by Kariss Lynch
In a few hours dawn would break over the West Coast, and for the first time since leaving Kaylan, Nick dreaded the new day. He had no idea if he was facing a sunrise that would find Kaylan dead an ocean away. His hand dove into his pocket as the phone rang. Every eye focused on him. Micah stood in front, making sure he heard as Senior Chief ’s voice blared through the phone.
“I made some calls. Just don’t ask to who. You leave tomorrow. You will rendezvous with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit and arrive in Haiti on Friday the fifteenth. That’s as fast as I can get you there. The Marines will be in charge of getting critical supplies to the locals. As soon as you find that girl of yours, I need you back on the plane and here, you got that?”
Nick’s heart galloped, ready to board the plane. “Is there no way to get there today?”
“The government over there is in shambles and unresponsive. We are doing as much as we can to get men and supplies on the ground, but that takes coordination we weren’t planning on. The 621st Air Force Contingency Response Wing is taking over the airport in Port-au-Prince to direct traffic. You can transport supplies into the city. You’re on your own once in the city, though.”
“Yes, sir, I understand.”
“Carmichael, have you thought about what you and Richards will find over there?”
He gripped the phone tighter. “Yes, sir.”
“And you’re sure you want to go? If she’s alive, she’ll call when the lines are open. The embassy is identifying and locating all American citizens. If she’s not on a list yet, she soon will be. She won’t be one of the nameless.”
Micah shook his head hard, and Nick silently agreed.
“If you were in our place, what would you do?”
“I probably wouldn’t have asked for permission.”
“We won’t leave her there, sir. We have to know. No matter what.” Tears stung Nick’s eyes, but he rejected them.
“Then God be with ya. I hope you find her alive, son. Good luck.”
The line went dead. Nick closed his eyes and prayed for a miracle.
Chapter Eighteen
THE CRACK OF rocks falling jarred Kaylan awake. Her bruised body resettled on the floor, aching in protest. She’d fallen asleep. She couldn’t do that. She shook Sarah Beth.
“Sarah Beth? Bubbles, you’ve got to wake up.”
Nothing. The shifting of rocks continued. Another aftershock?
“Hello?”
“Kaylan?” It was Abraham. Sweet, strong Abraham. The teen’s voice shot hope through Kaylan.
“Help! We’re in here.”
She shook Sarah Beth again. The room was dim and stuffy. Kaylan wondered if it was close to sunrise. She imagined the brilliant colors peeking over the Caribbean Sea. The sky remained indiscernible through the cracks in the rubble above her head—only dust and more dust. The earthquake obscured everything. The typical calming effect of the early morning hours fell flat on Kaylan’s nerves.
“Hurry, Abe! Sarah Beth’s in trouble.”
“We are hurrying, Kaylan. People are coming to help, but everyone needs help out here. So many . . . ” He stopped, and she didn’t dare ask for more. “It may take a while. The roof collapsed, and there is much debris. Hang on. We are going as fast as we can.”
Kaylan couldn’t reply. Sarah Beth didn’t have days. She didn’t have hours. She might only have minutes. Tears pooled in her eyes, and she grabbed one of the water bottles, tipping the precious liquid into her cracked mouth. Only a little. They could still be trapped for a while.
She looked at the bottle in the dim light. Life in a bottle that hadn’t been crushed. She poured some on her shirt and smoothed it over Sarah Beth’s face and lips.
“Sarah Beth, you can’t sleep. You have to wake up.”
She stirred at the gentle touch, and Kaylan risked a little more of the precious liquid.
“Kayles?” Her thin, airy voice brought tears to Kaylan’s eyes, and she blinked them back. Sarah Beth’s usual bubbly, vivacious voice filled with life and joy and excitement was fading.
“Hey, Bubbles, thanks for joining me. I was getting bored.” She sniffed back tears and wrestled her body to a hunched position, resting Sarah Beth’s head on her arm and dribbling water onto her cracked lips. Sarah Beth coughed, flecks of blood issuing from her mouth to decorate the gray stone on her ribs. Kaylan wiped her mouth with the T-shirt.
Kaylan leaned closer to hear Sarah Beth. “What time is it?”
“I think it’s almost sunrise. I’m guessing, but it isn’t quite as dark.”
Sarah Beth nodded. “I’m so cold. The sun would feel so warm. First thing I’m going to do is lay out on the beach and find an American-sized hamburger and fries.”
“With diet pink lemonade?”
“You know me.” She drew a rattled breath. “What about you, Kayles?”
“Call my family, get you fixed up. Find some chicken fingers and gravy like Mom makes. Go for a long ride in the woods across from the house.”
“Mmm, I’ll do that too.”
Rock continued to shift, and Kaylan prayed they would hurry. She didn’t know the extent of the damage, but judging from the roof hanging a precarious few inches from her head, she guessed it could be awhile. She surveyed Sarah Beth, planning how to get her out.
“Sarah Beth, if we try to lift the rock from your chest, do you think you could roll out?” Kaylan eyed her legs lying at odd angles and wondered if Sarah Beth’s spine was broken. The blood from her mouth when she coughed warned Kaylan of broken ribs and possibly a collapsed or punctured lung. She needed help faster than it was coming. Kaylan refused to think otherwise, but her medical training wrestled with her heart.
“I can’t feel my body, Kayles. Can’t move.”
Her voice cracked. “Try, Bubbles, please try.”
“Just be with me. Hold my hand?”
Kaylan felt blindly beneath the slab until she found her friend’s fingers. Icy. Tears trickled down her cheeks.
“I can’t breathe, Kayles. Don’t waste . . . your strength. They’ll get you . . . out.”
Sarah Beth’s eyes fought to stay open, and her voice receded to the faintest whisper. Kaylan rested her forehead on her friend’s. Tears flowed freely. This was good-bye. She could feel it in her soul, and yet she rejected it. How did she say good-bye to a lifetime of memories, to the most beautiful person she’d ever known?
She remembered meeting Sarah Beth again, remembered the dance recitals and the football games with her brothers. She remembered the slumber parties spying on Micah and his friends and watching old Doris Day musicals. She remembered Pap teaching Sarah Beth to ride a horse and painting their faces for football games in college. She remembered the late-night study dates, the coloring sessions for Sarah Beth’s education classes, the flash cards where Sarah Beth made up silly acronyms for the medical terms Kaylan couldn’t pronounce. She remembered graduation day. Sarah Beth had bounced in her seat, her hat tipped to the side on her curls. She had cheered and hollered as Kaylan walked across stage and then skipped to receive her own diploma. She never cared what the world thought. Living life was what she did best, and she changed people wherever she went. She made it her personal mission to spread joy and color and the abundance of life with Jesus with whomever she met.
Kaylan’s tears drenched Sarah Beth’s forehead, and sobs racked her tired body. Sarah Beth stirred again, her free hand limply brushing Kaylan’s hair.
“Remember when we first met. You’re my best friend. You always will be. Don’t cry. Don’t be mad, Kayles. I’m going to see Jesus. He’ll dance and laugh with me.” Her chest shook, and Kaylan strained to hear. “He’s life, Kayles. Even in this. Don’t be mad.” Her hand dropped with a thud on the rocks, and Kaylan knew her nerves were numb to the pain.
Rocks continued to shift, but it no longer mattered. They wouldn’t make it in time. They waited in silence as the scratch of rocks and shouts shook the air. A hole grew in the middle of the rubble, but it wou
ldn’t be wide enough in time. Sarah Beth drew a rattled breath, and Kaylan froze, her heart stopping.
“Kayles . . . ” And Kaylan knew. It was time. She’d never imagined this day would come. Not like this. Never like this. Life would go on without her best friend, and the thought was unbearable, unthinkable.
“Bubbles, no. You can’t leave me.” Sobs racked her body, and she shouted the words as she ran her hands through Sarah Beth’s hair and onto her cheeks. “You can’t leave. You wanted to be here. We aren’t done yet. We have to go home. You have to get your burger and go riding with me. We have to dance again. You can’t leave!” She whimpered, shaking her friend ever so gently. “They’re almost here. Hang on.”
With the little strength she had left, Sarah Beth tipped her head, her blue eyes meeting Kaylan’s. Her lips brushed Kaylan’s cheek, her blood leaving a cold trace. “I love you, Kayles. Tell my family we did good. I love them. I’m going to see Jesus. I’ll . . . save you a spot.”
She coughed. More blood spattered the rock. “Don’t be mad. Jesus . . . plan even . . . in this.”
Her chest heaved and her voice was softer than wind. “Look. The sun’s . . . beautiful this morning. Do . . . do you see it?”
Her eyes closed, and her body went limp, a smile tipping her lips as she basked in the sunshine of her last moments on earth. Kaylan wept, her tears mingling with Sarah Beth’s blood. Her back ached from bending over, and her hands cramped from holding her friend, but she didn’t care. She cradled Sarah Beth’s head, rocking back and forth.
Shouting came from outside, and a loud crack rose over Kaylan’s sobs. A beam of light appeared on Sarah Beth’s face from a hole in the debris. Her tears blinded her, and she didn’t care if she ever left the room. Sarah Beth was gone. Nothing mattered.
Abraham’s head appeared in the hole, and Kaylan wanted to rage at him for being late. She couldn’t pray, couldn’t think, couldn’t speak. Sarah Beth was gone, taking laughter, beauty, and color with her. Kaylan’s sobs joined the multitudes mourning in the streets. The color had left Haiti. Dust made ghosts of both the living and the dead.
Chapter Nineteen
LEAVE ME ALONE, Abraham.” Kaylan’s feeble shoves did little to deter the teen. He shimmied over a beam and shoved rock aside to clear a path for them, but she didn’t care.
“I will not leave you.”
A mild aftershock shook the neighborhood, and Kaylan threw her arms over Sarah Beth’s head, shielding them both. Abraham covered her with his body.
“You’re going to get hurt. Just leave me.” She played with Sarah Beth’s hair, her fingers stiff and caked with dried blood and dust.
“We have to go. Your leg looks bad. Let me take you to Ms. Rhonda.”
“I won’t leave her, Abe. I won’t leave her. Sarah Beth, please come back.” Tears blurred her vision and fell on her friend’s forehead, pink skin peeking through the caked powder of settling debris. She desperately wished life were like a fairy tale and the magic of tears and love held the ability to bring others back to life. But only one Man had ever held that power. And He had chosen to take her best friend.
“Kaylan, we must go now.”
“I won’t leave her,” Kaylan yelled, the sound tearing through her body. She couldn’t see Abe through her tears.
He shook her. “Will you join Sarah Beth? You are not the only one hurt. Sarah Beth is not the only one who died.” Anger colored his voice.
She shoved against him. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Please forgive me, Kaylan.” Without waiting for an answer, his palm connected with her face just enough to get her attention. More tears colored her vision. Abe’s voice sought to soothe this time. “Get control. Fight this, Kaylan.” He shook her shoulders again. “Fight so others do not end up like Sarah Beth. Honor her. Let’s go.”
Kaylan didn’t have energy. Couldn’t process. Couldn’t leave. But Abe’s words hit the hole in her heart left by Sarah Beth. She bent over Sarah Beth again, cradling her head, sobs racking her body.
“Stevenson.” Abe’s voice drifted through her foggy mind. Another black head appeared in the small hole carved by a few Haitians. He squeezed his lanky, underfed frame through the hole and joined Abraham in front of her. Their long bodies hugged the floor to avoid scraping the precarious ceiling. Their whispered Creole did little to soothe her. The earthquake destroyed more than buildings. Her body, her heart, her soul were irrevocably shattered beyond repair.
Hands grasped her arms and gripped tightly, dragging her backward. Sarah Beth’s head slipped from her lap to the floor. Kaylan kicked and fought with her remaining energy as Stevenson and Abe hauled her to the opening and handed her to the waiting hands of the gathering crowd. Glass and rock cut her bare legs. The hot morning brought welcome light to the relief efforts but illuminated an ugly new reality. Dust choked the air.
“Take me back. I won’t leave her. Take me back.”
Abe took over as the faceless hands set her against Rhonda’s dilapidated home and moved silently to the next house, hoping to hear voices beneath the rubble. She remembered what Rhonda had told her about Haiti: it would be saved one life at a time. She had felt hope at the realization. Now, she only felt despair and despondency. Haiti wouldn’t, couldn’t be saved. This was too big, too devastating.
She blinked in the light and fought the urge to throw up the little water in her stomach. Bodies littered the streets from flying debris. The earthquake had caused buildings to explode and crumble. Hotels and other multistory buildings lay pancaked, each floor indistinguishable from the next. Arms and legs hung at odd angles where doorways had collapsed, trapping those inside. A mother lay on the ground in front of a building down the street, wailing and crying to children trapped, possibly dead inside.
She shook her head. Abe grabbed her face and checked her scrapes and bruises, then finally her leg. Nothing hurt. She couldn’t feel. Maybe that was a good thing. Sophia ran to her, wrapping her arms around Kaylan’s neck. No laughter, no dancing. Just pain, blood, chaos. The bump on Sophia’s head spoke of her own battle. It roused Kaylan as she remembered Abe’s admonition. She gently moved the girl away and checked her for any other cuts or bumps.
“Are you okay?”
Sophia nodded and leaned against her again, arousing Kaylan’s senses to the war zone around her. In Sophia’s young eyes, she saw Sarah Beth as she had once been, blowing bubbles, happy to dance. In the mother lying on the street, she saw her own desperation to save her friend. She cradled the girl close, helpless to protect or shield her.
“Abe, help me up, please.”
His look made her question her appearance. Did she look as she felt inside: one more aftershock and she would fall to pieces? Haiti had beaten her.
“Please, Abe. Take me to Rhonda. People need help.” And I need to get Sarah Beth out of that house. She would find someone to help her later.
Stevenson grasped her other arm, and she hobbled between the two boys, murmuring a thank-you. The trek to the clinic a few blocks away seemed to take hours. There were no visual landmarks: no restaurant with a green sign to let her know she should turn left, no rainbow-painted tap-tap to let her know she had arrived on a new street, no impromptu art gallery to let her know she should turn right. Bodies, shambles, and weeping swirled with the dust, blocking visibility.
Kaylan’s leg bled in earnest, and the boys formed a gurney with their hands, lifting her through the debris and potholes. A block before the clinic Kaylan knew she was close. Sheets hung from poles hastily stuck in the ground. People stretched out or sat on the dusty ground, solemn, emotionless, staring into space. Others cried and wailed. The clinic had withstood the quake, a small miracle in Kaylan’s mind, a tower of refuge in the midst of a battle-torn city. Rhonda’s red bandana-covered head traveled from person to person, helping where she could, calming. Her eyes found Kaylan’s through the heavy dust, and she rushed to meet them.
“Oh, thank God. Are you okay?”
“I’m alive.”
“Better than many, then.” Rhonda looked behind them, scanning the crowd. “Where’s Sarah Beth?”
“She’s . . . ” Kaylan couldn’t tell her. “At home.”
Rhonda’s eyes traveled between Stevenson and Abe, and Kaylan knew the moment it registered. Rhonda’s eyes shot to Kaylan’s. There were no tears left. Kaylan gritted her teeth, and Rhonda squeezed her hand.
“I’m so sorry.”
Kaylan remained silent.
“I need to get you fixed up. Can you walk?”
“I sliced my leg open on a wire or pipe in the debris.”
Kaylan understood the reason for the sheets outside. A few doctors and Haitians ran between patients. The clinic room overflowed with humanity and blood. Kaylan smelled the brine and iron of the red liquid. Only a day before the sight had marked a new life. Now, it signified death.
Rhonda shouted instructions to another doctor and motioned to her office. Several men and women stood cramped in the small room, bruised and cut. A child lay unconscious at their feet. Rhonda motioned for a man to stand up. The teens lowered Kaylan into the chair then left to dig more bodies out of buildings.
Rhonda removed the blood-soaked T-shirt from Kaylan’s leg. She didn’t wince. Pieces of glass and rock caked the wound.
Rhonda’s eyes met hers. “This wound is getting infected. I have to clean and stitch it up. You’ll be hobbling for a while, but I need you. We’re short on medicine until someone gets here with supplies, so you’re going to have to deal with this unmedicated. Can you handle it, Kaylan?”
“Do I have a choice?”
Kaylan jumped as Rhonda knelt before her and took her hands. “I’m so sorry for what you’ve faced.” Her fingers soothed the cuts on Kaylan’s hands and almost drew tears to her eyes at the first gentle touch outside Sarah Beth’s she had experienced since the earthquake. She longed for her mother, for Alabama, for Nick’s comforting arms, for Micah to carry her away.
