Chapter 21
Danger
“W-where are we?”
Groaning, he tried to sit up, but hands on his shoulders and back forced him to stay where he lay.
Shit, he’d barely had his baby back for a month. Had there been another accident?
Roan’s face swam into view, hair and face streaked with dust and crumbly bits.
“Still at the grocery store,” Roan replied. “We’re in the back room, which, fortunately, was an add-on, or the roof might have come down in here too.”
“F…errr…is it still pouring?”
“Unfortunately. Cell service is down and the rolling doors are stuck. They broke a broom handle trying to pry them open.”
Blowing out a breath, Danger struggled to piece Roan’s words together, sound fading in and out, drowned out by pain that made it feel like his head was about to explode.
“You got hit by a chunk of the ceiling,” Roan explained. “The whole thing collapsed.”
“T-the, t-he old guy,” Danger stammered. “He o-okay?”
“Still alive and kicking,” the older gentleman replied from somewhere on the other side of him. “Which wouldn’t be the case if it weren’t for you.”
“G-good.”
Exhaling, Danger took a moment to try and gather his wits. “How about you? You okay?”
“A little bruised from hitting the floor but fine otherwise.”
He tried to nod, which proved to be a bad idea, so he swallowed, licked his lips, and managed to say a couple more words. “Glad to hear it.”
The longer he was awake, the worse the throbbing was, but he forced himself to focus. “Repeat what you said, about the door, just slowly.”
“It’s stuck,” Roan said. “It won’t pry open.”
“Rolling metal…top mounted?” Danger managed.
“Yeah.”
“O-okay…give me a minute…”
“You’re not getting up to help with anything while your head’s still bleeding,” Roan declared.
“Creature’s garage. The doors are like that. Always a way to manually open. Just need to remember how,” he said, aware that his words were beginning to slur.
Roan fell silent, giving him the time he needed to work shit out. Where his boy had been nervous while they’d been parked in those chairs, he sounded sure and steady now, which was good, because Danger felt anything but.
“They need a ladder,” Danger explained.
He heard feet scuff against the concrete and movement, the squeak of wheels desperately in need of oil, and then the butcher’s voice, proclaiming that he needed help moving retainers.
“They’ve got one,” Roan said. “They’re digging it out now.”
“P-perfect. They need to set up beneath the motor.”
There was more scraping now, the rattle of metal and squeaky wheels. He let his eyes drift close, immediately snapping them open when Roan’s fingers caressed his cheek.
“You can’t pass out on us now,” Roan insisted. “We need to know what to do once the ladder is set up.”
“O-oh yeah, got it.”
Every word was hard and required way too much effort, just like keeping his eyes open, but he did it anyway, unwilling to let down his boy.
“Okay,” the butcher said. “Ladders positioned.”
“Mmm,” Danger murmured, struggling to recall what the piece was called that would let them open it.
“Eyelet bar. Tucked in. Need to pull it out. The winding handle should be in a compartment attached to the motor. S-stick it through the eyelet. Should be easy to crank open so we can get the fuck out of here.”
He could hear the storm still ranging outside, but that was a problem he didn’t have the mental faculties to tackle at the moment.
“Where are we going to go?”
The voice sounded high-pitched and edged with panic, which was the absolute last thing they needed right now.
“What if the rest of the town is just as wrecked?”
“We’re not going to go anywhere,” the butcher said.
“Everyone’s going to stay right here while me and three of the boys go for help.
We’ll each head in a different direction.
We can’t be the only ones who were trapped by the storm.
We’ll go building to building if we have to until we can find a safe place for everyone.
We just need to get the door open far enough that we can slip beneath it, then close it again to keep the storm out. ”
“I’ll go east,” the manager said.
“And I’ll take west,” another voice replied.
“I’ll cross the alley and see what’s open on the other side,” another voice chimed in.
“And I’ll try across the street,” the butcher said, his voice sounding further away now.
He must have been the one climbing the ladder, Danger thought as his eyes fluttered. Maybe Roan would let him rest them longer this time.
“I-I think you should stay awake,” Roan said, gently stroking his cheek. “You probably have a concussion.”
It made the pain ease up some, though not as much as he would have liked.
“N-no probably,” he groaned. “That’s a guarantee.”
“You’re going to need stitches.”
“Sick of that shit.”
“I bet you are,” Roan said. “But now me and the pups can sit with you on the beach when Roan and Pope are in the water.”
“The universe is conspiring against me,” Danger groaned. “I was thinking of ordering a new wet suit.”
“Order it anyway,” Roan said. “Then you’ll have it when you can finally go back in.”
He paused, lips curving into a beautiful smile that helped Danger forget his throbbing skull for a moment.
“You might want to consider adding a couple rolls of bubble wrap to that order, too, with how accident-prone you’ve been recently,” Roan remarked, his smile growing as he gave Danger shit about his recent string of catastrophes.
“Might be…some truth to that.”
“I think Pope might agree.”
“A-already ganging up on me.”
“Only for your own good.”
The rattle of metal filled the room, a sure sign that the butcher had located the eyelet bar and hand crank. When a cold gust of wind made him shiver hard enough to rattle his bones, Danger groaned and sucked in a lungful of rain-scented air.
“Let me know when it’s high enough,” the butcher called down. “As soon as we’re clear, someone else needs to climb up and crank it shut.”
“I will!” someone replied.
“A couple more turns and we should be good,” someone called out.
How much later he wasn’t sure, since he’d started drifting again, another voice hollered:
“Right there!”
“Get moving,” the butcher called, the clang of feet on ladder rungs announcing his descent. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Danger shivered again before the feel of something warm draped over his back, and he opened his eyes to see that Roan was no longer wearing the leather jacket he’d had on earlier.
Danger felt him smooth it out to cover as much of Danger as he could, which helped keep the chill out until the rattling of the door signaled that it was being lowered again.
Now to hope that they were able to find help, because it sounded like it was still pouring out there.
“Do you think Ocean and Pope are okay?” Roan asked.
His words brought Danger firmly back to the moment and the concern written all over Roan’s face.
“That house has already withstood a couple hurricanes,” Danger said. “I don’t see it going anywhere anytime soon. Kong designed it, and C-Cash and his crew built it. She’s as sturdy as they come. They’ll be j-just fine as long as they stay put.”
“Will they?”
He’d have said no if Pope had been out there alone, but with Ocean and the dogs to consider, no way Pope would just leave to come search for them.
Not that he could.
“Y-yeah. It’s not like they can go anywhere without the SUV.”
“What about Ocean’s jeep?”
Shit. He’d forgotten about that.
“He’d never risk it,” Danger said, trying to speak with conviction, though in the back of his head, he wasn’t a hundred percent sure.
“I hope not.”
The conversation began to wear him out, but as long as he kept his eyes open, Roan didn’t say anything more.
Someone else draped another jacket over him, covering his legs, which made lying on that floor a bit warmer.
He couldn’t turn his head and realized that it was because there was someone holding it still, pressing against the burning wound on his head.
He didn’t remember getting hit. Just Roan and the butcher’s outstretched hands reaching for him as he tried to get the old man to safety.
What a hot fucking mess this shopping trip had been.
He could see his club brothers having a field day with him after this, with witty plays on his nickname to suggest that being in his presence was enough to draw bullshit their way.
He could just picture caution tape covering the door of his office and warning signs posted everywhere; hell, if one of those fuckers managed to get their hands on a flashing caution sign, which he wouldn’t put it past them to do, then he was likely to open the door to see it waiting for him.
He’d welcome it and deserve it after some of the ribbing he’d given others, but dammit all, the universe needed to ease up and stop using him as its personal scratching post. How long they lay there, staring into one another’s eyes, Danger couldn’t say.
Heavy bangs rattled the rolling metal door, drawing gasps of shock from a few folks when it startled them.
Tessa’s daughter screamed. Poor thing had a hell of an afternoon so far.
Danger hoped her stuffed toy hadn’t been lost when they’d fled, though with the hold she’d had on it, he seriously doubted it.
That all of them had made it back here before the roof came down, even if it had just been barely in his case, was already a fucking miracle.
As he stared into Roan’s eyes, Danger recalled the photos they’d shown Roan and Ocean of the town after the last time it had been destroyed.
So far, it hadn’t sounded like any of the other buildings around them had crumbled, just the weak ass, drippy roof the owner should have had replaced a long time ago.
He remembered the totes the stock boy had dragged over without a thought, like it happened every time it rained, and wondered how old this part of the structure was and if it would continue to hold as rain accumulated on the flat roof above it.
Whose dumb idea were those anyway?