Eddie’s eyes sharpened. “You heard from them?”
“Once. From the woman caring for them today. She’s got three kids of her own. Stuck down there with six kids, eh.” He tried to keep his voice level. “Tell us when to get ourselves back to the training center, and we’ll be there.”
“Tomorrow night,” Eddie said. “Or if the roads aren’t passable and you have to leg it … call it Monday morning at ten. Absolute latest.”
“Monday at ten,” Zane repeated. “Got it.”
He should’ve done this an hour ago, but never mind, he was doing it now. He didn’t know where Skylar and the kids were, but that didn’t matter. He was going to find them.
Somehow.
It was cold out. Too cold for seven kids with no jackets. No streetlights, and no traffic lights. A few cars creeping along the street, and the pavements covered with mud and debris. The faint and sometimes louder noise of sirens coming from all directions. A red glow to the west that had to be fire. All of it too eerie, too broken. A disaster film.
“A few streets, that’s all,” Skylar told the kids. “Then we’ll be at the garage. We’ll cross the street here, at the corner.” Nolight at all, and there were those cars, but what choice did she have?
She switched on the torch on her phone, which was dangerously low on battery, waited until there was nobody coming from the right, then said, making her voice brisk. “Hurry, now. We’ll run.” Halfway across, on a safety island, and they’d made it.
Right. Right.Breathe.
She looked left and waited for four cars to pass, one after the other. More lights in the distance, but there would always be somebody, and they’d be creeping. No choice, not in this.
“Now,” she shouted, aiming her torch at the oncoming lights. “Go!”
She was on their left, between them and any car, waving them across as they hurried, slowed by the slippery mud. But the headlights were coming too fast. Toofast.
Too late to go back. “Run!” she shouted.“Run!”She put out her arm as if that would stop the car, as if it would help, and waved the phone wildly. A terrible screech of brakes, and she thought,No. No. Please. No.
Duncan slipped and fell.
The car came barreling on, braking all the way. The others were at the curb, and she had Duncan under the arms, pulling him to his feet. Two meters from the curb, and the car …
It stopped a bare meter away with a jolt, a man shouting, “What the hell? Look where you’re going!”
She wanted to shout back. She wanted to rage. She didn’t have the voice for it. It had been taken by the fear, but it didn’t matter. They were safe. Again. They were safe again, and they could stay safe. She couldkeepthem safe.
“Right,” she said, setting a grateful foot on the curb and doing her best to steady her voice. “That was close, but that’s the worst. Over one street now, then down another one.Nearly there, and we’ll be nice and warm. Nice and warm and safe.”
If they had to, they’d sleep in the car. There; that was a plan. But surely that wouldn’t be necessary. Even if she couldn’t find the house, she could find an evacuation center. Or even ring doorbells. Nobody would turn away a woman with seven kids, not in New Zealand, not after a disaster like this. Not possible.
New Plan C.Even better than her original one, which had been, yes, sleeping in the car.
A broken-up shape in the torchlight. The parking garage, that would be, the dark patches the spaces between floors. Well, of course it was here. She’d known it would be here. Parking garages didn’t move.
There was something odd about it, though. Something lumpy. They moved closer, and she saw what it was. Some of the concrete had crumbled, and huge, jagged blocks lay across the entrance. She thought there might be something wrong inside, too, but she couldn’t see.
A fire engine went by, siren blaring. She wanted to ask somebody if they’d checked whether anyone had been trapped in the garage, but there was nobody to ask. There’d be so many victims, and how long would it take the emergency services to check everywhere?
“Right,” she said aloud. “Right. No car. On to Plan B. We’re going to walk.”
30
FIND YOU
The first step was to figure out—well, to figure out the first step. Which was obviously to walk in the direction of the house. But it was so hard to tell where she was in the dark. So hard to find the way. So hard even to know if she were headed in the right direction, or had got turned around on the confusing curving streets.
“Mum?” George said. “Georgia and me are really hungry. Can we go to a café, please?”
“No, we can’t,” Scarlett said, but she didn’t sound cross this time. “Everything’s broken from the quake, remember? We’ll go home and get something to eat.”
