“Please, let me go with him!” I cried, grabbing my rescuer’s arm. He was nice, and I liked him. This new person seemed dangerous.
“No probs,” the stranger replied. Good. No offence, but he needed to find Natasha. He looked like the type of man who’d walk into burning flames and survive.
“My friend Natasha is here somewhere. We were eating when the floor fell out. There were explosions, she might be hurt,” I spat the words out and gave him Tash’s description.
“I’ll look for her,” he promised.
“Your name is Vortex,” I muttered, and my rescuer nodded as he wrapped an arm around me and began leading me away.
Nearby, something exploded, and I dropped to the floor and curled up. Why were explosions still happening? How long would things keep blowing up? Vortex’s voice gradually penetrated my fear, and I realised he was trying to calm me down and get me back up. Slowly, I allowed Vortex to help me up, and he hauled me to his side. Vortex was providing a barrier between me and the nightmare I was living.
As we walked, Vortex tried to shield me from things, but we passed two bodies of women. My feet refused to move until I saw they weren’t Natasha. As heartless as it was, relief swept over me; Natasha wasn’t dead. She was out there somewhere.
Vortex led me to a tent and helped me up onto a gurney. A paramedic, whose badge read ‘Cassie,’ hurried over and began asking questions. Vortex retreated, and I reached out in panic. My hand grasped his arm.
“Don’t leave me, please don’t go,” I begged. Vortex held my gaze and then moved closer to me. He was going to leave; I could see it in his eyes, and panic swirled inside me. Vortex had found me and saved me from the nightmare outside. He couldn’t abandon me now.
“Rage and the other MCs are searching. Local search and rescue teams are also piling in. They don’t need you, Vortex,” a guy said from two spaces away.
Gratefully, I silently thanked him. Vortex could remain with me. “Please,” I whispered as tears began spilling. If Vortex left, I’d probably freak the fuck out. No one was familiar, and he was it until we found Natasha.
“I’ll stay, honey, don’t worry,” Vortex murmured.
“You did your duty, Vortex. You brought her out safe,” Tiger said and frowned.
As Cassie started taking my blood pressure, Vortex and the stranger talked. I soon discovered that his name was Tiger and that he ran a motorbike club. Why was an MC out here? The paramedic was taking my temperature when two more men arrived.
“What happened?” Vortex demanded, worry in his voice, as one was dumped on a stretcher.
“He fell down a pothole and twisted his ankle,” the person who’d been carrying the other stated. I watched because Vortex clearly cared about the wounded man.
“I did find another survivor,” stretcher man argued.
“That he did,” the other guy motioned to where another carried an injured woman. In desperation, I peered over and saw red hair, not blonde. That wasn’t Natasha.
“That’s three women, one kid and two men found,” Tiger said.
“All alive?” Vortex asked.
Shock rolled over me when I realised that it made only six people. Six. There’d been two hundred and fifty guests on board, and I’d seen at least ten children running about. That figure didn’t include the staff.
“Yup. We’ve found a lot of dead out there.”
Those words sank into my bones. Was Natasha among them or wandering the field looking for me? Had Tash fallen from the sky like me, or had she burned in the crash? How would I tell her mom, Mari, that Tash had died?
“Titanic of the Skies,” I said bitterly. “They named it well. Natasha and I shouldn’t have been on it. A friend won tickets and decided she didn’t want to go. Said she had a bad feeling about it. She wasn’t wrong. Who’d have thought it would explode?”
“Nobody, honey,” Vortex replied. Poor guy looked uncomfortable.
But I couldn’t shut up. Near the huge blaze, dwarfed by its flames, fire engines tried to fight it. I didn’t get the point. Anyone who’d been inside was dead. If the crash hadn’t killed them, the resulting inferno would have. Those children, had they died instantly or had it been slowly? Had their parents managed to protect them from the worst? Bitterness and anger rushed through me.
“How many died inside that thing? How many didn’t even have a chance once the explosion happened?”
“What do you do, Amy?” Vortex asked, and I wondered why. Without being rude, I wished to be alone—apart from Vortex. Cassie looked concerned as she checked my eyes with a pencil torch.
Vortex waited, and I decided it wouldn’t hurt to answer him.
“I worked in a kindergarten and also arranged child-friendly events. I was a teaching assistant, and recently earned my degree to become a teacher,” I responded with a chuckle. Unsurprisingly, I was starting to feel slightly hysterical. Okay, maybe more than a little. I longed to rock back and forth and cry, shriek, and laugh at the same time.
