Chapter Seven #2
“Jump down here, climb over the car and run as soon as you hit the ground,” she yelled, the siren continuing to wail in the background. “Whoever has the keys to the annex go first. We need to take shelter now!”
If there had been only a few people stranded on the bus, then she would have found a way to get them in her car to drive away. But true to what Price had said, there were eleven people crowded inside.
Their best bet was to use her car as a bridge and then run like there was no tomorrow back to the research annex.
She hoped.
Lloyd must have agreed. One glance at the water still going strong around the bus and he was shouting for someone behind him.
A second later a small woman appeared in the doorway.
Speed was the name of her game. She was on the hood of Rose’s car with keys held high on her hands.
“I—I have the keys,” she huffed out, scrambling to Rose’s outstretched hand. When they connected, she pulled the woman easily up the windshield.
“The water isn’t as deep behind the car,” Rose said, pointing to the area just past the trunk. “Be careful and haul ass once you’re down!”
The sound of wind combined with an eerie humidity in the air. The radar played on repeat in the back of Rose’s mind. There was a tornado on the tracker…and that tracking hadn’t been that far away from their road.
The tornado could still turn, though.
It could still dissipate.
It could—
The sound of snapping trees sounded in the distance.
Rose couldn’t see past the bus but there was no ignoring the new urgency.
The people on the bus seemed to feel it too.
Up until then Rose had never met any of the Camden Pharmaceutical staff, and while their storm-panic was the reason they were all out there now, she had to admit once the crisis had a clear plan, they executed it with surprising efficiency.
Lloyd funneled people around him and down onto the car, Rose helped them over the windshield and roof, and an older woman named Claudia stood in the water just past the trunk, helping those through the transition to the non-flooded part of the road.
Once the Camden people’s feet found solid ground? They ran like the devil was on their heels.
Which, maybe he was.
Rose heard the horribly familiar sound of a tornado headed their way.
They were out of time.
“We have to go,” she yelled up at Lloyd. “Now!”
Lloyd disappeared back into the bus.
Rose was dumbstruck.
A heartbeat went by.
Then another.
It was too much.
“Hey!” she yelled, but her words were ripped up into the cacophony of sounds bearing down on them.
What happened to him?
Rose couldn’t just wait around to find out.
Adrenaline coursing through her veins, she slid down the windshield and made quick work of shuffling to the edge of the car hood. She could now see into the bus.
That was when she first saw Derrick Tillman.
Unlike Lloyd, he was on the shorter side and not at all lean. He was muscular—tattoos lined the muscles visible from the short-sleeved shirt he wore with jeans. He was undeniably younger than Lloyd.
And he was also undeniably much angrier than the man.
“Hey!” Rose yelled.
Neither man seemed to listen to her as Derrick lunged down the aisle at Lloyd.
They were shouting but she couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying.
She thanked years of exercise and somewhat decent balance and threw herself up and through the emergency exit. By the time she was standing inside of the bus, the men were already exchanging hits.
“Stop,” she ordered, closing the space between her and the scuffle. “What are you guys doing? We have to go!”
Lloyd was closer, so Rose used every bit of her strength to pull him backward first. The move worked and he groaned as he broke from the fight and hit the floor.
The bus lurched in tandem with the power shift.
Rose yelled back to Lloyd to run.
This time, he listened.
Derrick, however, swayed.
Rose’s interference in the fight had left him off-balance. He was going to fall. Rose, the only person left behind, started to reach out on reflex.
But that was when she saw it.
That was when she saw his face.
His expression.
His…rage.
And it made her pause.
It was a brief whisper of a moment. The space between two breaths.
Yet, it made all the difference.
Derrick hit the ground. Rose reached for him again. She hooked her arm around his, and pulled him up. It was a sloppy attempt made even more awkward by the disparity in their sizes. Still, they stood and started moving.
Rose was at the opening first and let go to drop down onto the hood of her car. Lloyd was still there. He reached out to steady her but she was turning around to face the bus, her hand already outstretched.
But the bus wasn’t there.
And neither was Derrick Tillman.
* * *
Now
ROSE SHIFTED. JAMES SAW it in the change of her posture as she came to the ending of the story. He felt it beneath his hand too. Like her body had given in to absolute and unwavering defeat.
That defeat was punctuated by a voice he wouldn’t have recognized as belonging to the wildcard deputy, had he not been looking at her lips as she spoke them.
“The tornado barely missed us, but it was close enough that the damage was severe,” she wrapped up.
“The bus and the trees around it never stood a chance. Along with the floodwaters, it went from right there to—” Her gaze seemed to hollow.
She let out a breath and continued the thought.
“—to over a hundred yards away. Lloyd and I were lucky. He pulled us into my car and the only damage it took was a cracked window from debris. That’s why everyone became so obsessed with my car.
It survived a flood and tornado, but not the bus. ”
Rose’s voice deflated to complete lifelessness.
“And not Derrick either. Once the dust had settled, we found Derrick. He was still inside the bus. He didn’t make it.”
James watched as the usually animated woman seemingly shut down completely. Without her saying it, he knew she was done with the story. Not only done now but maybe would never tell again.
Still, he felt the need to make some points he felt she was missing.
“Derrick’s death wasn’t your fault,” he underlined first. “Unless Wildcard Rose has some tricks up her sleeve that I don’t know about, you can’t control the weather and that goes doubly for the bad parts.
In fact, it seems to me that you could have left anytime.
Instead, you stayed. You thought quick, acted quicker, and gave those people a chance. ”
James applied pressure down on her thigh. He used it and his hand to turn the rest of her body around with the chair.
Rose’s eyes were dark. They also felt warm. James stared into them now, head-on.
“Your car could have stalled or been swept away. But you made it a bridge. Those fully grown adults could have figured it out from there—jump on the car, cross the worst part of the water, and run back to cover—but you stayed. You held hands so feet could move easier. You kept calm so others had more space to panic. You jumped into a worse situation and tried to make sure everyone came with you when it was time to go.”
James didn’t know Rose well enough to keep touching her—he knew this in the back of his mind, the same thought when he had first touched her leg—but now he wasn’t sure how else to get through to her.
So he moved his hand to the side of her face.
It was so small in his palm.
“Loss always hurts. No matter if it was by your hand or not.” He tilted his head a little and also smiled a little. “I saw the recording that the Camden lady took of you helping them off the bus. But I wonder if you ever watched it. All of it, I mean?”
He wasn’t surprised that Rose shook her head to that. She didn’t seem the type to watch something people praised as being her heroic moment. Especially when all she saw was the loss of Derrick.
“She was still recording when they made it back to the annex. It was mainly just sounds of the storm and sirens and panic but if you listen carefully, you can hear someone getting a call out in the background. It was to their mom. They said they were scared but that it was okay too. Because help had shown up.”
He ran his thumb along her cheekbone and upped his smile.
“You risked your life to try and give eleven people a better chance at surviving a wild and awful situation, Little,” he said. “One person sadly didn’t make it. Ten people did. And that is why everyone fell in love with this story. It’s incredible. Just like you.”
James hadn’t meant to say the last part. Or really, he hadn’t known he was going to say it.
Yet, it seemed right.
So he let the words sit between them without scrambling to erase them.
He wasn’t sure if Rose would let them sit for long and he didn’t get a chance to see what she would do or say.
The door to the conference room opened. James dropped his hand and turned to see Sheriff Weaver looking ten kinds of angry.
He said four words.
They packed one hell of a punch.
“We have a problem.”