Emma woke, a metallic taste in her mouth, and tried to sit. Someone pressed down on her chest. She pushed against the hands, but they pressed harder. She opened her eyes. Grit scratched them, and she clamped them shut, pushing at the hands.
Where was she? How did she get here? Flashes of a woman’s face, the sidewalk, her backpack. The march?
A roaring filled her ears. It came from above. Was she underground? She stopped slapping, and the hands stopped pushing. Someone was talking to her, but the voice was tinny and distorted. Was this a dream? The hands seemed real enough.
“Where—” she mumbled. She lifted her head, and a shock of pain surged through her skull. She fell back. “Ow,” she moaned. Note to self: No sudden moves.
“Be still,” a voice said, clearer now.
“Who are you?” She squinted and saw candlelight, pressed her lids closed again. More images crashed through her brain, the sidewalk, the wind, her phone.
She dropped back on the pillow. Through a blur of tears, she eased them open, could make out a woman’s form sitting next to her on a couch. She had muscular arms and something dangling from her lips, a pen?
Was this her rescuer? A rescuer wouldn’t hurt her, right?
Another woman mumbled something—two of them? Great. Her eyes watered, and she kept her lids closed. Tears would wash the grit out. She dabbed at her lashes with her fingertips. “Ugh.”
“See. She’s not dead.”
“Dead?” She sat and cracked her eyes open. Another woman stood in the shadows beyond a candle that flickered on a kitchen table.
“Fine. She’s not dead. Are you happy now?”
Did she detect a Southern drawl?
The woman ran her fingers over a faded scar that ran from her shoulder to her elbow. Star and swirl tattoos surrounded the scar.
“I told you she was tough. Just like us.” As she spoke, the pen bobbed between her assailant’s teeth.
“Lilli, you’re a bleeding heart. Anyone ever tell you that?”
Lilli? The one with the pen was Lilli.
“I’m with you, aren’t I?” The woman in the shadows took her hand from the tattoo and shoved it in her pocket.
“Mmhmm.” Lilli held out her hand.
Emma blinked and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. Her vision cleared. A set of stairs rose into the darkness on the other side of the candle-lit room. Was that the only way in and out? She lay on a tattered, brown couch, the aroma of lavender and cigarette smoke rising from the fabric.
“Okay. I owe you fifty bucks.” The woman pulled out some bills and handed them to Lilli.
Emma stared then looked away, heat rising to her face. The lace-like design of her scar blended with her tattoo, making it look like the Milky Way.
“Thanks, Jade, honey.” Lilli pocketed the money. She placed her hand on Emma’s back, and Emma didn’t resist, shifting her gaze from Jade’s scar to Lilli’s pen.
The couch was pushed against a rough brick wall. Founders Square, she was close to where the protest was supposed to be.
“What happened?” Emma tightened her ponytail and smoothed her loose hairs against her head.
“Try 911 again, Jade.” Lilli stood all of five feet tall, four inches shorter than Emma, but she had the voice of a drill sergeant.
“No bars.” Jade put her phone in her back pocket.
“Hmm.” Lilli slipped the pen out of her mouth, balancing it between her fingers like a cigarette. “Trying to quit.” She grinned at Emma and wiggled the pen.
Her hair, shaved at the back and around her ears, spiked on top with short bangs parted on one side, a cut Emma coveted, but not Mom.
The candle on the table filled the air with a musky scent. Vanilla? The light kept the shadows at bay. Emma counted the tattoos covering Lilli’s arms, across her chest, and up her neck: hearts, diamonds, swirls. She stopped at the one on her chest, “J’aime…” She turned away and cleared her throat. Lilli loved something.
She glanced at Jade, whose long braid hung down her back, her fingers tracing the scar on her arm again. Was she nervous? Emma glanced down at her own damp, stained, skinny jeans and torn T-shirt. At least Jade’s plaid shirt over loose jeans and black combat boots were clean.
Emma tried not to stare at Jade’s other tattoos, the sunburst rising from her chest to her throat. “So, you saved me from the storm?”
Jade tensed. Tall and lanky, like Mom, but Jade stood with her shoulders rolled forward as if trying to make herself small. Lilli stood ramrod straight, hands on hips, like Mom when she wanted answers.
“Who are you guys?” Emma tried again, her lips slow and thick.
“First of all, we’re not guys. This is my partner, Jade, and I’m Lilli.” She motioned to Emma. “And you are…?”
“Emma.” She shook Lilli’s hand. Why had Lilli corrected her? Of course, they weren’t guys. Her belly cramped. “I don’t feel so good.” She held her abdomen.
“Concussion.” Lilli picked up a wastebasket from beside the fridge. “I told you. If I hadn’t gone out to get her, she’d be in the river by now.”
Lilli placed the basket in front of Emma. She stared at it, not wanting to use it, but her tummy rolled. She spewed her lunch into it. A sheen of sweat emerged on her upper lip and forehead. Dizziness left her weak, and tears trickled down her cheeks. With a ragged sigh, she fell back against the couch.
This was not good. Note to self: No sudden moves.
Lilli stuck the pen in her mouth and chewed. Jade’s fingers moved up and down her scar. Both women seemed unsure of what to do now that she was awake.
She pushed loose strands of hair from her face. “What’s happening outside?”
“Oh, honey, only the storm of the century, after Katrina that is.” Jade’s accent grew stronger, and she cradled her scarred arm.
“And it’s not over yet.” Lilli pointed at a window set high on the wall. It reflected the glowing light from the candle, and outside a plastic bag whizzed past, then a paper cup. The wind shook the glass in the frame.
She glanced to the kitchen cabinets that stood open, revealing cans of soup and pasta boxes. A door at the end of the cabinets revealed a toilet—a bathroom. Good, she’d need one, soon.
“I heard some scientist guy over at Vandby U talking about this new monster-storm thing,” Lilli said. “It was on the news, just before the power went out.”
“Monster-storm? Was it Dr. Woolf?” Emma wiped her fingers over her forehead, winced when they met the bump. She jerked her hand away. Blood stained her fingers. She scanned the room and stopped on a kitchen table and chairs, moved to the bed behind a beaded curtain, the TV on a stand in front of the couch—all the comforts of home, where she should be right now.
“Just sit back. You hit your head pretty hard,” Jade said.
“I heard it crack.”
“Lilli, shush now.” Jade put her hand up to stop whatever Lilli was going to say next, but Lilli ignored her.
“We didn’t know if you’d make it. You slept fo—”
Jade took Lilli’s hand. “You’re scaring her.”
Emma raised her hand to her chest.
“Sorry. You’ll be fine, kid. We were worried was all.” Lilli swung Jade’s hand.
Emma was not fine. What weren’t they telling her? Had her mom noticed she was gone yet? Her scalp tingled. If she could only get to her backpack, she could make her escape, but the storm raged outside in full force, so leaving wasn’t an option.
“Where is this?”
Lilli cleared her throat. “You’re in our shop, the Little Shoppe of Colours. Get it? Like Little Shop of Horrors, only colors has the British spelling with ‘ou.’ ”
“No one gets that, Lilli, seriously.” Jade held a cloth under the faucet and dabbed Emma’s forehead. “Our shop is on 10th near Founders Square.”
Jade’s lips curled up in a grin, evidence of her pride. Emma’s Aunt Beth owned an antique shop, which she talked about nonstop. Emma always avoided her aunt, but with Jade, talking about her shop didn’t seem like boasting. It obviously meant everything to her.
“We were open late, of course.” Jade’s voice shifted to monotone, like she was reciting a dream or something that happened to someone else. “Almost had to tie Old Freddie to a chair because of the storm.”
“Couldn’t keep Freddie, though. He hopped on his motorcycle and sped off. I watched him until he sped around the corner. That’s when you blew across the street, just like a rag doll.”
Emma shuddered, pushing that vision her from her mind. Would they ever stop talking?
“Man, you were flying—weird, right? I mean, a hurricane in Vandby? So, I ran out and picked you up.” Lilli chewed her pen.
“She’s the big hero.” Jade sniffed. She placed her hand over her scar, which up close resembled a map of Italy. “She ran out before I could stop her. We carried you into the cellar, and here you are.”
Breaking glass crashed above the roar of the storm. Emma gripped the blanket.
“I got you on the couch just before the lights went out.”
“You got lucky this time, Lilli.”
Emma glanced from one to the other. She clutched her abdomen.
Jade’s forehead creased. Lilli chewed her pen.
“Thanks?” Emma wasn’t sure how to respond. Her throat tightened. They looked tough and wild, but they’d rescued her, saved her life. The window rattled. A hamburger wrapper flew by, and she cringed. She was stuck here until the storm was over.
“You need tea.” Lilli leapt up and darted to the kitchen.
“She needs a doctor, brave-heart,” Jade said.
“What?” Emma leaned forward, her head in her hands. “I’m sitting right here.”
“Right.” Lilli walked toward the stairs, raising her phone to get reception. “Still no signal.”
“The cell towers are out, and with no power, no tea.”
Emma lay back. Was she invisible, or were they deaf?
“The thermos has hot water. Where is it?”
“Upstairs, but ya ain’t going up until the storm’s over. Now chill.”
“I don’t want anything, really.” Emma’s head pounded, and she could barely follow their conversation. Her fingers hit a lump the size of a golf ball on her forehead. “Oh man. Mom is going to kill me.”
“Wait until the black eye sets in.” Lilli grinned at her.
Emma moaned and swung her legs off the couch.
“Do you want to pass out again? Don’t move.”
Emma sobbed and clamped a hand over her mouth. Jade eased her back into the pillows. Emma couldn’t look away, Jade’s soft eyes warm, like Mom’s.
She fought back her tears. Mom. Was she okay? Why hadn’t she gotten Megan’s text twenty minutes earlier? Why didn’t she listen to Mom?
“We should put ice on that bump.” Lilli opened an old mini fridge. There was no light. She rummaged through the little freezer section.
“Peas.” Lilli held up a plastic bag.
“Peas?” Jade frowned.
“From our Paleo diet, remember? Here, this will help the swelling.” Lilli placed the bag on Emma’s lump.
“Mom uses peas, too.” Emma shivered, and her stomach tied in a painful knot.
Lilli hauled a worn blanket out of a dresser drawer and draped it over Emma.
She drew the scratchy blanket to her chin, scrunching into a corner of the couch and let her heavy lids close. Why didn’t she listen to mom? She could be home right now, not here with complete strangers. She curled up on the couch. The storm trapped her here, but once it was over, she was gone.
Note to self—
Quit saying note to self.