Chapter 39 #2
“Wonder what’s going on,” he frowned at the scene.
I climbed out of the truck after Luke. My left leg buckled—caught myself against the truck bed before I went down. The kitchen windows—empty. Alex wasn’t there.
Where’s Alex?
The question hit sharp and immediate. She should be there. At the table with her laptop, coordinating like she’d promised. Safe. Dry. Away from—
“Nolan! Boys!” Mom appeared on the porch, waving us toward the back of the house. “Thank God you’re back. We need everyone. The creek behind the house is flooding.”
Creek. Flooding. Alex—
My chest locked up.
“How bad?” Dad fell into step beside Mom as she led us around the corner of the main house.
“Bad enough that we’re sandbagging. Started rising about an hour ago. Caught us completely off guard.”
The sound of rushing water hit me before I saw it. The creek that normally meandered quietly behind the house had turned angry and urgent, dark water swirling with debris and foam.
And Alex was right in the middle of it.
No. No no no—
Twenty feet from the water. Moving toward it—carrying sandbags—working right next to—
The sound roared in my ears. Water. Current. She could slip, could fall, could get swept—Cisco went down at thirty thousand feet. I went down at thirty thousand feet, nothing I could do—couldn’t reach him—
I couldn’t breathe.
The panic locked everything down. Sound—violent, churning water, voices calling out instructions—hit wrong, too sharp. Everyone working so close to the current—
Alex bent down for another sandbag. One step closer to the edge. Right there. Right next to—
“She’s been incredible,” Mom’s voice startled the shit out of me. She smiled as she watched Alex—by the water. “Jumped right in when we realized how bad it was getting.”
Incredible. Working by flood water. What if she—what if the bank gave way—what if—
Alex stood up with a sandbag in her arms. Three steps toward the water—no, no don’t—
The ground was mud, rain, everything slick—
She slipped.
“You okay?” Lou called out, helping her back up.
I didn’t hear Alex’s response as she brushed mud off her knee. I was already moving toward her. The sound of the creek—too loud, too urgent—too uncontrollable. She was too close. Overwhelming buzzing filled my ears… I couldn’t protect her… I couldn’t save her if… she might—
“Alex,” I reached her. Stopped short when I realized Lou was still holding her arm. My heart had lodged itself in my throat. “You need to get away from the water. Right now.”
She looked up, confused. “I’m okay, Finn. It was just a slip.”
Just a slip. Just—
This is irrational. I know this is irrational. She’s fine. But I can’t—can’t stop seeing—
“I said now.”
Everyone stopped working. Lou’s mouth agape. Family staring.
Know I’m losing it but can’t—
Alex straightened, sandbag still in her arms, mud streaking her jacket. “Finn. We need to finish this section. The water’s still rising.”
Insubordinate—
Was she really arguing with me about safety when she’d fallen just feet away flood water? Did she think I was going to let her—
My voice wasn’t my own. It belonged to the man who’d trained pilots a lifetime ago. Who didn’t put up with insubordination.
“Get away from the fucking creek, Alex.”
The world stopped moving, stopped making noise.
Alex went completely still and I felt the cold front hit me, knocking the air out of my lungs. She set the sandbag down carefully and straightened to her full height, mud streaked across her cheek, rain dripping from her hair.
Her eyes were ice.
“No.” Her voice was flat, emotionless. Dead. “I’m working. This is important.”
She turned her back on me and picked up the sandbag.
“Alex—”
“Don’t.” She didn’t even glance over her shoulder. “Just don’t.”
I opened my mouth but nothing came out. Chest locked tight. The water sound—wouldn’t stop—crash of metal, broken glass, my plane spinning—
She was fine. Standing right there. But I kept seeing her fall, kept seeing—
Cisco fell. I fell.
“Damnit, Alex,” I hissed.
“Finn,” Luke stepped between us and I jumped back. He looked at me with something akin to pity. Didn’t he see what was happening? “Let’s take a walk.”
“She needs to get away from the water,” I protested, but I could hear how wrong it sounded. How irrational I sounded. What was happening? Alex was—
“She’s fine,” Elowyn said sharply. Where had she come from? “She’s been working with us for two hours. She knows what she’s doing.”
Alex continued filling sandbags like I wasn’t there. Like I didn’t exist.
The noise in my ears shifted, got sharper. Everything snapping into focus—people staring, Mom looking stricken. I looked down at my shaking hands.
What was I… Alex…
“Come on, brother,” Luke’s hand was on my shoulder as he guided me away from the creek.
I let him lead me away, but I kept looking back at Alex working steadily in the rain, twenty feet from churning water. Still there. Still too close.
Luke drove me back to the lodge while I sat in the passenger seat, shaking—from adrenaline, from the cold rain, from the horrible realization of what I’d just done.
“You want to talk about what just happened?” Luke asked as we pulled up to the lodge.
“I fucked up.”
“Yeah, you did,” he turned off the engine and looked at me. “But that wasn’t just you being an asshole, was it. That was something else.”
Something else. Stress. Trauma response. Irrational and suffocating fear.
“I need to—” I started, then stopped. What? Apologize? Go back and make it worse?
“You need to leave her alone,” Luke said quietly. “And then once you’re feeling like yourself again, you need to figure out how to fix this.”
He was right. My body was vibrating—adrenaline bleeding off, exhaustion overfilling the gaps.
I made it to our room before everything fell apart.
The space was too big and too small at the same time.
The housekeeper had been in. The beds were made to perfection.
Items had been stacked neatly. Towels replaced.
Gone was the ridiculous pillow fort. Alex’s beauty products remained on the vanity next to my hair products.
Our toothbrushes shared a glass tumbler as a makeshift holder.
In the closet, her clothes were mixed with mine in the hamper, waiting to be washed.
All of it—what we’d been building together over the last few weeks. The last few months.
I’d just destroyed it in front of everyone. In front of Alex.
I kicked off my boots and sat on the edge of our bed—the one we’d shared since our arrival—and stared at nothing.
The fabric of my clothes against my skin was like the lick of flame, too rough, too hot, and too tight.
The sound of the rain against the windows was too loud, too much like the rushing creek, too much like the crack of fire.
The crash hit me like a freight train. Shaking that had nothing to do with cold now, excruciating pressure in my skull, and the horrible certainty that I’d just ruined the best thing in my life because my damaged brain couldn’t process that Alex was competent and safe.
I pulled out my phone and typed a single message: I’m sorry.
Then I deleted it. Typed it again. Deleted it again.
Finally sent it, then turned off the phone, stripped down to my underwear and fell face-first onto the bed.