“Dar?” Kerry whispered.

“Mmm?”

“I think you should hire your mother.”

Blink blink. “Wh…for what?”

“The marketing department.”

Dar thought about that. “They’d all jump out the windows of the fourteenth floor, Kerry.”

“Mmm.” Kerry scratched her nose and nodded. “Yeah, but can’t you picture her and Eleanor in a meeting together?”


Eye of the Storm 365

Dar nibbled her lower lip. “Hmm.”

They heard Roger Stuart’s angry voice approaching and Dar dropped her hands to her lap. “That’s it.” She stood up, ready to meet him as he entered. “I’ve had about enough of his—”

“You!” Stuart had reached the doorway and pointed at her. “This is all your fault, you disgusting piece of filth. I want you and the rest of your rabble out of here before I call my security and have you thrown out.”

“Who are you calling filth, you adulterous, swindling asshole?” Dar bristled, moving towards him. “Take your judgmental bullshit and shove it right up your—”

“Dar—”

“Roger—”

A deep rumble suddenly slammed through the room, stopping the shouting and motion for a frozen moment.

Then the shock wave hit and the lights went out and the world started to crumble around them.


Chapter

Thirty-nine

IT WAS VERY dark. Dar forced her eyes open anyway, coughing sharply as a lung full of concrete dust invaded her chest. All around her, creaks and groans, crashing, and the sound of screaming could be heard.

She was on the ground, half covered in chunks of plaster and wall, shocked and dazed, and momentarily unable to think past rubbing the dirt out of her eyes in an attempt to use the tiny gleam of emergency lighting edging through a gap in the collapsed room.

Shit. Her scattered mind tried to focus as she rolled over and pushed herself up, blinking her stinging eyes. Kerry. It was too quiet.

“K—” She ended up coughing, as she felt around anxiously, the shadows very slowly resolving into gray, dim shapes in an eerie silence that set her heart pounding erratically. “Hey…hey…” She pawed through the debris with shaking hands, pulling down chunks of wall tangled in strips of wallpaper until she spotted a very still, dusty form half buried under some carpet and what was left of a chair.

Her world stopped.

She scrambled over the rubble and stared at the silent figure, a fear clamping a hold on her chest as she faced the possibility that the worst had happened.

“K-Kerry?” She barely heard her own whisper. “H-hey?”

There wasn’t a twitch of response and in the dimness she couldn’t see any movement at all.

Dar closed her eyes for a long moment, too scared to even breathe.

This couldn’t be happening, could it? Maybe it was all a dream and she’d wake up in her bedroom with Kerry poking her in the ribs.

Maybe?

Please?

You can’t take her from me. Dar’s eyelids drifted open, blinking them a few times to let the tears wash the dust out. Then she gathered her courage and leaned forward to put a hand on the still shoulder, her heart beating so fast it made her shake. Not yet. No...

A soft groan responded to her touch and Dar almost collapsed in sheer relief. “Hey…Kerry?” She clawed the debris aside and very gently brushed the crumbled plaster off her lover. “Sweetheart?” Her voice was shaky.


Eye of the Storm 367

Kerry drew a rasping breath. “Ow,” she answered weakly. “Dar?”

It was too dark for Kerry to see the tears and she was glad for that.

“Yeah. What’s wrong? What hurts?”

Kerry started to turn over, then gasped, and curled into a more fetal position. “My shoulder…oh God…”

Dar examined her anxiously, noting the odd angle under the cotton shirt Kerry wore. “Um…I think it’s…” She bent closer, straining her eyes.

“Maybe it’s dislocated. I can’t tell.” She put a careful hand on the blonde woman’s hip. “How’s everything else?”

Kerry was silent for a moment. “Okay, I think.” She took in a ragged breath. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Dar looked around her for the first time. The waiting room had mostly collapsed, leaving them in a small, irregularly shaped pocket near one side. There was no sign of anyone else and the doorway Kerry’s parents had been standing in was a large mass of silent rubble.

“Something exploded, I think.”

Kerry was facing away from the door. “Wh—?” She stopped. “What happened to everyone else?” She kept looking at a twisted piece of metal in front of her face, so close she could smell the rust on it. Dar hesitated, the light touch on her leg moving a bit and becoming warmer as her lover spread her fingers out over the denim material. “Dar?”

“I don’t know that either,” came the careful response. “It’s just the two of us here. I don’t see anything…anyone else.”

There was a moment of utter quiet. “Dear God, I’m glad you’re all right,” Kerry whispered. “I don’t know what I’d do if I were here…alone.” She eased slowly over onto her back, so she could see Dar, then halted as the faint light reflected off a tear streaked face.

“Careful.” Dar swallowed, putting a supporting hand under her back, as Kerry’s face tensed in pain.

“Augh.” It was like a red hot spike drove into her shoulder and Kerry almost screamed. She bit down on her lip instead, until she could taste blood. “Ow.”

“Okay. Listen,” Dar told her hesitantly. “If you want…I could try putting it back, then—”

“No!” Another jolt. “Don’t touch it…ow…gods…” Kerry didn’t know what to do. Every movement hurt and the pain was getting very intense.

“Kerry, listen—”

“Nooo.” She tried to roll away from Dar, scrabbling in the debris as hands tried to hold her still.

“Kerry. Kerry. Please. Just stop moving.” Dar’s voice sounded a touch frantic.

“I can’t.” She was taking short, shallow breaths. “I can’t stand it, Dar.”

“Okay.” Dar carefully slid her calf in behind Kerry’s back to support her. “Easy. Just try to relax. If you get tense, it’s worse.”

Kerry just moaned, but she listened and tried to do what her lover 368 Melissa Good asked. “Okay,” she finally whispered, her cheek pressing against the shattered rock.

“Okay. Now listen.” Dar shifted and braced one foot on the other side of Kerry’s body. “Honey, we have to get out of here, because it’s raining rocks, okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. You can’t do that hurting the way you are.”

“Dar, I can’t. Please don’t touch my arm.”

“Kerry.”

The concrete around them shifted ominously, sending a shower of small chunks down on top of them. Dar huddled over her injured friend, letting them hit her instead. “We don’t have much time.”

Kerry drew in a shaky breath and curled her fingers around Dar’s ankle. “Okay,” she whispered, the pain almost choking her.

Dar stroked her hair in a helpless attempt at comforting. “Hold on tight,” she warned, hoping she knew what the hell she was doing. The grip on her leg tightened. “Okay, I’m doing it.” She wiped the back of her hand over her forehead, then very carefully touched Kerry’s arm, trying not to hear the stifled whimper. “Easy, baby…easy.”

Dar managed to get her left hand under Kerry’s bicep and laid her right hand on top of the grossly misplaced shoulder. She made a picture in her mind of what she was going to do, then took a deep breath.

“Scream if you need to.”

Kerry knew that meant it was coming and she held her breath, biting the inside of her lip as she felt Dar shift, and the pain exploded through her, wrenching a guttural cry from deep inside her. It grew and grew as Dar pulled the injured arm towards her, a feeling so intense she reeled on the edge of unconsciousness for a long agonizing moment.

Then it was over.

Dar felt the bones slip into place with a sodden click, as Kerry’s entire body relaxed and she started to cry. “I’m sorry.” She sat down in the rubble and Kerry crawled into her lap and she cuddled her in careful arms. “I’m sorry, Kerry.” She stroked her shaking partner with small, helpless motions.

The pain slowly subsided, changing from a raging agony to a tense throbbing, but she could breathe now, at least, and move her fingers without screaming. “It’s…okay,” she mumbled softly. “Oh my god.”

Dar just sat there, with her eyes closed, absorbing the living, breathing body cradled in her arms. The shattered room around her meant nothing. The creaking walls, the sound of falling plaster, the stink, the far off yelling…none of that mattered to her at all.

Not when she’d faced losing Kerry.

That had touched something very deep and she still shook inside from it.

Finally, Kerry was able to ease herself back and look around in the dim wreckage. “Thanks.” She rubbed her aching eyes. “That really helped. I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time.”


Eye of the Storm 369

Dar gazed at her and touched the dirty, tear streaked skin of Kerry’s cheek. “It’s okay.”

Kerry tensed her lips into a faint smile then she slowly turned her head and surveyed the wreckage. Her eyes fell on the rubble filled doorway and she stared at it. Then she looked up at Dar in dawning horror.

“D—” A long finger fell against her lips, silencing her.

“We don’t know,” Dar whispered. “Let’s get out of here and we’ll see what happened.”

Kerry’s bewildered gaze moved back to the door. “They were just there, Dar.” Her voice cracked. “And…what about…I have to find Angie…and…your mother and—”