“Kauss?”
Her mouth tightens. “No word.”
That no word follows me through the next hour like a ghost. I ladle soup. I hand out towels. I call suppliers and cancel deliveries I can no longer afford. I send Renn with food to the triage site. I listen to tunnel residents describe water roaring through their home, the floodgate open, the skull-bloom painted inside the control box.
Poison Memories.
Ron.
The name sits in my stomach like poison.
At noon, I close the bakery to everyone except flood survivors and helpers. Customers do not complain. Nobody with eyes would dare. I tape a crooked sign to the door with hands that will not stop shaking.
CLOSED FOR EMERGENCY RELIEF.
Darlene watches from behind the counter. “You need to go.”
I turn. “What?”
“You’re useless now.”
“I am absolutely not.”
“You’ve filled the salt jar with sugar twice, asked me if the soup needed coffee, and nearly put a towel in the oven.”
“I did not nearly?—”
She points to the oven handle where a towel dangles dangerously close to heat.
I snatch it away. “Fine.”
“Go find him.”
The permission lands harder than expected.
“I don’t know where to look.”
“Hospitals first. Then police. Then Lenrog’s place if you’re feeling suicidal.”
“I’m going to hospitals.”
“Good. Take the shock baton.”
“Darlene.”
“Take the damn baton.”
I take it.
The first hospital is Saint Orra’s, a sprawling public emergency complex that smells like disinfectant, wet clothing, overheating bodies, and fear. Flood survivors fill one side of the intake hall, wrapped in thermal blankets, coughing, bleeding, shivering. Nara spots me before I spot her. She has a blood smear on her sleeve and exhaustion under both eyes.
“Al?” I ask.
“In surgery.”
My knees nearly fold. “Surgery?”
“Head wound, fractured leg, aspirated filthy water, but he’s mean and mean helps.” Nara grips both my shoulders. “He was asking for coffee before they sedated him.”
