Page 86 of Those Who Are Bound

Elliott

Elliotttuckedherselfintothe corner of her sofa, researching camping and canoeing on her laptop. Although Jonah had told her the trip wouldn’t be for another three weeks, she wanted to know what she was getting herself into. She searched Google for images of the river, raising a dubious eyebrow over pictures of rapids and capsized canoes. Her brows hit her hairline over photos of drunk rednecks and topless girls, beer cans in the air.

Thunder boomed outside as a summer storm rolled in, complete with lashing rain and lightning. Midwestern storms varied from gentle to truly violent. This one contained high winds, a lot of noise, and enough light that it was turning day into night.Elliott tried to ignore it and the anxiety storms had caused her since childhood. She didn’t know why they bothered her, but they always had; it was a useless fear, but it always lurked. The one raging outside had her stomach clenching.

A particular bang shook the pillars of the house and had her jumping, her lights flickering. She glared at the single bulb she had on next to her, daring it to go out, but it regained power and continued to glow, relaxing her. But only to a point.

She’d seen Jonah earlier that day, just for an hour. She’d gone into Parkville to have lunch with him at the pizza parlor. He’d tried to suggest they order something other than pizza, at which she slid off the bar stool jokingly and pretended to walk away. He’d grabbed her, kissed her hard, and ordered their pizza and beer. She’d quizzed him about the canoe trip until he’d finally laughed at her. “Hey, control freak, I’ve got this; you’re going to have to trust me.”

She’d thought about his response for a minute and then replied, “I don’t want to look like I don’t know what I’m doing.”

He’d grasped her chin and said, “I don’t expect you to know what you’re doing. I expect you to be able to trust me. It’s okay to rely on someone else.”

As her brows had come together to argue, he’d leaned forward and licked pizza sauce from the corner of her mouth, causing her to laugh. Then he’d shut her up definitively by taking advantage of her open mouth and diving in.

Now, she touched her lips, smiling at the memory. He knew how to take her out of her head.

An ear-piercing roll of thunder shook the house again, startling a short shriek from her. She cowered against the cushions as the long rumble continued, listening to the clinking of the glasses in her kitchen cabinet. Her stomach churned. And then the light went out.

Elliott sat for a paralyzed minute, willing it to come back on, waiting for her computer to boot back up and to hear the beep from the microwave that signaled that the world would be right again, but it didn’t come. Instead, all she heard was howling wind, pings against the window—possibly hard rain or hail pellets—and furious thunder that shook the ground. The light display put the Fourth of July to shame; if it wasn’t so disco-like, she wouldn’t need the lamp.

“Damn it,” she said to herself, shoving her bare feet off the sofa, trying not to concentrate on her shaking limbs. She was going to have to power up the generator. Not for the light, but for the air conditioner. In less than thirty minutes, her home would turn into an oven in the steamy heat that was generating the violent storm outside.

Putting her fear out of her mind, at least trying to, she padded across to the hook by the door and removed the bright yellow rain slicker, donning it. She was pretty sure it wouldn’t offer much protection in the storm, but it was better than the T-shirt and shorts she was wearing. Lifting the seat of the bench beneath the hooks, she withdrew a Maglite and turned it on, then forced herself to open the door. The noise from outside intensified, and her heart leapt into her throat. It was times like these that she really missed her brother.

As she put her hand on the screen door, lightning lit up the sky, and she shrieked, falling back, sure that she’d been struck. She stamped her foot in irritation at her own fear. “Damn it, Rork, pull it together!” And she all but slammed out the door and into the warm, bruising rain and howling wind.

Before she hit the bottom of the stairs, she was soaked through. So much for the rain jacket. Her hair was plastered to her head, and she had to swipe it off her face. Beneath the house, her heavy bag danced like it was merely a wind chime, the chains adding to the cacophony that, she realized, included the sound of sirens.

She paused, looking at the whipping trees lit up in the backdrop of the storm, their branches snapping erratically and dangerously, limbs and solid pieces being thrown around. “Well, shit.” Had Jonah jinxed her by asking about tornadoes yesterday?

Of course, sirens went off for warnings; it didn’t always mean that there was a tornado. She’d heard them many times; she’d lived in other tornado-prone states before.

More reason to get the generator working and hopefully get a signal on the television to check the weather—unless she got carted over the rainbow. Thank goodness there wasn’t an event planned for tonight; it wouldn’t be reassuring to see the owner of the space in a catatonic state cowering in a corner.

Heart now pumping double-time, hard flinching with each brutal gust of wind and flash in the sky, Elliott jammed the flashlight on top of the generator and grabbed the handle, hauling it closer inward where she could plug in the lines from the house. It wasn’t that heavy, but the rain and wind whipped at her, and her bare feet slipped on the wet concrete; she should be wearing shoes, but she didn’t want to waste time going back up to get them. She wanted this over with.

She struggled to maneuver the thing, realizing there would be no good place for it near the lines, so she left it to go to the storage door where the gasoline and lines were kept. She heard Gage in her head admonishing her not to let it get wet—but with the weather like this and the house designed the way it was, she didn’t see a way to keep it completely dry. Besides, the lines were what she had to worry about—right?

The process should be simple enough, pulling the lines out and gassing the system up while keeping it relatively moisture-free. She dragged them out, the heavy cords unwieldy and slippery in the rain, while in the back of her mind imagining every electrified cartoon character she’d ever seen.

Breathing hard, she stood up and pushed her sopping hair out of her face again, even though the wind smacked it right back where it had been. On a growl, she tried to twist it back, but that only lasted a couple of seconds. Giving up, she returned to the storage shed and stood there another minute, letting the rivulets of water drip off her as she caught her breath.

Getting the gasoline into the tank without letting water in would be tricky. She’d have to be fast. If she’d been paying attention to the weather, she would have gassed up the machine earlier; of course, some of these storms were pop-up, and she didn’t like to have gas sitting in the generator.

To be certain there still wasn’t electricity, she flicked the switch inside the shed; nope, nothing.

Elliott snatched up the gas can and headed back into the deluge. The wind had shifted—an odd observation, considering she couldn’t tell from which direction it was blowing—and rain was driving under the structure horizontally.

No help for it. She’d deal with moving the generator again after she gassed it up. Gage could scream all he wanted in her head. She climbed up onto the machine to body block as much of the hole as she could as she unscrewed the cap. At the same time, she was trying to thumb off the cap of the tank nozzle and keep the spout turned downward. On a normal day, it would have been tricky. On a wet, windy, dark and stormy night, it was almost impossible.

A too-close lightning strike caused her to scream and jump, the lid to the tank flying out of her hand and rolling into oblivion. Screaming at its loss, Elliott threw herself over the hole of the tank, the gas can in her other hand, a string of curses screamed into the violent atmosphere.

How the fuck did this happen?

Looking around herself, her arm quickly growing tired from awkwardly holding the gas can, she managed to bring it in front of her and use her other hand to close it. At least she could salvage something. Leaning over as far as she dared without uncovering the hole, she dropped the can to the concrete; it wasn’t far, and she heard it land safely with a plunk.

She thought wryly that with her luck, another bolt would streak from the sky, igniting it, sending her and everything else up in flames.

---