“There might be more behind that shelf,” Minna said, indicating a toppled rack. “We'll look when we come back out.”
“What I wouldn't give for a grilled chicken salad.” Evelyn pushed open the door and peered inside the bathroom before committing to going in.
It looked clear.
And it dawned on her that she hadn't seen nor heard other people since awakening in the parking lot. There had been survivors risking the elements in every other city they'd passed. Maybe the citizens self imposed a curfew. She didn't think for a minute that the entire population had fled—where else would they go?
Back at the sink a few minutes later, Evelyn stared into the mirror while she washed her hands. Hollow cheeks, haunted eyes, hair a tangle around her head. Minna's reflection right next to her didn't have the same stricken look, but her sister seemed more withdrawn than usual. Suffering silently, perhaps, the consequences of her actions.
A bump at the door drew her from introspective thoughts and after throwing the towelette away, she opened it, expecting to see Rhett waiting impatiently there.
Instead a man, skin bitten to shreds, a lower eyelid drooping like someone yanked it out of place, stood there staring at her. Evelyn had no time to react before he snatched her around the throat with a hand that looked like it had gone through a meat grinder.
She grabbed his wrist with both hands and wrenched herself backward.
“Tell me how to get out of here!” he shouted.
The bugs had done a number on him. Even his hair looked frayed and half eaten at the ends. He didn't seem to know how to get out of the store without facing the wrath of the insects.
Yet the creatures hadn't done the same thing to she or Rhett or Minna. Not to this degree.
Minna came out of nowhere, landing a hard kick to his midsection and then an uppercut to his jaw that sent him staggering across the short hall, through the men's door and onto his back.
“Come on,” Minna said, grabbing Evelyn by the arm.
“What happened to him? Why does he look like that and we don't?” Evelyn asked, forgetting the food on the counter.
“I don't know. Right now it doesn't matter.”
They navigated the store much more quickly than they had going in. Hearing the man shout and struggle to get to his feet motivated them to hustle.
Crunching over the insects, Evelyn jogged through the front doors and out onto the front walk, Minna right behind her. When she glanced back, the man stood at the edge of the bug line, sobbing, tearing at his hair and his face. He looked terrified.
The bugs grew agitated with him near and started swarming over the floor toward his feet, forcing him to scramble away. Overhead, the convenience store light went on the fritz; two of the letters of the store name burned out.
“What's going on?” Rhett said, stalking around the corner.
“I don't know. There's a man in there and--”
“We should go,” Minna said. She herded Evelyn toward Rhett and they all retreated to the car.
Evelyn climbed in and slammed her door, punching down the lock with her fist. She felt Rhett stab her with a curious look while he started the car.
“The bugs attacked him differently than they did us. I don't understand it. He was all chewed up and bloody and when he tried to get past the line of bugs in there, they went after him.”
“What the hell?” Rhett frowned, confused.
Out of nowhere, a violent boom of thunder shook the car, shook the very earth, rattling windows as if a ten-point on the Richter scale just struck. A drop of rain hit the windshield. Another.
And then the heavens opened up and the deluge came down.
Chapter Seventeen
Alexandra became aware of the atmospheric change when she paused rowing to catch her breath. Glancing up, she realized she couldn't see any stars or the eerie, red moon. It was so dark still that she couldn't make out the reason those landmarks were obscured.
Differentiating between cloud cover and the night canopy was impossible.
Face tilted up, a drop of rain splattered on her cheek. Right after, a thunderous jolt ripped through the sky, unleashing a torrent that fell so hard, so fast, they accumulated a half inch of water in the bottom of the raft in under a minute. She felt it splashing up against her legs.
Concerns of sinking, again, overrode the dilemma of being lost on the ocean without knowing whether they were rowing in circles or toward land.
“We're going to have to bail water out, or we're going under,” Dracht shouted.
“With what? There is nothing! It's coming down too fast to bail.” Lightning streaked overhead, terrifyingly bright and vicious. Thunder followed less than a second behind it and Alex swore she could feel the vibration of it straight to her very bones.
This wasn't just any storm. It was a powerhouse of fury, hammering the earth with spikes of rain that started to sting against the skin.
As good of shape as she was in, her shoulder muscles burned from the incessant rowing. None of that mattered when she stabbed the oar into the ocean and put all her strength behind each stroke. Realistically, she knew it wasn't going to help. The rain came down relentlessly, up to her ankles, her calves, lapping at her thighs. So much rain that she could barely see Dracht across the three feet of raft that separated them.
Already the bottom of the raft sagged under the extra weight and battering downpour. During a strobe of lightning, she saw Dracht with one of his boots in his hands, frantically scooping rainwater out of the bottom to dump it over the side. He scooped, bailed. Scooped, bailed.
At first she thought he might be onto something. Even if they could both use their shoes, if they bailed as fast as they could, they were still going to sink.
It was inevitable. Undeniable. Inescapable. The only thing they bought with it was a little more time. They couldn't row and bail, which meant the raft made no progress toward shore. Any shore.
Realizing the futility, Dracht stopped bailing. Alexandra stopped rowing. They stared at each other in the darkness, faces dripping, chests heaving for breath. Every time the lightning raced through the sky she caught a glimpse of his eyes. She read the same frustration she felt, understood his impotent anger. Alexandra had the irrational urge to beat at the raft with the oar, to scream at the heavens about the unfairness of it all.
The deviation from self control was a shock to her system. Any time life had thrown an obstacle at her, she'd found a way to deal with it or cope. Never before had she felt so useless regarding her own immediate future. Fighting greedy cabals was one thing; fighting this was another.
“What if we fold the raft into itself? If we can get enough water out, maybe we can bring the two sides together and lash them with the rope. It'll be like one of those banana boats, we'll have to straddle it, but we'll stay afloat rather than sink. What do you think?” Dracht shouted over the storm.
Dracht's ingenuity brought her mental rantings up short. Here she'd been lamenting their situation and he'd been thinking of a way around it. That was usually her talent. Her mind worked over his plan, and she found few flaws with it. What they ended up with wouldn't be anything beautiful, wouldn't win any prizes, but it was a shot at staying alive.
“Hurry, Alex. What do you think?” he urged. The raft was filling faster.
“Yes! Let's try it!” Sliding her hand out of the wrist strap, she tossed the oar into the middle of the raft. Yanking off one of her hiking boots, leaving the soaked sock on her foot, she started using it to scoop water out.
Five minutes later, with both of them bailing for all they were worth, Alexandra realized they were only holding steady. The level didn't rise—but neither did it fall. They were purging what fell.
“It's not enough. Get into the water, let's tip it over!” Dracht shouted a moment later. He too must have realized it wasn't going to work.
Alexandra struggled to put her shoe back on, grabbed the oar, and was about to slip into the water when Dracht stopped her.
“No. Wait. Grab your side, get the rope, and on the count of three, lurch my way. I'll sink this side at the same time. I don't think we'll be able to flip it if we're outside. Too much water in here.” He gestured while he shouted over the raging thunder.
“Okay!” She saw immediately what he was going for. Wrapping her fingers in the rope, holding onto the oar with the other, she listened for the countdown.
“One. Two. Three!”
Alexandra threw all her weight to the other side. The rope threatened to scrape off the skin of her fingers when the raft didn't want to flip at first. Dracht went into the water, flooding that side, and finally they went over with a splash. She wound up under it, treading water. Dracht surfaced under there with her where they had a little shelter from the rain.
Small, riotous waves lapped at her chin.
“All right. Now we have to pull the sides together. Might be easier to just do it from under here and spare ourselves the rain right now,” he said.
“Bring the sides in and tie them off. I can hold both while you do it—I don't have a knife to cut the rope though.” She'd lost everything when the yacht sank.
“There's a release at one end.” He dropped the oar and let it float on the surface.
Alex released hers as well. She needed both hands for this. Dracht grunted when he pulled one side in, forcing the raft to buckle down the middle. Alex drug her side toward him, muscles straining, legs thrashing underwater to give her the leverage she needed.
Dracht popped the catch on the rope and wound it through the loops on the sides, almost like tying a shoe; back and forth, yanking and pulling and struggling.
Alex did her part by holding the sides together as he went, sure at any second the pressure was going to rip her arms right out of their sockets.
When he was done, there was no room to stay beneath. Alexandra grabbed the oars and ducked under, swimming to the outer side. Surfacing, she spit water out of her mouth. The raft bowed up in the center, listing slightly to one side. But it was floating and in no threat of being sunk by too much rain. It ran off the second it hit the surface.
The plan worked.
Now to get atop it.
That was definitely going to be difficult.
Dracht came up beside her, blowing out a breath. “I'm going to go around the other side and hold it down while you climb on. Once you get up there, you're going to have to lean one way while I get on so we don't flip it over.”
“All right, I got it.” She nodded her understanding.
A moment later she heard him shout from across the raft. With nowhere to put the oars, she let them float, confident they could retrieve them when they were settled. Hands slipping over the rubbery surface, she tried to find something to hold onto. The top of the boat had been the bottom and there was nothing to hook onto. Yanking her side down, she toed a foot onto the lip and hauled herself up, mounting it almost like she might a horse. With less grace to be sure. She grabbed for one of the oars.
“I'm up!”
“Lean to the other side!” he shouted.
Alex worried she might slip right off. It was so slick beneath her that it felt like she might slide off anyway. Leaning, using her other leg to anchor atop it, she felt Dracht lurch himself up and over. He flopped like a landed fish first, an ingenious idea, then swung his leg over and waited until she'd straightened to grab his own oar.
Against the odds, they were on it. The lopsided tilt wasn't comfortable, and a strong wave might throw them right over, but they were finally out of the water and not in immediate danger of sinking. Legs straddled, she dipped her oar in and started rowing.
Above them, the ferocity of the storm increased.
***
First bugs, now rain. The windshield wipers madly swiped away water on the highest speed available. Evelyn still couldn't see. Between the pitch black night, the absolute barrage of rain, visibility dropped to less than two feet beyond the bumper.
Holding onto the dashboard with both hands, Evelyn squinted.
“I can't see a thing.”
“You're not the only one.” Rhett muttered under his breath, driving at a snail's pace.
The rain pelted the ground so hard that out her side window, Evelyn could see the insects pop up off the ground like they were frying on a griddle. Their slight weight was no match for the driving needles.
They managed to get out onto the main street after leaving the convenience store and had gone maybe three blocks, by her estimation. So far, they hadn't seen another person either driving or out on the street. Evelyn couldn't blame the population for seeking surcease inside from the elements.
“What did Father Valanzano say?” she asked, glancing at the GPS which was miraculously still working.
“He said he'd been in touch with Dragar. Roman and Christian are with him at another safe house in Athens. They're riding it out the last Valanzano heard,” Rhett said.
“Did he say anything about all this?” Evelyn asked, gesturing indicatively at the unfolding nightmare around them.
“Of course he did. He picked my brain but I didn't really give him too much information. Doesn't matter who's listening in, there's only so much I'm going to say on the phone. I told them to prepare for the worst.”
“As you should have,” Minna added from the back seat.
“If we can just get to Ashrael, I know he'll help us fix it. If the Sixth Seal isn't broken, then these storms should pass and nature will get back to normal.” Evelyn heard the doubt in her own voice. She didn't know anything for sure other than Ashrael would at least hear them out when they got there.
She hung all her hopes and dreams on the Guardian and her faith in his abilities was enormous. Ashrael, always the understanding and compassionate one where the girls were concerned. Which didn't mean he was a push over by any stretch of the imagination. A more honor driven soul she'd never met. Ashrael's defense of the Garden, of all things sacred, was legendary.
“I don't think anything will ever get back to the normal we all once knew,” Rhett said, making a cautious right turn. The headlights shined off several cars through the downpour that blocked the road.
“Shit. We're going to have to go around.” Rhett craned looks all around out the windows.
Minna did the same, scanning the night for an alternative.
“Look, there's a driveway to a parking lot that might have an exit on the other side.” Evelyn spotted the way in and pointed to it.
Rhett swung the BMW into the driveway and cruised through the lot. Cars sat in spaces, either abandoned or forgotten by their owners. Lights from surrounding buildings illuminated the rain, turning it silver and yellow. Rhett navigated the lot and pulled out the other driveway, bypassing the cars left in the road from an accident.
Over compensating, the front wheel struck the curb and bounced off. The tires splashed through a heavy layer of water that had started to collect on all the roads. Deeper in some places than others, he slowed to cruise through puddles that would shortly become small lakes.
“Look. There's the sign for the highway. If we can get on it, I think we'll have an easier time,” he said. The sign, in two languages, was clear of insects from the rain.
The storms were good for something after all.
Rhett swerved them onto the ramp, accelerated to twenty miles an hour, and headed south toward Aswan.
***
The torque on her torso from centering balance on the modified raft became a torturous, unbearable pain. She had to lean forward at an angle while rowing, straining her spine, her thighs, her neck. Alexandra, never a whiner or complainer, suddenly sat up and dropped her chin to her chest. Laying the oar over her thighs, she sat there in the unrelenting rain, praying for patience. For more strength. For a throat full of saliva to swallow.
She needed water.
Her tongue felt swollen and strange. Letting go of the oar, she cupped her hands together and caught a puddle in her palms. The small swallows she pulle
d in were heaven.
“You alright?” Dracht asked behind her.
She could feel him still straining, still dragging the oar through the water. He sat at least a foot behind her on the awkward raft. She nodded, lying. Alexandra didn't feel all right at all.
The seriousness of their situation, the pain she was in, the brutal weather—it hit a pinnacle, testing her faith in herself, her beliefs, challenging what she knew about her own strength and tenacity. She was not a quitter. She did not give up or give in without a fight.
Right at that moment, she wasn't sure she could drag the oar through the water another time or keep herself on the raft because sinking into the water would just be easier. She'd rather float than endure another second of searing, burning, aching pain.
The raft shifted dangerously, causing her to wobble warily. For all her adamant thought of dumping herself in, she recognized her instinct to stay out of the water.
Suddenly, Dracht was right behind her, thighs parted around her hips, strong arms encircling her in a bear hug. He spoke quietly, right next to her ear.
“I know it hurts. Burns. I feel it, too. And I know it seems hopeless—we can't see, have no idea where the hell we are, and there's little chance anyone will find us. I know. But I also know we're going to get through it. Somewhere, there's an end to the upheaval. It's not death.”
Shocked at his astute perception, Alex didn't fight off the hold around her body, didn't shake him away. The timbre of his voice was pleasant in her ear and his heat a welcome sensation along the length of her back. She dared to relax, bowing her spine into him, letting him bear some of her weight.
He accepted her in, holding her tighter, balancing the raft for them both. She hated her moment of weakness, but Dracht did not exploit the knowledge. He knew what a rough and tumble, self-assured person she was and that he only offered comfort in her time of personal crisis raised her respect for him exponentially.
Dracht gave the Templar name the honor it deserved. Selfless, driven, determined. He was all those things and more.
“Thanks.” The humble bit of gratitude barely penetrated the sudden howl of the wind. It blew at them from the west, driving the rain sideways. She hunched up a shoulder against it and ducked her head further.
Daughters of Eve Collection (Books 1, 2 & 3) Page 42
