“You look like you’re in a mosh pit!” I shouted back.
“Mosh with me,Wilhelmina!”
“With pleasure,Luciano!”
I ran to him, the ground soft and wet at my feet. Clasping hands, we kicked and stomped through the high grass, flattening it beneath the crush of our feet. We played hard, tripping and slipping, pushing and shoving one another until we’d made a good-sized circle of flattened greenery, liberally peppered with muddy puddles. Meanwhile, the wind picked up speed and the rain fell harder.
“Playtime’s over!” Logan called. He was gesturing wildly, pointing at a nearby group of trees whose heavy branches had begun to dangerously sway. Above us, the gray skies had considerably darkened. Storms had always had deadly potential, but nowadays, without the safety nets the old world offered, the dangers posed were significantly more.
Clasping hands, Lucas and I started for the house where Logan was attempting to secure the lids onto the overflowing containers. Releasing me, Lucas grabbed hold of the stack and together, he and Logan fought against the wind. They’d managed only two lids on before the wind caught hold of the flimsy plastic, sweeping the remaining covers up and over our heads.
I jumped up, catching the corner of a lid; the lid acted like a sail, sweeping me straight off my feet and then depositing me face down in the tall grass.
“Willow!” Logan’s usually captive roar was a mere whisper among nature’s lethal noise. “Willow, grab hold of something.”
I’m trying, I wanted to scream, even as the wind pushed me farther away, aided by the wet, slickened state of things. But I couldn’t find my voice. The violent whip of the wind had turned the warm summer rain into a cold barrage of water pellets, causing me to flinch and shiver between gasping breaths.
Finally, my hand snagged on something hard—a tree root that had erupted through the earth, thick enough to anchor myself against. Gripping it, I blinked rapidly through the wall of water, just barely making out the blurry outline of a fast-approaching form. Soon, gruff hands clamped down around my wrists and hauled me to my feet. “Hold on tight!” he shouted.
Even with our combined weight and our arms wrapped around one another, we struggled with each step, the wind intent on blowing us backward. I cried out as something heavy and sharp slammed into our legs, knocking us over and nearly succeeding in knocking us apart. While pain radiated up and down my left leg, Logan hauled me upright once again and together we attempted another fruitless battle forward.
“Luke!” Logan bellowed. “Luke—get your ass in the house! I’m going to try for the shed!”
Turning from the house, Logan and I ran with the wind, lifted by it at times, toward the small, dilapidated building shaking precariously at the edge of the yard.
