Edge of Chaos (Love on the Edge #1) (31 page)

WE STOPPED AT
his truck first, shocked it still stood, if not crashed against the telephone pole. Dash reached underneath the driver’s seat, pulling out a small first-aid kit.

“There’s one on the other side, too,” he said, motioning with his head for me to go grab it. I did and forced Dash to stand still as I ripped open the tear in his jeans a bit more, giving me room to swipe the cut with an alcohol wipe and seal it with a butterfly bandage. I forced myself not to linger, holding his muscled thigh in my hand, and he gave me a small smirk when he saw the heat in my eyes. I tossed my now ruined bloody T-shirt in the cab of his truck and then we slowly made our way into the residential part of the town, which wasn’t far from the gas station where we’d desperately taken shelter.

It was almost too quiet after the thunderous noise the storm had made. Now the only sounds that broke the calm settling in the sky were distant sirens, wood snapping, and the occasional bark of a dog. I’d expected screaming or cries for help. This was worse. I scanned the area for the Tracker Jacker, coming up empty.

I punched John’s number again on my cell, cursing the busy signal I received. “That’s the fourth time. Same damn signal.”

“They’re smart. Probably on the other side of town already helping with the search,” Dash said, reading my worried gaze. “If we get separated, we meet back here, all right?” He pointed to his truck. “You have your cell,” he eyed me clutching it. “Who knows if you’ll get through, but if we find anyone hurt we’ll need to notify emergency personnel. And watch for fallen power lines.”

I nodded. “All right.”

A toppled tree blocked our path to the first group of residential houses. The roots twisted out in all directions and black dirt clods clung to them like the remnants of torn flesh. Dash placed a palm on the thick trunk and climbed over it, trying to hide his wince when his feet hit the ground on the other side.

I followed suit, climbing over it before Dash could turn around to offer me help. He surveyed the area with sharp eyes. I was jealous of his stoic calm demeanor and made a mental note to take the same first-responder courses he had as soon as possible. My hands trembled while holding the first-aid kit to my chest. He must have done this dozens of times, but this was completely new territory for me.

He pointed toward a group of homes that had been hit to our right. Some of the structures were still easily identifiable, but the insides were gutted. What had once made these buildings homes were scattered about the area, spilling out like someone had reached in and ripped out a handful of organs.

“We start there and spread out to cover more ground,” he said as he limped in that direction. I kept pace with him, my heart racing. “Be careful where you step. People may be covered with debris.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and slowed several yards past where Dash stopped.

I approached the walls of a concrete basement, which without the house sitting on top of it, looked like a giant trap for a massive animal. Broken wood with wickedly jagged edges covered the surrounding area, some long pieces sticking up out of the basement as if someone were about to light the biggest bonfire ever known.

Careful where I stepped, I tried to find the ground between the debris and make myself lighter than air. I navigated my way over dirty dish towels, a broken dog bowl, and a mangled bed frame. Ripped-up magazines, busted baby-blue dishes, and dirt-covered pillows also littered the area. I scanned past these items, so out of place in the shredded pieces of this home, and searched for movement.

I glanced back at Dash, his eyes trained on the ground as well. A low whine snapped me to attention and I whirled my head toward the noise. Behind an upturned cedar hutch I found a shaggy dog with soaking wet brown fur. Its back leg was caught underneath a chunk of wood that looked like it could’ve been an attic beam.

Tiptoeing to it, I gently shimmied the wood until its leg came free. The dog instantly headed a few feet away, limping across two couch cushions with the stuffing spewing out of them. He stopped next to what I could now see was a toilet, though broken bits of wood half covered it as well. I made my way over quickly.

The dog pushed its nose deep into the pile of wood, whimpering more than when I had freed its leg. I gently nudged him away and my heart leapt into my throat.

A dirt-covered hand clung to one side of the toilet. Adrenaline filled my veins and I hurried to scoot the wood off the person, checking the surrounding areas for other people before I let the beams fall in the other direction.

Pitch-black hair plastered to the woman’s forehead and she wore a pair of gray sweatpants and a purple hoodie. Blood streamed down the right side of her face.

I lifted the final beam off the toilet and stepped closer to where she lay curled up with her arms around the base. Glancing down as my boots crunched on glass, I noticed at least a dozen picture frames of various sizes. Half were broken and their pictures ripped, others remained intact. I knelt down and carefully placed my hand on the woman’s neck and breathed a sigh of relief when a steady thumping met my fingers.

The dog limped around to the other side and licked the woman’s face furiously before I could stop him. She jerked hard and her eyes popped open. The panic in them was evident, but when she took in her surroundings, pain filled them enough to break my heart. She tried to move, but I stopped her with a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Ma’am, you shouldn’t move.” I flipped open the lid of the first-aid kit and rummaging through it. “Everything is going to be all right,” I assured her, though I knew that was stupid to say when her entire house was a pile of broken pieces that couldn’t possibly ever fit together in the same way again.

“I waited too long,” she moaned.

I shook my head and ripped open a disinfectant wipe and cleaned the blood off her face. “You got to the bathroom. That was smart.” I found the source of the blood. An inch-long gash near her hairline. The cut was clean so I assumed a shard of glass from one of the picture frames had been the culprit. I dabbed at the wound and sealed it as best I could with a butterfly bandage from the kit.

“No.” She sighed. “I should’ve been in the basement. I’d gotten everything down there me and my dog would need. Food, water, flashlights, and radio . . . but I forgot my pictures.” She clenched her eyes shut. “Stupid. I thought I had enough time to grab them and get back downstairs. I told George to stay down there, that I’d be right back.” Her eyes landed on the dog dutifully sitting by her side despite the pain I imagined it caused his leg. “You should’ve minded me.”

From where I’d found him he was only a few feet away from getting to her in the bathroom before the tornado hit. Amazing he’d survived at all. I lifted the woman’s hand and placed it on his back. “Thank you,” she said. “Did my pictures make it?”

I looked down and tried not to crunch any more glass as I searched for one. I found a small unbroken frame with a picture of two little blond girls who couldn’t be over the age of three. Their faces filled the frame, both grinning widely. I held it above her face. “Looks like most of them survived.”

The woman’s eyes lit up with hope as she gazed at the picture. “Those are my grandbabies.”

I set the picture gently on her chest. “You keep them close while I try to get ahold of an ambulance, all right?”

“My legs are tingling,” she said, “is that normal?” She gulped hard and her chest rose and fell faster than it had seconds before.

I patted her shoulder and held my cell to my ear. Nothing but a repetitive beeping—either bad reception or busy circuits. I tried again without any luck and whipped my head around.

“Dash!” I hollered across the distance. He jerked his head up from searching. I waved my arms at him and pointed toward the woman. “I can’t get through on my cell!” He hobbled as fast as he could down the road we’d come from. I was glad he knew I needed an ambulance without me shouting it in front of the already scared woman.

I scanned the surrounding area until I spotted a half-crushed cardboard box a few feet away. I tiptoed to it, scooped it up, and hurried back to the woman. “Were you here all by yourself?” I asked while brushing some dirt out of the box. It was half-soaked, but it would have to do.

“Just me and George. Thankfully I didn’t have my grandbabies this weekend.” A shudder ran through her, and I almost cried in relief when the action twitched her legs.

“I’m going to put as many of these as I can find in this box, all right?” I said, holding up another picture frame. This one had a photo of what looked like a much younger version of the woman holding an infant.

“Thank you,” she said, and George went to licking at her face again.

I picked up as many frames as I could, scraping my hands slightly on the shards of glass scattered around. The action gave me something to do when I felt helpless. I wished Dash would get back with help faster. Putting the last picture I could find in the box with the others, I smiled at the woman with what I hoped was a reassuring look. “There. Now you don’t have to worry about them getting lost.”

“Blake!” Dash yelled, and I snapped my eyes to him.

He jogged—a kind of skip-like run that favored his good leg—toward me with two men on his heels, each one wore a light blue button-up and black pants. The two carried an orange gurney with thick black straps and large square zip-up bags hung over their shoulders.

Dash touched my shoulder when he reached me, and I glanced down at the woman. “Help is here,” I said, and Dash and I took a step back to let the men do their work.

After assessing her vitals, they strapped her to the portable gurney, all the while poor George whimpered and worried at her side. One of the EMTs looked up at Dash.

“You think you could help us carry her back to the ambulance?” he asked, positioning himself on one side of the gurney.

“Absolutely,” Dash answered without hesitation and no mention of his wounded leg.

The EMT nodded and, once Dash had gotten his hands underneath the gurney, counted to three. They hefted her up and made it look easy.

“George,” she called, and cut her eyes toward him since she couldn’t move her head.

“I’ll bring him,” I said and lifted the box of pictures. “And these, too.”

After we managed to get the woman, George, and her pictures to the safety of the ambulances stationed just outside the main road, Dash and I split up again and went right back to searching.

As the hours passed, we found more and more people. Some crawled out of shelters unscathed and took up in the search for those who weren’t so lucky—using flashlights and lanterns and whatever else we could scrounge up. The people who could help did so without question, and an instant trust formed between us, a cosmic understanding that we were needed and could count on each other for anything.

We didn’t stop until dawn broke the night sky. I stood next to Dash after helping a teenager find his mom where all the EMTs had set up. My feet screamed at me, my muscles seared, and my lungs threatened to burst from the constant running back and forth and lifting, but I still felt it wasn’t enough.

I took a long gulp from the water bottle Dash offered me and watched as the sun broke through a section of puffy white stratocumulus clouds and shook my head as its rays shed new light on the wreckage the storm had left in its wake. Crumbled houses, broken support beams, and every manner of debris from teddy bears to boxes of cereal to sheets of house-siding wrapped around half crushed cars.

And yet, in the middle of all of this chaos, were
people
.

They stood in groups, comforting one another or walked out in teams to continue searching. EMTs bandaged up the wounded and medevac’d the seriously injured. Young children handed out water bottles and strangers wrapped blankets around shocked neighbors. The camaraderie was infectious and awe-inspiring. I never thought I’d see anything more devastatingly beautiful in all my life.

John and Paul found us shortly after the sun had fully risen. The relief I felt was so strong it nearly robbed me of what little energy I had left.

“We’ve been helping the other side of town, there is total damage over there,” John explained, wrapping me in a hug.

Paul’s mouth dropped as he took in the scene. “You two all right?”

I glanced at Dash and we both nodded. We were lucky. We’d been so close to the tornado and got off scott-free, where others hadn’t.

“You got a joke for me, Paul?” I asked with a soft voice.

“Not today,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m glad you’re both all right. You look like hell though. Go get some rest. We’ll take your spots.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but John shook his head. “No arguing, Blake. You won’t be able to help anyone when your body starts to crash.”

They were right. The adrenaline slowly left my body and a sinking sensation took its place. I’d never been more tired and yet the thought of going to sleep seemed selfish.

“My truck is dead against a telephone pole,” Dash said, glancing at John. “Can we borrow the Tracker Jacker?”

John instantly handed Dash the keys. “It’s parked a few blocks back that way,” he said, pointing behind a line of ambulances.