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“You sure you won’t stay?” Ellis asked me quietly. There was no joking, no name-calling. Just a concerned older brother.
I shook my head. “I can’t. Jeremiah can’t leave. He needs to man the station, and I need to be wherever he is.”
Mum gave me a hug. “We understand.”
Ellis nodded. “Yeah, okay. Stay in touch though.”
“Yeah, of course. The storm tonight won’t be so bad until morning.”
Rowan gave a hard nod. “They’re saying the mobile phone network will probably go down, so don’t panic if you can’t reach us.”
“I know,” I said, trying for more confidence than I felt. “Keep watching the bureau’s weather radar and listen to the radio if you can. All emergency alerts will be broadcast.” I looked at each of their faces. “Hazer is expected to make landfall tomorrow morning around nine o’clock. You’ll all need to be downstairs in the cellar by six. The eye will pass over around midday, and it should last for an hour or two. It doesn’t mean it’s over. The backend of the cyclone is almost always more powerful, and it’ll be blowin’ from the opposite direction. Don’t go outside. Don’t leave the house—”
Dad gave me a hug. “We know. You take care now. Be in touch as soon as you can.”
Mum came out with a bag of food in takeout containers. “Take this. You be safe, you hear? And take care of him.”
I gave her a long hug. “I will, Mum. Thank you.”
She pulled back and gently tapped my face. “Stay in touch. Let us know you’re both okay.”
I nodded, refusing to let my emotions get the best of me, but the way she included Jeremiah really struck something in me.
“I will, Mum. You all take care of each other.”
I waved them off and jumped into the Jeep. It felt strange to be leaving them. Knowin’ my entire family would be together without me was a new and abnormal feeling.
But then I thought about Jeremiah and my need to be with him.
And that felt right.
Being with him was where I was supposed to be.
I drove past a servo, which didn’t have too much of a waiting line, so I filled the Jeep and the jerry can with fuel, just in case. I grabbed some last-minute snacks and some more price-gouged bottles of water and checked the time before I got back on the road.
It was eight minutes past three.
The sky was dark to the north—far too dark for the afternoon. A wall of cloud was on its way like an ominous blanket about to cover us all.
What kind of havoc it would bring, only time would tell.
The images of those islands stripped bare ran through my mind, and I drove a little faster to get to Jeremiah.
The gate was now chained open, so I drove straight in.
It was crazy how still everything felt. How quiet it all was.
I took the food and water inside. Jeremiah was on the phone, sounding all kinds of official, and he smiled when he saw me.
Knowin’ he was busy, I took the jerry can of fuel and filled the generator that was bolted to the back of the building. I was fixing the canopy of the Jeep when Jeremiah came out. “Hey,” he said warmly. He looked like he’d had a helluva day already.
I clipped the last side down and shut the door. “Hey, you.” I climbed the steps and ran my hand up his arm. “You okay?”
He nodded. “Better now you’re here. I was worried.”
“Worried that I’d done what you’ve been trying to get me to do and bail on you?”
He glowered. “No. Worried that you were... I don’t know. Just worried.”
