Page 89 of The Final Storm
“That guy plays with bear traps for fun.”
Luke and Lori go down to be with the boys, announcing that it’s growing too cold for her taste. She looks like she might be ill, and Sam’s frantic driving doesn’t help matters.
“Are we going to make it in time?” I yell over the wind.
“If we don’t, we’ll be together.”
I wrap an arm around his waist, leaning my head against his shoulder.
“We’re in this together,” I say, and hold him tighter.
I close my eyes and try to concentrate on the future to come.
Chapter 30
Underground
“Dowejustknock?”I ask.
“We don’t need to,” Sam says. “They see us.”
A drone flies overhead, unable to keep steady with the wind beating at its side. The boys cover their faces with the side of their shirts while the rain spits sideways, biting our cheeks.
Lori tries to cover Hank with her small body, and I’m using an old tarp from the ship to protect Morgan. She cried for the entire hour we walked and then fell asleep. Every time I check on her, she wails from the wind and rain, so I’m forced to trust she’s okay under there. Luke’s holding Tucker on his back, making jokes about how he’s tuckered out. The kids are too exhausted to laugh.
Sam’s holding a sort of fancy compass for navigation and a map he swiped from the Galene. I don’t understand it, and if I ask too many questions, I’ll only worry. We perched the boat up on a shore where I’m sure it won’t remain. This wind will drag it out to sea, and it took every ounce of courage I had left to step off and follow Sam and his maps.
I trust him.
We’re in this together.
We all waver in the wind in front of a clearing of land. It’s dead earth here, but everything looks dead. This dirt settles differently from the rest, and I know we’re in the right place.
The drone bobs around us, probably taking pictures, deciding our fate. Sam and Luke make hand signals in the air that I don’t understand, probably military. The drone leaves, disappearing into a hole in the earth.
“What now?” Lori says.
Sam doesn’t answer, just wraps an arm around me and pulls me close.
“Sam!” Lori repeats. Hank sits on the ground with his face on his knees, the rain pelting the back of his head.
Luke reaches an arm around her shoulders, and she tosses him off. “We have nowhere else to go.” Lori turns her face to the dark sky. “Do you hear that, you assholes? We have nowhere else to go. Let us in.”
BeLew go to her and hold her hands, one on each side. “It’s okay,” Beau yells into the wind.
She bites her lip and looks down at them, nodding. If they’ve seen something, they aren’t giving more details, not that we could hear over this chaos.
“Hello,” someone calls from the distance. It’s a man dressed in rain gear walking toward us with an obscenely large weapon. Two men flank his sides, equally full of firepower.
Sam and Luke hold up their hands and take a step forward. They spit out some military jargon I can’t hear over the rushing wind.
“Stay back,” the man says, and they both freeze. They talk, guns pointed at us, while Sam and Luke keep their hands toward the sky. Lori has all four boys at her feet.
What might be seconds feels like hours. I don’t know why this takes so long.
Let us in. The storm is coming. We’ll die.
Sam turns, and the look on his face isn’t promising. Lori sees it too, and panic crosses her face. He raises an arm to her, asking her to bring the boys over. Luke’s lowered his hands, and he’s waving them around, talking with the men. Their weapons don’t point at us anymore, but something’s not right.
