Surely, Angie had gotten out. Maybe she’d been on her way to the delivery room. Maybe she was on the other side of the damage and already outside.

Maybe Kerry was already an aunt again.

Maybe it was a little boy. She stopped, and fought the tears down. I am not going to give up on you, Angie. I know you made it.

“Does anyone actually know what happened?” Dar finally asked, as Andrew went to the window and peered out.

“Hell if I know,” one man answered, holding a dirty piece of cloth to a cut on his face. A little girl clung to him, evidently his daughter. The child was pale and wearing a hospital jumper and she looked frightened and uncomfortable. “One minute we were watching the television, the next…the whole place blew apart.”

Dar glanced behind her. “We should block off that hallway.”

“Are you crazy?” A woman seated against the wall objected. “That’s the only way they have of getting to us. We’re in a cul de sac.”

“It’s also the only way the fire has to get to us,” Dar replied. “And it’s gonna get here before help does.”

A murmur of fear greeted her words. Against the far wall, Kerry’s parents simply turned their heads and ignored her existence. Over near the entrance, a small kitchenette had been mostly spared and readily plundered. There was a five gallon bottle of water sitting on the counter half empty and Kerry went for it, aware of being desperately thirsty all of a sudden.

A dull explosion threw her against the wall and she grabbed on, as debris fell all around her. After a few tense moments, though, the creaking stopped and they all coughed in the film of plaster dust fogging the room. Part of the drop ceiling collapsed, throwing broken tiles everywhere, and the already stuffy air seemed to thicken around them.

Then with a halfhearted flicker, the faint emergency lighting went out, and they were in darkness, broken only by the city lights coming in from the windows that ringed them.

Kerry stopped with her hand on the counter. Meager though it had been, the light had served to at least give them some idea of what was happening. Now anything could come out of the dark. She jumped as she felt a touch on her back and gasped.

“Easy.” Dar’s voice tickled her ears. “Let me get that for you.” The dark haired woman rummaged in the scattering of debris near the lop-sided refrigerator and retrieved a cup, then lifted the bottle carefully and poured some water into it.

Kerry gulped the liquid gratefully, draining the cup, then stared at it in the gloomy half light. “Could you…”

“Sure.” Dar poured her another cupful, then she took a deep breath.

“I don’t think blocking the hall is gonna help.”

“Prob’ly not,” Andrew, standing next to her invisibly, agreed.


Eye of the Storm 387

“Think we need to get that there winder open.” He glanced at the dimly seen profiles against the glass. “Dar, let’s you an me go check that out.

Cec, keep by here, all right?”

“All right.” Cecilia leaned against the counter next to Kerry and exhaled, as she turned her head. “Mind if I steal a sip of that?”

Kerry offered her the cup. “Least I could do after getting you into this.”

“Kerry?” Ceci gave her a sideways look, taking a sip of the water. “If you don’t cut out the blame game, I’m going to be forced to get maternal on you and that could get ugly.”

Kerry blinked at her, then smiled against her will. “Sorry. I babble when I’m nervous.” She rubbed her eyes tiredly. “My brain’s running on empty right now.” She was achingly aware of her parents watching from across the room.

“I can tell. You know what Dar does when she’s antsy?”

“Pulls things apart,” Kerry responded, with a wan grin. “Paper clips especially. She shapes them into little figurines.”

Ceci chuckled. “I’m glad some things didn’t change. I used to keep a collection of the damn things.”

Kerry studied her for a moment. “I bet you still have them,” she stated unexpectedly. “Don’t you?”

The older woman pursed her lips, then glanced down at the counter they were leaning on. “You caught me. Yes, I do,” she agreed softly.

“Along with a couple pairs of tiny shoes and a first grader’s efforts at spelling.”

Kerry absorbed that, her gaze unconsciously drifting over to her parents. “I had to do all of my own saving.” Her voice was low and quiet.

After a moment of pensive silence, she turned her head towards Ceci.

“Mrs. Roberts, you can get maternal on me any time you want.”

Incredible. Cecilia drew a breath in. Someone who thinks I’m parenting material. I must be getting ancient as the hills for that to happen. “Well then,”

she answered reflectively, “you’d better stop calling me Mrs. Roberts.” In the gloom, she could just barely see Kerry smile.

Incredible.

The children were starting to cry, frightened to an even higher state by the darkness. Dar and Andy made their way across the crowded floor, pressing up against the glass windows as they reached them and looked down.

“Jesus.” Dar’s eyes widened, at the huge collection of lights, emergency equipment, and people swarming about below. “Guess they are working on getting people out.” She watched as a fireman tugged a wrapped form out a window two stories beneath them. They were on the seventh floor, almost near the top of the building, and from what she could see whatever had happened had ripped out almost half of the side of the structure.

Andy pushed his hands against the glass. “Ain’t gonna be easy.” He shook his head. “Thing’s made not to break. But them folks down there 388 Melissa Good ain’t gonna know we’re here less we tell ’em.” He lifted his sledge hammer and paused, looking for a place to start. “Damn lousy time fer you to lose that cell phone of yours.”

“Mmph,” Dar muttered, annoyed at herself for that very fact. “Came off my belt.” Kerry had left hers charging in the room and she wasn’t really sure what kind of reception she could expect inside the chaotic wreckage anyway. She cleared a space for her father to work, then realized there were some living obstacles there in the half light. “You’d better move back,” Dar told the watching Stuarts coldly.

“Go to Hell,” Roger Stuart answered, then jerked as he was suddenly face to face with a sledge hammer head and a pair of icy cold eyes behind it.

“You will move your carcass out of mah way, sir,” Andrew rasped.

“Because I have about run out of my patience with you.” He poked the senator with the hammer handle. “Now take this little lady of yours and go back of there fore I throw you head over buttocks.”

“Do you know who the hell I am?” the senator growled.

“A right jackass. Now move.” Andrew poked him again.

“Listen here, you stupid hick.” Stuart stood up, then stopped speaking as he was lifted and pushed against the wall, the hammer handle cutting off his wind. “Jesus,” he rasped.

“That would be Commander Hick to you, useless excuse fer a gov’ment paycheck.” Andy released him, then gave him a shove, sending him sprawling into a pile of roof tiling. “Waste of mah good tax dollars, that’s for damn sure.”

“Just wait until we get out of here,” Kerry’s father threatened. “I’ll slap lawsuits on the lot of you.”

Andrew turned his attention back to the window. “Jackass.” Kerry’s mother hurried to her husband’s side and knelt by him, brushing the pieces of plaster off his stained and burned jacket. “Those who can, do, those who can’t become lawyers. Those who ain’t got no use at all, run fer gov’ment.”

Dar almost laughed at the look on the senator’s face, but she was too tired. Instead, she forced her attention on the glass. “Dad,” she ran a hand over the surface, “try here, near the frame.”

“Not in the middle?” Andrew drawled, cocking his head at her in question.

“No. I think its designed to flex there. It’ll be more rigid, and have a higher tendency to shatter here, at the edge.”

Andy gave her a look. “All right.” He lifted the hammer and faced the glass, concentrating on it carefully. “Make sure everybody’s staying back. This stuff’s gonna fly.”

Dar took a quick look around, ignoring the glares. “Everyone cover up. We’re going to break this window.” People scrambled to get out of the way and the frightened children were gathered into the corner.

“Okay. Go ahead.” She held her arm over her eyes and stepped back, stifling a cough as the air seemed to thicken again with smoke.


Eye of the Storm 389

It would be such a relief to breathe fresh air. Just the thought of it made her dizzy.

Andrew took aim, then swung the hammer back, and launched it forward, getting his entire body into the swing as it hit the edge of the window. With a spectacular crash, it shattered into millions of tiny bits, exploding in both directions.

Andy threw himself backwards to avoid the flying glass, then felt himself picked up and slammed against the frame as the air pressure sucked the heated air out of the building, bringing a hot, roaring explosion down the hall and heading right for them.

“GET DOWN!” KERRY yelled, pulling herself and Cecilia painfully to the floor as a superheated rush of fire and air exploded over her head and out the window, its crashing roar slamming against them like a physical force. Then the flames licked at the ceiling. She got to her feet and bolted forward regardless of the falling chunks of burning material.

Three people had been caught in it. She tried not to look at them and panic as she dove over a smoldering chair in the smoky darkness and was caught up abruptly by a pair of hands. “Let me…” Then she realized it was Dar.

“C’mon!” Dar yelled. “Everyone get over to the window!”

The heat was increasing quickly and now it was anything but silent as the chaos outside filtered in. The children screamed and the survivors scrambled over to the opening, clinging to the frame as smoke poured out of it.

“You almost got us killed!” Roger Stuart raged.

Dar ignored him as she peered back into the smoke, shading her eyes. Outside, the firemen had spotted them and were working to get the huge basket cranked up to their level, shouts of alarm and encourage-ment echoing up to them. Andrew pushed the last of the glass out of the way, one hand protectively curled around his wife, and Kerry helped a young woman over the fallen furniture.

The two wheelchairs. Dar grabbed Stuart by the arm. “Give me a hand with those kids.” She pointed, realizing only then she could have made a better choice of assistants.

Well. No time. Stuart stared at her, half his face lit in fire, half in shadows, and for a long moment Dar thought he was going to refuse. Then he wrenched his arm free and shoved her away from him.

“Go there,” he ordered Cynthia, pushing his way past a fallen book-case and towards the frightened children, who were unable to maneuver their chairs through the debris. It was very hot as they got to them, and Dar felt like she was breathing the fire itself as she touched the chair, then jerked her hands back at the heat. “Hang on.” She unbuckled the petrified little boy and picked him up in her arms, ducking as a burning part of the ceiling fell, and almost stumbled as the flaming chunks hit her shoulder.

She shook them off and plowed forward, the child shivering so vio-390 Melissa Good lently his teeth chattered in her ear. “Take it easy. We’re gonna be fine,”

she told him, as small hands clutched desperately at her. The fire bucket was just reaching their level when she staggered to the edge of the window and the two firemen inside yelled orders almost impossible to hear over the roar of the fire and the noise of the crowd outside.

One had a hose, and he yelled something, then he opened a valve, and a jet of water exploded past them, hitting the fire behind them and making it hiss in protest. Someone screamed next to Dar and she realized it was Kerry’s mother. She looked back, but nothing was visible through the smoke, then she searched the survivors huddled nearby and didn’t see the senator among them. “Shit.” She started to put the child down, intent on going back when her mother caught her arm. “Can you watch him for a minute?”

“Where are you going?” Ceci asked.

“See if I can…” Dar watched a ball of black smoke billow forward, stopping her speech.

Then a coughing, soot covered form stumbled out of the darkness, soaked from the hose’s spray but carrying the other crippled child.