Chapter 30
FIND YOU
The first step was to figure out—well, to figure out the first step.
Which was obviously to walk in the direction of the house.
But it was so hard to tell where she was in the dark.
So hard to find the way. So hard even to know if she were headed in the right direction, or had got turned around on the confusing curving streets.
“Mum?” George said. “Georgia and me are really hungry. Can we go to a café, please?”
“No, we can’t,” Scarlett said, but she didn’t sound cross this time. “Everything’s broken from the quake, remember? We’ll go home and get something to eat.”
“Yes,” Skylar said. “That’s right. I need a minute to think. Scarlett, could you hold them here a minute, please?” Keeping it firm. Keeping it normal. Like she knew what to do, and all they had to do was follow her.
“Yes,” Scarlett said. “George and Georgia, stay with me. You stay with me too, Forrest.”
Skylar stepped away. Two or three steps, that was all. Focus. Think.
First thing: her phone. The battery bar was red, and it was tiny. Five percent. She wasn’t using anything, though, so it would hold that charge a while, surely.
Surely.
She should’ve turned it off between trying those texts, back at the museum. She should’ve …
Stop. Not helpful. You do not panic. You think.
Oh. It was obvious. They needed to go north.
Specifically, they needed to go north a bit, then veer right onto Jervois Quay and walk along by the hotels, the shops.
They could find someplace to stay there.
The less damaged hotels, if there were any, might be taking people in, letting them bed down in the lobbies.
And there’d be people. People with portable phone chargers, with snacks that they might share with the kids, with information about those evacuation centers.
There had to be a way to get off the street.
Another aftershock could come at any time, and how unstable were these buildings?
The new ones would be all right—they’d have been built to standard—but the old ones? She didn’t know.
Right. North. That’s a plan.
First thing: they’d have to cross the street again, because otherwise, she could so easily miss that fork onto Jervois Quay in the dark, and then she’d have gone wrong and would be lost.
Across that busy street again, though, in the dark? How could she take the kids out into that danger a second time?
Because you have to. Harden up and do it.
She walked the three steps back to them and said, keeping it brisk, “Back across a couple of streets, and then we’re walking north, like the woman in the museum said.
” She wouldn’t use the torch anymore except to cross streets; she needed to save the battery for a text.
Please, for a text. Please, Zane. Please be OK.
It was so hard to step onto that busy roadway again, but she did it.
Stumbling along in the dark, then, sliding her feet forward to search for obstacles, because there were cracks and debris everywhere.
The night was cloudy, the moon not visible, and it was so dark.
And deserted. How could it be so deserted?
Because you’re not in the hotel area yet. Because nobody stayed around here to get washed away. Or because they were washed away.
There. There was the road curving. A cautious use of the torch to see the street sign.
Jervois Quay.
“This way,” she said. “We’re going this way.”
Six men were headed toward Wellington. Six men who hadn’t been able to reach their partners.
Jogging along the motorway, which was odd, but it was closed, and also the fastest route.
Drying mud under their trainers trying to make them slip, and the light of somebody’s torch flashing on metal.
A car, tumbled off the road. How many hadn’t known to abandon their cars and get up high?
How many were out there in the sea somewhere, or already washed up onto the shore?
They didn’t talk about it, because there was no point.
They all knew. They ran on in the darkness, following the white stripe barely visible at the edge of the road.
They’d gone about five kilometers, Zane judged.
What had he said? Seven kilometers from Ngauranga Station to the Cake Tin?
The CBD would be up ahead, but they needed to stay right for that, not make the left toward the stadium.
They’d stay right, and stay on the motorway as long as it was closed.
That would take them straight to the heart of the city.
And then what? He couldn’t think about that now. All he could do right now was keep running.
He barely registered the faint ding and buzz at first. Then he was pulling the phone from the pocket of his track pants, stopping on the road, and looking. Heart racing. Breath catching.
If you get this—carpark was buggered, so we’re walking. On Jervois Quay. Not sure how to get to the house. Will look for a hotel to stop in, or an evac centre. Phone almost out of juice. Don’t worry if this is last message.
Marko beside him, saying, “Mate?”
“Y-yeh.” The relief was trying to take him to his knees. “Skylar and all the kids. They’re … they’re OK. On Jervois Quay.”
Marko’s hand on his shoulder. “Good.”
“Nyree?” Zane asked. “The baby?” He couldn’t remember the kid’s name.
“Hotel,” Marko said. “On Jervois Quay, same as you. But I haven’t heard. She hasn’t been able to get through, I guess. They were probably in the room, though. Getting ready to go to dinner before the match.”
“If not,” Zane said, even as he typed, “Nyree will have known to get high as soon as the quake hit. And those hotels are built to quake standard. They have to be.”
“Yeh.” Marko’s feet shifted. “Get going again?”
“One sec.” Zane looked at his text.
Stay on Jervois Quay, he’d typed. It would be a bit out of their way, but how would she see where to turn in the dark if he gave her any other instruction? And with a dying mobile? No. She needed to stay put.
Oh. He added, West side of the road. Side away from the water. Find a doorway and stop under it. Wait for me. I’ll find you. And hit the button.
“Let’s run,” he told Marko.
The relief when she got that text … she didn’t have words.
Oh. She needed words. She told the kids, fighting the quaver in her voice, “I heard from your dad. He’s going to come meet us. Right here on this street. Very soon.”
Scarlett’s voice, from the dark. “Is he OK?”
“He’s fine.” She made that firm, because she was somehow sure that he was fine. That he would come, he would find them, and they’d all be fine.
The relief of not being the only one. The relief.
“We need to …” Her voice was shaking now as it hadn’t all this time. “We need to find a good solid doorway and stop there.”
“Why?” Duncan asked. “If Dad’s coming, shouldn’t we walk up to meet him?”
“No. The doorway is better. The little kids are tired.” She didn’t say, And there could be another aftershock at any minute.
There’d already been one, and she’d told the kids, “Hug the building! Hug it!” She’d stood behind them, stretched her arms wide, braced against the shaking, heard breaking glass and falling rubble around them, and prayed.
She really didn’t want to have to do that again.
“OK,” Duncan said. “I’ll walk on this side and feel for one.”
“I’ll help,” Finlay said. Almost the first thing he had said, because he’d gone nearly silent some time back. Now, though, he had a job, and a job was good.
When she had them all shoved into a deep doorway beside a shop, though, she hesitated.
They couldn’t sit—too much broken glass—but they were warmer here, sheltered from the wind, and that was better.
But they were also hidden. The occasional person hurried by, and once, a group of them, but the pavement was so broad, and it was so dark out here.
She looked at her phone.
Battery 3%.
“Scarlett,” she said, “come with me.”
Scarlett didn’t argue. She just stood up.
“Finlay,” Skylar said, “you’re in charge of keeping all the kids there. Don’t let anyone leave the doorway until I tell you.”
“I have to go to the toilet,” Georgia said. “I have to go really bad.”
“Olive,” Skylar said, “please take Georgia over to the next doorway and help her go.”
Battery 2%.
“You mean on the street?” Olive said.
“Where else is she going to go?” That was Scarlett. “This isn’t normal times. This is like war times. Just take her and let her wee. Or I will.”
“No,” Skylar said firmly. “Olive will. Not far, Olive. A few steps over, and you help her wee and get right back. Touch the wall as you go. You and I, Scarlett, are going to stand here about a meter apart, and we’re going to watch for your dad.
We’re going to watch every single person walking down the road. We’re going to find him when he comes.”
Zane was still running. Marko had gone into a hotel some way back.
Still standing, thank God, and with some dim lighting showing.
Emergency generator, that would be. Nyree was on the eleventh floor, he’d said.
His tone had been grim, his face set. Trying not to think the worst, and thinking it anyway.
Zane had put a hand on his shoulder and gripped it hard. “She’ll be up there,” he’d said. “Bound to be. That woman’s no weakling.” He hadn’t met her often, but you didn’t have to dig too deep to see the fire there. “Text me when you find her, though. Let me know.”
“Right,” Marko’d said, and gone inside. Zane had jogged on, his gaze sweeping left and right and finding nobody. And he was still doing it. Had he missed them back there? He was nearly to the end of the road. Or were they on the other side after all? Panic could keep you from thinking clearly.
A buzz. A ding. He pulled the phone from his pocket fast.
It was Marko.
All good. Thank God. Found yours?
Not yet, Zane texted back. Looking.
Need help? The answer came straight back. That was a mate for you.
Not now, Zane texted. I’ll let you know.
A thumbs-up. But all those texts had gone through. Zane found the thread with Skylar and wrote, How far up did you get? Number of streets? Number of minutes?
Nothing.
There’d been that aftershock. A bad one.
He put the phone back into his pocket and ran. Across one street. Across two. Nearly at the—
He’d turn around, that was all. He’d turn around and look again, and then he’d go down the other side of the street. He’d keep looking, and he’d find them, because he’d never stop.
Hang on, he thought. I’m coming.
“Dad!” He registered the word at that same instant the figure stepped into his path. He had his arms around her just that fast, was swinging her to stop his momentum, then coming to a stop, holding on, trying not to gasp.
“Dad,” Scarlett said, holding his jacket. “Dad.” She was crying now, great gulping sobs.
“Daddy!” Georgia, running out of the dark. “Daddy! I had to wee on the pavement, and we had to sit on the floor in the museum, and it was an earthquake, and the carpark was broken, and we couldn’t get in!”
Duncan was there, too, and then more kids, but Zane was still looking. And there she was.
Skylar.
Who was safe.
Who had kept them all safe.
He turned from his kids, took her in his arms, and kissed her. She was crying, he thought, but he couldn’t see. Crying, trying to tell him things, and unable to do it. He had one arm around her and one around some kid, he couldn’t tell which. It was cold, it was windy, and it was dark.
But they were safe.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go home.”