Page 1 of Searching Blind

part one

disaster

There's nothing like a jolly good disaster to get people to start doing something.

King Charles

chapter

one

Consciousness clawed its way back to Sawyer Murphy as the world shook around him. Dirt and debris rained down on his head, dust filling his lungs as he gasped in a sharp breath.

Earthquake.

The memory came rushing back, intense enough to cut through the fog of confusion. He’d been on the mountain searching for Pierce and had run into Lucy Harper and her hiking group—city folks mostly, out of their depth. And then, a thunderous roar as the mountain shook under their feet like it was trying to buck them off. He remembered the snap of a redwood branch, remembered the startling sharpness of seeing it materialize out of the soup that was usually his vision as it fell toward one of the hikers…

Well, fuck. No wonder his head was pounding like a drumline at a college football game. He’d pushed the guy out of the damn way.

The tremors subsided, leaving an eerie stillness in their wake. Not another full earthquake, then, but just an aftershock.

“Christ,” he muttered, the word scraping his throat raw as he tried to sit up. Pain lanced through his head. He stopped moving, waiting for the world to stop its sickening spin, and convinced his stomach he didn’t need to revisit his last meal. His body ached all over, and he felt blood seeping from a cut on his forehead. Taking a breath, he reached up and gingerly probed the injury. His fingers came back slick and warm with blood. It wasn’t a deep gash, but it had bled plenty and was still trickling.

Zelda.

He reached out, feeling the rough grain of wood beneath his fingertips. Okay, so he wasn’t outside anymore. Where was he? His ears registered the soft drip-drip of water from a ceiling crack, the creaks and groans of an old building settling on its haunches after the earthquake. Every sound amplified to painful levels. A metallic tang of blood filled his nostrils; he tasted it too, coppery and bitter.

His dog wasn’t at his side.

Where was his girl?

Panic surged through him. Zelda was more than just a pet. She was his partner, his confidante, and his eyes. She had brought him back from the brink of a very dark place. She had given him something to live for and made him realize he was still the same capable man he’d been before he lost his sight. She was his lifeline. His sanity. If he lost her…

Pushing past the throbbing in his skull and the flaring pain in his left side, Sawyer got to his feet. Or at least, he tried to. His legs crumbled beneath him like wet paper, sending him sprawling on the dust-laden floor. He gritted his teeth, white-hot pain radiating from his ribs as he collided with the ground.

A wet nose pressed against his cheek, nuzzling gently. Zelda. He buried his hands in her dirty fur and choked on a sob of relief.

She was okay. She was safe.

She whimpered softly, nuzzling closer, her tail thumping against the floor as if to reassure him.

“Good girl,” he whispered. “That’s my good girl.”

Her body trembled slightly beneath his hands, and he knew she was as scared as he was. But she was here with him, alive and whole, and that was all that mattered at that moment. He ran his hands over her back and down her sides, feeling for the stickiness of blood or the deformity of a broken bone. His heart clenched as his fingers found a small cut on her leg, but it was clean and shallow. The blood had already dried.

“Okay. We’re okay. We got this, Zel.”

Slowly, gingerly, he pushed himself up again. This time, his legs held, though he swayed unsteadily on his feet. He waited for the world to stop its nauseating tilt-a-whirl routine before he took a step forward, Zelda’s familiar bulk pressing reassuringly against his side.

“Where are we, girl?” He tilted his head, tuning into the ambient noise around him. The building—it definitely sounded like they were inside some kind of wooden structure—groaned, its bones creaking as it settled. The faint crackle of debris falling filled the silence. And then, underneath that, he heard the murmur of voices. Human voices.

Lucy.

Jesus, was she okay?

He reached out, blindly groping forward until his hands met the cool, rough surface of a wall. His fingers traced over the splintered wood as he moved along it, using it as a guide. Zelda stayed close, brushing against his side, her presence a comfort and an anchor.

The building creaked and groaned as the aftershocks continued to ripple through the earth. Each tremor sent pulses of pain lancing through his skull, but he kept moving, adrenaline and worry for Lucy propelling him forward.

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