Page 28 of Forced Proximity
I didn’t want there to be anyone here.
Because if anyone had been upstairs when that tornado had come through, there was a likelihood that they were hurt.
Or gone.
“Now we can break and enter?” I teased.
Because it was either make light of this situation, or cry.
Plus, the baby’s cry was really getting to me.
“Yeah.” He tried the knob.
Locked.
He moved to the window next to the door and tried to lift it.
It stayed shut.
“Gonna have to break the window,” I admitted.
“Yeah.” He picked up the metal patio table that’d managed to stay put and threw it through the window.
The glass shattered, and the baby started to cry even harder.
“Shit,” he muttered.
I picked up the gnome that was next to the front door, knocked over and missing his hat, and used the remains of the garden statue to clear out the remaining glass.
Once it was all gone, I stepped over the windowsill and entered the home.
The walls were erect, but I could already see water starting to slide down the length of the walls.
“Great,” I muttered as I unlocked the door.
An alarm sounded.
“Shit,” I groaned.
“Good thing,” he said. “Means that they have power.”
The man had a point.
He walked to the alarm panel, ripped off the front faceplate, and did something internally to the alarm.
The alarm stopped, and we stood standing there for a long second as we tried to get our bearings.
“How do they still have power?” I asked as I reached out and flipped on a light switch.
“Might be power, but there’s probably a lot of exposed wires up top. We need to be careful about what we use,” he said. “We don’t want to inadvertently burn the house to the ground.”
“Good idea,” I said. “What do we do?”
He took the baby out of the wrap and handed him to me. “See if you can find any dry clothes. I’m going to work on getting into this iPad. Then see if there happens to be any internet here.”
I took the baby to the couch—a massive sectional that I fell in love with almost instantly—and laid him down.
I stripped him of his clothes, then used a blanket off the couch and wrapped him in it.
