“Yes,” Skylar said. “That’s right. I need a minute to think. Scarlett, could you hold them here a minute, please?” Keeping it firm. Keeping it normal. Like she knew what to do, and all they had to do was follow her.
“Yes,” Scarlett said. “George and Georgia, stay with me. You stay with me too, Forrest.”
Skylar stepped away. Two or three steps, that was all.Focus. Think.
First thing: her phone. The battery bar was red, and it wastiny. Five percent. She wasn’t using anything, though, so it would hold that charge a while, surely.
Surely.
She should’ve turned it off between trying those texts, back at the museum. She should’ve …
Stop. Not helpful. You do not panic. You think.
Oh. It was obvious. They needed to go north. Specifically, they needed to go north a bit, then veer right onto Jervois Quay and walk along by the hotels, the shops. They could find someplace to stay there. The less damaged hotels, if there were any, might be taking people in, letting them bed down in the lobbies. And there’d be people. People with portable phone chargers, with snacks that they might share with the kids, with information about those evacuation centers. There had to be a way to get off the street. Another aftershock could come at any time, and how unstable were these buildings? The new ones would be all right—they’d have been built to standard—but the old ones? She didn’t know.
Right. North. That’s a plan.
First thing: they’d have to cross the street again, because otherwise, she could so easily miss that fork onto Jervois Quay in the dark, and then she’d have gone wrong and would be lost.
Across that busy street again, though, in the dark? How could she take the kids out into that danger a second time?
Because you have to. Harden up and do it.She walked the three steps back to them and said, keeping it brisk, “Back across a couple of streets, and then we’re walking north, like the woman in the museum said.” She wouldn’t use the torch anymore except to cross streets; she needed to save the battery for a text.
Please, for a text. Please, Zane. Please be OK.
It was so hard to step onto that busy roadway again, but she did it. Stumbling along in the dark, then, sliding her feetforward to search for obstacles, because there were cracks and debris everywhere. The night was cloudy, the moon not visible, and it was sodark.And deserted. How could it be so deserted?
Because you’re not in the hotel area yet. Because nobody stayed around here to get washed away. Or because theywerewashed away.
There.There was the road curving. A cautious use of the torch to see the street sign.
Jervois Quay.
“This way,” she said. “We’re going this way.”
Six men were headed toward Wellington. Six men who hadn’t been able to reach their partners. Jogging along the motorway, which was odd, but it was closed, and also the fastest route. Drying mud under their trainers trying to make them slip, and the light of somebody’s torch flashing on metal. A car, tumbled off the road. How many hadn’t known to abandon their cars and get up high? How many were out there in the sea somewhere, or already washed up onto the shore?
They didn’t talk about it, because there was no point. They all knew. They ran on in the darkness, following the white stripe barely visible at the edge of the road. They’d gone about five kilometers, Zane judged. What had he said? Seven kilometers from Ngauranga Station to the Cake Tin? The CBD would be up ahead, but they needed to stay right for that, not make the left toward the stadium. They’d stay right, and stay on the motorway as long as it was closed. That would take them straight to the heart of the city.
And then what?He couldn’t think about that now. All he could do right now was keep running.
He barely registered the faintdingand buzz at first. Then he was pulling the phone from the pocket of his track pants, stopping on the road, and looking. Heart racing. Breath catching.
If you get this—carpark was buggered, so we’re walking. On Jervois Quay. Not sure how to get to the house. Will look for a hotel to stop in, or an evac centre. Phone almost out of juice. Don’t worry if this is last message.
Marko beside him, saying, “Mate?”
“Y-yeh.” The relief was trying to take him to his knees. “Skylar and all the kids. They’re … they’re OK. On Jervois Quay.”
Marko’s hand on his shoulder. “Good.”
“Nyree?” Zane asked. “The baby?” He couldn’t remember the kid’s name.
“Hotel,” Marko said. “On Jervois Quay, same as you. But I haven’t heard. She hasn’t been able to get through, I guess. They were probably in the room, though. Getting ready to go to dinner before the match.”
“If not,” Zane said, even as he typed, “Nyree will have known to get high as soon as the quake hit. And those hotels are built to quake standard. They have to be.”
“Yeh.” Marko’s feet shifted. “Get going again?”
