Endless

Destruction

The rain stung my face as we sprinted toward town, my feet slipping on fallen leaves, my lungs burning from the effort. My nostrils prickled with the ominous scent of dank, billowing smoke. Over the constant thrum of the rain and whooshing of the wind, I caught an errant scream, echoed by a dozen more. Joaquin’s eyes were wild as they met mine, and we ran even harder.

When we finally arrived at the point overlooking the town square and the docks below, I was so stunned by what I saw I almost skidded right over the rocky ledge. Somehow I managed to stop myself in time and doubled over next to Joaquin, heaving for breath.

The ferry that had always brought new souls to Juniper Landing was on fire and sinking—fast. The entire back of the vessel had gone up in flames. The air was torn with shouts and screams, and I could see several prone figures lined up on the bay’s meager shore. Dozens of others clung to jagged shards of wood in the choppy, roiling surf or desperately swam for land, while Lifers dove in from the docks to help.

“Holy shit,” Joaquin said between gasps.

We sprinted down the hill, skidding by the library and along the west side of town toward the docks. The air here was thick with smoke. We passed a few dazed Lifers in the shopping district, each of them frozen, their eyes shot through with confusion and fear as they watched the disaster unfold before them. It was an eerie sort of stillness to pass through before reaching the chaos of the docks. The long walkway was flanked on either side by slick, steep outcroppings of rocks. Bodies of the injured were laid out on the shore, while the more mobile survivors made their way to the rocky slope or up the stairs to the docks. Everywhere I looked, my friends and fellow Lifers were helping however they could.

Darcy’s current boyfriend, Fisher Morton, tossed a person onto his broad shoulders and carried him to the sand before turning right back around and swimming out again. Bea McHenry was towing three people toward shore as they clung to a large chunk of the boat’s prow. Farther down the dock, Krista Parrish and Lauren Caldwell helped patch up scrapes and bruises and burns, while a few strangers wandered aimlessly, shouting names or pleading for help. I yanked off my jacket and ran for the water. Joaquin was right behind me.

“Stop right there.”

The sound of the mayor’s commanding voice froze me in my tracks. I turned to find her standing on the rocks near the water’s edge beneath a huge black umbrella, her blond hair slicked back in a low bun, her black raincoat cinched at the waist. Her ice-blue eyes flicked over me.

“They need help!” I shouted.

“Let them handle it,” she said, nodding at the swimmers, who included my sister. “We need more hands out here cataloging the injuries.”

Cataloging the injuries? Who the hell talked like that? But as I looked around at the wounded visitors huddled or lying on the slim stretch of sand, I saw that she was right. These people couldn’t die, of course, but we had to find the ones in critical pain and separate them from those with simple bumps and bruises.

“Joaquin! Rory! I need some help over here.”

Krista—Tristan’s “sister” in the world of Juniper Landing, and as of the last few weeks, my friend—waved us down. She stood next to a man whose arm hung limply, the bone jutting at an unnatural angle. She had on a white raincoat over her jeans, but her blond hair was lifeless, and her skin was as pale as ice. Joaquin raced to her side just as Kevin Calandro and Officer Dorn sped up on a flatbed truck loaded with boxes, stopping in the parking lot at the top of the hill.

“We have the supplies!” Kevin shouted, swinging down from the cab. His normally shaggy black hair was slicked back from his face, and he wore a black tank top that exposed the colorful tattoo of flames that danced over his arm. His pointy chin rose in determination as he yanked open the back of the truck.

“Get us a splint!” Joaquin shouted at me. “And a sling!”

I ran to Kevin and helped him unload, tearing boxes open at random. The containers were full of first aid supplies, from ointments and creams to bandages, scissors, and stitching kits. In the third crate I found a dozen blue-and-white slings and flat plastic splints. I grabbed a set and stood.

“Here. You’ll need this.” Kevin tossed me a roll of medical tape, which I caught in my free hand.

“Thanks,” I said, then sprinted for Joaquin and Krista, checking the chaos for Darcy along the way. Where was she? Was she okay?

“I need help. I need help,” a mocking voice passing very close behind me mimicked the victims.

My shoulder muscles coiled and my blood turned cold as Ray Wagner, one of my charges, stomped by in his dirty brown coat, his wispy hair sticking up on one side, even in the relentless rain. I ignored him and jumped down to the beach, but he leaned into the dock’s railing above my head and laughed, exposing his yellow teeth and a tongue that had been blackened by chewing tobacco. With the rain running freely down his face, he spat in the sand and smiled, as if settling in to watch a ball game.

“What should I do?” I asked Joaquin, who was holding a man’s arm as gently as possible. The man’s face was purple with pain, and the wrinkles on his forehead deepened whenever he moved. Krista had stepped back, watching the proceedings with wide blue eyes. She looked as if she was hanging on by a thread.

“Put the sling over his head, gently. And hand me the splint,” Joaquin ordered.

“You’ll be okay,” I told the man, slipping the white band over his head. “Don’t worry. We’ve got you.”

“Don’t worry. Don’t worry. Blah, blah, blah,” Ray mocked me, tilting his head from side to side.

I shot him a look of death, but he simply laughed.

Ray Wagner had slaughtered four people in a one-night killing spree in Richmond, Virginia, before getting shot dead in a convenience store parking lot while trying to take out his fifth victim. Normally, I would have done my best to usher him as soon as possible, but since things were all out of whack and the no-ushering policy was in place, he was still here. As were a few other unsavory characters my friends had yet to usher. Lauren had been charged with a white-collar criminal named Piper Molloy, who had swindled dozens of families out of their life savings and rendered them homeless. Bea had a woman who had stepped off the ferry two days ago looking as if she’d come right out of the Stone Age with her scraggly hair, dirty fingernails, and gnarly teeth. Her name was Tess Crowe and she’d murdered her own parents, brother, and sister before being relegated to an insane asylum. Bea currently had her locked up in the attic of the home she shared with two older Lifers. Supposedly Tess kept her hosts up at night screeching and trying to claw her way out.

There had been some talk of locking up the visitors meant for the Shadowlands in the jail beneath the police station, but it was comprised of only two tiny cells and wasn’t equipped to hold them all, so for now, we were each tasked with babysitting them as best we could—making sure they didn’t cause any trouble. Ray was the only one, however, whose sadistic heart had been drawn to today’s devastation. Lucky me.

“Oh god! That hurts!” the man cried out as Joaquin taped his arm to the splint.

“Almost done,” I said as Joaquin used his teeth to rip the tape.

Once he’d secured the arm with four tight circles of tape, we gently maneuvered it into the sling. Then I carefully helped the man sit down on one of the dock’s pylons.

“Thank you,” he said, slumping slightly.

“Just hang out here while we figure out where to take you,” Joaquin said.

“Thanks, you guys,” Krista said, stepping between us with her knees wobbling. “I had no idea what to do.”

“It’s okay,” Joaquin said. “The question is: what next?”

We scanned the water and the beach. Nearby a woman was sobbing next to her bleeding husband. A man staggered past us and collapsed onto the sand, his chest heaving for breath. Joaquin had nailed it. Where were we supposed to start? Then I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye: my sister’s dark hair as she ran for the water. She was wearing nothing but shorts and a tank top and was soaked to the bone. Clearly this was not her first time diving into the bay.

“Darcy!” I shouted. But she didn’t hear me. She plunged beneath the choppy waves, reemerged, and swam straight for a little girl whose arms flailed as she went under, choking. My hands flew up to cover my mouth as Darcy plunged after her. I watched the whitecaps where they’d disappeared, scanning for any sign of them. But I could only see the spot where my sister and the girl had gone under.

Where are they? I thought, clenching my jaw.

“There!” Joaquin shouted, startling me. He pointed a good ten feet to the left of where I’d been looking, and there was Darcy, gamely swimming for shore with one arm locked around the little girl’s chest. “She’s okay.” He gave my shoulder a quick squeeze. “They’re both fine.”

“Who’s that?” Krista asked.

A sinewy, strong guy about our age was swimming toward the shore, holding a middle-aged woman tight around her chest, her chin tilted up toward the sky so she could breathe. He placed her on the shore, then raced right back out to the ferry to grab a man who still clung to the doomed ship’s guardrail. Quickly, he pried the panicked man’s fingers from the railing and brought him back to safety, then went out again, cutting through the water like it was nothing to him.

“Where did he come from?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” Joaquin said.

Darcy had just gotten back to the shore and pulled the little girl to safety. I ran to her side, slipping over the rocks until I reached the sand.

“Darcy! Are you guys okay?” I asked, dropping to my knees next to her.

Darcy flung her wet dark hair over her shoulder. She was winded but otherwise seemed fine. The girl, however, was wailing.

“She may have broken her leg, and look at her skin. She’s so pale. I think we should get her to the hospital. Where the hell are the EMTs, already? Or the Coast Guard?”

I swallowed hard. Darcy had no clue about the realities of where we were. As far as she knew, we were still alive, enrolled in the witness protection program thanks to Steven Nell, and about to get a call any day saying he’d been apprehended and we could return to Princeton, to our home and our friends. She didn’t know that a place like Juniper Landing didn’t need any personnel dedicated to saving lives, because no one here had a life to save.

“Um…maybe the weather is screwing things up?”

“Well, we have to get her to a hospital,” Darcy insisted.

Joaquin, who was now tending to a woman nearby, glanced over at me. “We don’t exactly have a hospital,” he said reluctantly.

“No hospital?” We looked up to find Super Swimmer Boy hovering over us, heaving for breath, his jet-black hair dripping water down his square cheekbones. “What do you mean, there’s no hospital?”

His skin was a healthy tan, and he had one blue eye and one brown eye. The whole package was so handsome and startling I found myself staring. Darcy rose to her feet next to me, as speechless and transfixed as me.

“Yes, they’re different colors. No, I don’t know how or why,” he stated, not amused, but not angry, either. Then he focused on Joaquin. “What do you do, then? Go to one on the mainland?”

“How would we even get everyone there without the ferry?” Darcy said, gesturing around wildly.

Now it was Joaquin’s turn to be stumped. “Um…we…”

The seconds ticked by slowly. Strangers began to gather, having overheard our conversation, the injured cradling their arms or holding torn scraps of fabric against wounds. Everyone seemed to wait on whatever it was Joaquin would say next.

“Take them to the clinic.”

An unpleasant shiver raced down my spine. I looked up at the plank walkway leading to the town and saw Mayor Parrish looking down at the rest of us.

“The clinic?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said, rolling her eyes. “The clinic.”

Then she gestured oh-so-elegantly up at the bluff, where her gorgeous, sprawling colonial mansion sat overlooking the town.

“Come now, everyone,” she said loudly. “Let’s help those who can’t help themselves. Once we’re settled inside and out of this rain, we can assess the situation.”

For a long moment, no one moved. Not that anyone could have blamed us. This was not normal procedure for a disaster, following the snappish mayor up the hill with no EMTs or nurses, no ambulances, no nothing.

But this was Juniper Landing, and I’d long since learned that nothing around here was normal procedure. It wouldn’t be long before everyone else here figured it out as well.