Page 89 of Sheltering Instinct

On the battlefield, those questions centered around Tess.

Levi beat himself bloody, trying to figure out what he might have done that would drive Tess into Abraham’s arms.

And now, after last night, he had closure. They were able to love each other again.

It had felt like a miracle to have her in his life again.

But then today happened.

And though this was a reprieve of sorts, they hadn’t survived the day yet.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Levi

Tess licked her lips as she scanned the children. When she focused on him, she asked, “Levi, how long have we been on the roof?”

Since Levi had watched the clock in the schoolroom to time the teacher’s CPR, he was fairly precise when he said, “Twenty minutes.”

She shook her head. “It feels like hours.”

“It has been, counting everything that happened since we left the Himba village. Getting to the roof is just the next thing.” He focused on her face, assessing. “Tess, you haven’t slept in days, and now you’re running on pure adrenaline. Can you do me a favor? It’s going to be hard because, well, we’re on top of a schoolhouse bobbing down the river. But can you sit quietly for a minute and center yourself? I want you to feel the air and tell me if it will rain again.” He looked up at the steel-gray sky. “This respite from the rain is making a big difference in our survivability. But if you think those torrents are going to hit us again, we’ll need to be much more aggressive. That means tough decisions and more hazards.”

“Give me a for instance.”

He didn’t really have a “for instance.” He didn’t see a way out of this mess. “I might need to try to swim to shore with the rope.” What he really needed to do here was plant the seed that everyone surviving wasn’t probable. She’d been in enough circumstances that she knew that. But her brain needed to understand the situation and the ramifications. And he could see that Tess had that “no man left behind” conviction in her eyes.

“And pull the school over?” she asked with incredulity. “That would take a bulldozer.”

“Those who are able could monkey crawl their way to land.” He swallowed. Here it was, point blank. “There’s a possibility that we can save some but not all.”

Tess’s face blanched white.

“It could be that if I strung the rope and got you and Mojo with me to help pull, that we could tie the children to the rope and rely on their jugs to keep their heads above water as we pull them to shore. The school will be underwater at any time now. I think we need a last-ditch plan formed. But if it’s going to rain, we need to be proactive right now.”

Tess turned toward the children.

“Take everything here out of the picture, and just focus and do that thing you do when you sip the air, please. I need all of the information I can get.”

Starting on one side of the flood waters, she swept her gaze upward. Her hand came out. Palm open, gathering the energy in the wind, she rubbed the air through her fingers.

“The sky looks ferocious.” Her finger came up, and she pointed at the clouds in the distance. “That’s an odd structure for clouds.”

Then, dropping her hand, Tess stared at it for a long time. “Are those columns?”

A wave splashed over the school's apron, making the children shriek and shrink against each other. They gasped and gripped even tighter in their circle, scooting back until they were compressed into a tight knot.

Tess reached out and gripped Levi's arm. “Do you still have your binoculars?” Levi reached for his dry bag.

“I have my phone.” She pulled her phone from her bag and took a picture of what she saw. Then she turned the screen toward herself, expanding the image to see the details.

With his binoculars up, Levi and Tess said, "It's a bridge," at the same time.

Dropping the binoculars to his chest, Levi asked, “Are you getting any bars on your phone?”

Before she could answer, another wave of water came up over the apron. Now, water had formed a pool, trapped on top of the roof by the apron that saved the child moments ago.

Levi shifted until he could speak into Tess’s ear. “If the water swirls around the bottom of that bridge, it's possible that the school will crash into the pylons. When the school crashes into it, the children are going to fly forward, and then they're going to fly back. It’s going to be violent, and it’s going to be fast. We need to position them in the best way we can so they stay on this roof.”

---