Page 107 of Absolution

I nod, giving a small smile that doesn’t quite reach, and walk toward the front hall where the new group is being led inside.

They look shaken. Mud-streaked. Exhausted. A man in a soaked baseball cap carries a little girl wrapped in someone’s coat. Another woman clutches a plastic bag against her chest like it’s the only thing she owns.

No one speaks as I step forward, pen in hand. I swallow hard and meet their eyes, one by one.

“Let’s get you all signed in.”

And I do, one by one until…

“And your name?” I say, my voice scratchy from hours of use.

There’s a pause. Silence.

And when I look up…

The pen slips from my fingers and clatters to the table. I hunch over, my shoulders shaking before I even realize what’s happening.

Then I’m moving. Around the table. Across the floor.

And suddenly, I’m holding her. This tiny, soaked woman with trembling lips and red-rimmed eyes.

I crush her against me. I don’t care who’s watching.

My breath stutters as the tears come fast and hard. I bury my face in her neck.

“God,” I whisper, again and again, “Thank you, God.”

Chapter Thirty

Jackie

“There I was,” I say, my voice still hoarse. “Heading back toward the main road when I came across this line of abandoned cars. Just blocking everything. I was pissed. I thought people just left ‘em in the middle of the highway.”

I rub my arms, trying to shake the memory.

“I got out, ready to walk up and knock on a window or yell or something. But then I heard shouting. Voices. Not angry, scared. I followed the sound, and these people, maybe seven or eight of them, they were huddled in this huge drainage culvert off the road.”

I pause, looking at Kyle. “I thought,what the hell are they doing in there?I mean, it was walled off on one end. But I couldn’t really hear them from the road, so I walked closer. That’s when one of them grabbed my arm and yanked me in.”

“I was about to lose it on him when I heard it. The water. Just this roar, like a freight train. It came down the bend so fast I couldn’t even see the road after. If he hadn’t pulled me in…” My voice breaks, just for a second. “We watched everything go under. Cars. Trees. Whole chunks of road.”

I shake my head, quiet now. “We stayed in there all night. We had no signal, no bars. Someone had a flashlight. A couple of granola bars. That was it. When it was finally light, we started walking.”

“Where was Charlie?” Kyle asks quietly.

I sigh, running a hand through my damp hair. “We got there and it started pouring. Like,the secondwe pulled in. Just this wall of water coming down. I asked him if he checked the advisory and he just shrugged, said he didn’t have to, said it was safe.” I let out a dry laugh. “I was so pissed. I made him take me into town because of course he didn’t have internet, and the cabin had no cell signal. He said it wasoff the grid.I didn’t realize how off.”

Kyle’s watching me, silent.

“So, we drive to this diner, barely anyone there. Just one waitress closing up, and she tells us there’s a flash flood advisory. That they already gave evacuation orders. I looked at Charlie like,let’s go, and the man just... shrugs. Says it’s fine. That the cabin’s ‘built to last.’”

I look down at my hands, fiddling with the corner of my sleeve.

“I told him I wasn’t staying. I begged him to come with me. He told me to drop him off and take the car. Said he had ATVs and backup generators. That he would be fine.” My voice shakes.

I let out a hollow laugh. “He’s probably drinking beer right now, thinking I overreacted.”

Kyle doesn't say anything right away. He swallows hard. “Jackie… I found the address. The exact one. And I gave it to the responders.”

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