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“What did you do, Mako?” The words escaped her mouth before she could stop them.
His expression went cold. “Nothing, Cricket. I didn’t do a fucking thing to her.”
She flashed on a night with him years ago, the strength of his grip, the weight of his body.
Stop, Mako. I don’t want this.
I’ve never known anyone who wants it as much as you do, Crick.
But that night was long ago, as much her fault as his, right? For being there? For leading him on? She brushed past him now, following Bruce and Hannah downstairs. And meanwhile,where the fuckwas Josh? How long ago had he said he was on his way. Was he okay? Driving in this storm?
A dark thought occurred. Was Liza with Josh? No, no. That wasn’t possible.
When she got downstairs, Hannah and Bruce were bent over the meticulous detailed instruction binder, pages and pages, looking for the host number.
“Got it,” said Hannah. “Call anytime, day or night, with anything you need.”
“I have one bar,” said Bruce. “The cell service here is crap. The power is out so the Wi-Fi is down.”
He picked up his phone and dialed the number they’d found. Cricket moved over to Hannah and her friend wrapped her up in her arms.
“Are you okay?” Cricket asked.
“I mean,” said Hannah. “I don’t know. This is really—weird.”
“Don’t leave me here,” Cricket whispered.
Hannah stroked Cricket’s hair. “If we go, you come, too.”
Bruce sounded like he was leaving a message. “The lights are out here. Can you call the electric company and find out when power will be restored? If they don’t come back on soon, we’ll probably need to leave.”
Lightning lit the view outside, the trees black line drawings, punching against white. Cricket felt thunder in the floorboards. The rain seemed to be subsiding, though. Then the sweep of headlights across the back wall.
Cricket ran to the door to see Joshua’s car pulling up, the rear windshield cracked, the trunk dented. Joshua got out unsteadily. Was that a gash over his right eye, a line of blood trailing down the side of his face? Oh wow, was he hurt?
She rushed out to him through the rain; he took her in his arms, leaned against her and she led him out of the rain to the porch.
“Oh my god,” she said. “What happened? You’re hurt. Ohmy god.”
Cricket reached up to wipe away the blood with her sleeve. Hannah and Bruce came to stand on the porch from the front door.
“A tree came down in the last big bolt of lightning,” he said. He was pale, hands shaking. “It was so loud, like an explosion. Then there was this deafening crack and a huge tree just fell. It hit the trunk and now it’s blocking the road.”
“What happened to your head?” He reached up to touch the wound, winced and pulled his hand away.
“I must have hit it on the steering wheel or something.”
“The airbags didn’t deploy?” asked Bruce looking between Joshua and the car.
Joshua’s face was drained of color, eyes confused. “I—I don’t know. No, I guess not.”
“The road’s completely blocked?” asked Hannah, voice tight.
“Yeah,” he said. “There’s a huge tree across the whole thing. It’s going to take some major equipment to move it. And some of the other roads were already full of water.”
“You could have been killed, man,” said Bruce, looking at the car. “You got really lucky.”
“Oh my god,” said Cricket again, clinging to Josh.
