Page 82 of Chasing the Other Woman

Brooks sees it. “I’ve got it.”

A thick tree branch drops across the road ahead. For half a second, my brain refuses to make sense of it. Then the trunk hits with a heavy, wet crack, branches scraping across the gravel and leaves shredding in the wind.

Brooks slams the brakes. The seat belt locks hard across my chest. The truck slides, tires grinding, and the nose stops feet from the fallen tree. We sit there, breathing. Rain pounds. Wind screams. The radar keeps telling me things I already know.

Brooks throws the truck into reverse.

I twist in my seat. “No,” I say.

He stops immediately. Behind us, debris tumbles across the road in dark, jagged fragments. A power pole leans at a wrong angle beyond the ditch, lines snapping and whipping in the rain. Even if the road is open, the air isn’t.

“We have to get out,” I say.

Brooks looks at me. His face is pale beneath the grime and rainwater, but his eyes are steady. “All right.”

I shove the tablet into my bag, grab the emergency radio, and unclip the small first-aid kit from under the dash. My fingers feel clumsy. Brooks reaches behind his seat and pulls out the hard case with the portable beacon.

“Leave anything we don’t need,” I say.

“Already am.”

“Door opens toward us. Wind’s going to grab it.”

“I’ll take driver side, come around.”

“No.” I look at the shelter again. The distance is nothing on a normal day. A quick jog. A short stretch of open ground. “We go together.”

His eyes meet mine. “Together,” he says.

We wait. That might be the worst part. Sitting still while the world comes apart around us, watching the rain angle sideways, listening to the truck creak under pressure, feeling the storm bear down on us.

“Now,” I say.

Brooks moves. The door nearly rips from my hand. Cold rain hits my face like gravel. I duck my head and jump down, boots slipping in mud as Brooks rounds the front of the truck, one arm lifted against the debris whipping through the air.

“Go!” he shouts.

I go. The wind hits my side hard enough to knock me off course. Brooks catches my elbow, not dragging me, not hauling me like I’m cargo. Just keeping me upright long enough for me to find my feet.

“Low,” I shout. “Stay low.”

We run bent forward, bags banging against our hips, rain filling my mouth, my eyes, my ears. The storm roars so loud it turns thought into fragments. Fence post. Ditch. Shelter door. Brooks beside me.

The farmhouse groans somewhere to our left, wood shrieking as something gives way. I glance up against every instinct, bracing to see what's tearing through the air. A piece of metal lifts from the yard and cartwheels toward us.

“Down!” I yell.

My boot slips. The ground vanishes under me. My knee hits mud, pain shooting up my thigh. Brooks’s hand closes around the back of my jacket and hauls me up just as the metal flashes past, close enough that I feel the air move.

“Sam!”

“I’m okay.” I’m not sure I am, but that's a problem for later.

We're ten feet from the shelter when the wind changes. Not shifts. Changes. The pressure drops so fast my ears pop, and the roar deepens into a violent vibration. Brooks moves before I can tell him not to. He steps between me and the storm, shoulders hunched, body angled around mine as debris starts ripping through the yard in pieces too fast to identify.

“No,” I shout, but he's already pushing me toward the door.

The metal handle is slick beneath my fingers. For one terrible second, it doesn’t move. Then Brooks’s hand covers mine. Together, we wrench it open.