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I turned to Jeremiah. “We need to talk about the bird ordeal. You runnin’ out into thecyclone,” I said, like that word didn’t mean a damn thing. “Almost gettin’ us all killed. If the wind hadda come through these doors, it could’ve taken the roof off and killed us all. You do know that, right? And yes, the typing of the message was genius and you get all the gold stars for that, but I’m still pissed about the bird.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it again. “I didn’t think. I’m sorry.”
“You scared the shit outta me.”
His eyes searched mine, filled with sincerity. “I’m sorry. I just... felt like my brain detached. I can’t explain it. Like it wasn’t real. I’m sorry.”
I grabbed hold of his shirt and pulled him close enough that I could put my forehead on his shoulder. “No more doin’ shit that almost kills you, okay? You gotta start thinkin’ of me now, you hear?”
Doreen came out of Jean and Michael’s house and pointed to Arty’s house. “Just gonna grab his cat.”
Ah, jeez.
I noticed then, further down the street, two kids were out on the road. They must have been five and three years old. Unfortunately for them, Jeremiah saw them at the same time. “You two,” he yelled, pointing at them and walking down to the gate. “Get home. Go home now. Where’s your grown-ups? You need to be inside. The big storm’s not over.”
Did they listen? No. Did they go back inside? No. They ran up toward us. They were all smiles and very excited, so I didn’t think anything was immediately wrong.
“Big wind,” the younger one said excitedly, putting their arms up. They wore a T-shirt and a nappy, they had bed hair and had clearly had an exciting day. “Big noise. I cover my ears.”
They were at the gate now. Jeremiah stood with his hands on his hips. “You must go home. Which is your house?”
Doreen came out of Arty’s with a cat carrier. “They live three doors down,” she said. “Come on, kids, come with me. You can’t be out here. Where’s your dad? Is he okay?”
“He was fixing the roof,” the older child said. “It was banging.”
Ah, dammit.
Jeremiah began walking back toward us. He put his hand to his forehead. “What don’t people understand about cyclones? Can they not hear the sirens?”
I sighed. People skills really weren’t his strong suit. “Sounds like their dad’s just trying to save the roof, to save his house, most likely. Kids will be kids, Jeremiah. They will come out to see people.”
Doreen came back across the road, sans cat and kids.
“Are they okay?” I yelled.
“Yeah, yeah.” She waved her hand like she did this every day. “He thought it might be better to stick together. Arty’s eighty-seven, and Jean and Michael are in their seventies. Arty shouldn’ta been on his own to begin with.”
As Doreen was walking up, a white van drove up and pulled into the driveway. Not just any white van.
Channel 4 News.
Jeremiah growled beside me. Actually fucking growled. Before I could ask him to do it again, he set off down the stairs.
Oh no.
“You have to be kidding me. What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he yelled at them before the woman could get out of the van. “If you didn’t hear the latest update, take a look at the sky.” He gestured to the very dark sky coming toward us. “You have ten minutes to be back in whatever hellmouth you crawled out of.”
Doreen snorted, and I sighed.
He was going to be on the news again for all the wrong reasons. I went down after him in some futile attempt to calm him.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said to the van but taking Jeremiah’s arm. “Come on, we have work to do.”
The woman saw my attempt at distracting him as her moment to strike. She came out from behind her passenger door. “Doctor Overton, your message on the radar map, can you explain—”
He shot her a filthy glare. “So you know about the warning, yet you are still here? You admit to being fully aware of the risk, you know you had only twenty minutes when you left your newsroom, you can hear the sirens as we speak, and yet you arestill here.” He looked at the sky, at the wind that was now picking up, at the dark clouds coming from the west now. “You no longer have twenty minutes. You don’t even have five. You need to leave. Now.”
I noticed then Jeremiah licked his lips, doing that tasting thing he did. And he turned to look at me with fear in his eyes.
