Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 28523 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 143(@200wpm)___ 114(@250wpm)___ 95(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28523 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 143(@200wpm)___ 114(@250wpm)___ 95(@300wpm)
My brow furrowed. The people I hired were dependable and ecstatic to have a job, so this news had a lump forming in the pit of my stomach.
“Do you have cell service?” Dean suddenly asked, holding up his phone.
“No.”
Ginger, his wife and the pilot, followed him out of the cockpit. “Not me, either. And no internet. Didn’t you install Wi-Fi in the office?”
“Yep,” I agreed grimly. “Let’s get moving and see what the fuck is going on.”
It was easier to get around on my own here, so I had a couple of vehicles parked in one of the two hangars. We all hopped into the Jeep, and I headed for the road.
“Holy shit,” Dean breathed when we reached the muddy path that used to be a paved road.
The tiny airport we’d built was surrounded by empty fields, so there wasn’t much to look at. But with the road gone, my gaze swept around me, looking for anything else that wasn’t as it should be. There was a lot more mud than usual and a lot of random debris, though I wasn’t sure what it was made of.
I was certainly grateful that I’d had the good sense to buy a vehicle that could handle terrain like this. Stepping on the gas, I started the trek to town. As we approached the town, the ground was less and less visible through all the rubble. By the time we arrived, the Jeep was caked with so much mud, I could barely see through the windows. But the view was sufficient enough to see destruction everywhere we looked.
When we pulled up to the local headquarters for WT, I couldn't do anything but sit and stare. All the windows and doors were blown out, and the whole building was tilted backward as if something had rammed into it. I couldn't believe that Cano had downplayed the damage from the earthquake.
There was a fuck ton of flooding all around us. What few buildings were still standing—most of them constructed of heavily reinforced concrete—looked much like the WT office building.
It was eerily quiet, and there seemed to be no one around.
A knock on my window had all three of us jumping in our seats, but when the door was wrenched open, I was relieved to see Cano standing there. His face was lined with stress, his expression grim, and he had an arm in a sling.
“What the hell happened, Cano?” I asked as I jumped out of the car and looked him over. That was when I saw the splint on his leg, from hip to ankle. “Are you okay?”
I felt a suction holding me down when I attempted to move closer, and I realized that the ground beneath the debris wasn’t solid, and I was sinking into the mud.
“We set up a temporary shelter over there,” Cano said raggedly, pointing toward what used to be the sprawling yard of Baro’s mansion. “It’s the highest ground.”
“Watch the mud,” I warned Dean and Ginger as they exited the vehicle, then I worked my feet out and followed Cano as he limped in the direction indicated.
“There was another earthquake a few hours after you took off. Ten minutes later, the first wave hit.”
“Oh my gosh,” Ginger gasped. “A tsunami?”
Cano nodded. “The first one was the worst. I was on the top floor of the Worlds Together building and saw the wave right before it hit. Had to be at least ten feet tall. The whole building shook and rocked on the foundation. The other two were smaller, but the first one had done so much damage that the next two wiped out a lot of what was left. I was running down the stairs when the second one hit and was carried out of the building, which turned out to be a good thing since the water pushed the structure back to that weird angle. I can’t imagine it will last much longer.”
“Wait.” I stopped him with a hand on his arm. “You were carried out of the building on the wave? How did you survive?”
We reached a series of tents, and Cano pointed at his arm as he limped toward the nearest one. “When the wave receded, it took me right back to the building, but I was lucky to be away from the windows and doors. Slammed me into the wall pretty fucking hard, though. Broke my arm and a few ribs. Pretty sure my leg is fractured.”
“Fucking hell, Cano,” I rasped, my throat tight with emotion. I didn’t want to ask the next question, but I needed to know. “How many? How many survivors?”
Cano stopped to take a deep breath, and I ignored his feeble protest when I scooped him into my arms and carried him the rest of the way, setting him down on a blanket. “Don’t know yet. I wanted to be out helping to search, but my injuries just made it harder since someone was always looking after me.”