. Yeah, she’s got that freshly-fucked look and I hope that holds her until we’re out of here. The guys may have sectioned off areas for each family, but the walls are still thin and none of the kids need to hear the sex sounds that any of us make. The thought alone has me blushing.
“I think we’ve got everything we’ll need to tide us over,” DJ tells us.
“Then let’s go down and let the prospects know so they can come and haul all of this for us.” These things are heavy and there’s no way I can lug them myself and I know that the other women can’t either.
Once we reach downstairs I notice the kids are all sitting in front of a television watching some cartoons. They didn’t even notice we weren’t there, good thing we’ve raised them to be independent and self-reliant, well as much as they can at their young ages. “Braxton!” I holler out.
“Yeah?” he says, preoccupied.
I call out his name again and this time he gives me his full attention. “The boxes are packed, we need someone to go up and get them.”
