What a strange dynamic this little group of four had.
Rose looked back at me and nodded encouragingly.
“I got caught on the freeway,” I told her, my eyes wide as I remembered what had happened. “Everyone had stopped on the side of the road, but the tornado was coming right along that path. I knew we’d be sitting ducks there, so I kept going to the next exit. Found this place just as the rain really picked up.”
Feeling Daniel squeeze my hands, I turned my attention to him. “I didn’t know where else to go. I don’t know the area at all. I don’t even know where I am right now.”
He gripped my hands again and offered me a small smile. “You’re in Rockdale.”
His pale blue eyes mesmerized me, and I felt myself falling into their depths. There had to be magic in them because I found I couldn’t look away from him, not until he blinked and swiveled to face Gabe and Scarlett.
“We need to call emergency services. If there were a bunch of people stuck on the freeway when it hit, we could be looking at mass—” He stalled as he glanced nervously at Rose. “Uh, at a massive issue.” He pulled one hand away from me and dug in his back pocket for his phone.
“On it,” Gabe said immediately, jumping up from his seat and pulling his phone from his pocket. He dialed and waited.
And waited some more.
He paced the small room, and my concern started to grow as we all kept waiting for someone to pick up. He frownedand stared at his phone. “No one’s answering. The call is going through, but no one’s picking up.”
“That’s disconcerting,” Daniel muttered. He woke his phone up and navigated to his contacts, scrolling single-handedly until he found what he was looking for. His other hand continued to hold mine, almost like I was giving him just as much comfort as he was giving me. “Let me try the mayor.”
As Daniel waited for the mayor of Rockdale to answer his call—and wasn’tthata mindfuck? This really must be a small town if he personally knew the mayor—Gabe tried again. Both calls rang out, and they looked at each other worriedly.
When I heard tapping, I looked over at Scarlett, who was typing away on her phone. A moment after she finished, Gabe’s phone buzzed, and he checked his messages. “Oh, good thinking,” he said. “I never thought about messaging our group chat. Maybe Drew knows what’s going on.”
I frowned at Daniel, who simply shook his head at me, still largely focused on his own phone. “Drew’s their boss.”
“Ah,” I said, like that answered everything, when, in fact, it answered pretty much nothing. At least they knew who they needed to call, I guess?
Daniel and Gabe kept calling different numbers, but it wasn’t until both Gabe’s and Scarlett’s phones beeped that any of them got a response.
“Drew says everyone’s at the freeway at the moment,” Gabe said before he looked over at Scarlett, both faces paling quickly. “No one’s answering their phones right now because they’re all busy dealing with the volume of injuries.”
“Oh n-no,” Rose murmured, her quiet stutter making her sound so much younger than she had previously.
Everyone’s worried eyes immediately looked over to see her clinging to her dog.
Daniel finally let me go and shuffled over to her. He sat down next to her and pulled her into his lap, where he started rocking her. “Gabe said injuries, not casualties. Do you know the difference?”
“Injuries are p-people that have b-been hu-urt,” she said softly, her words jarring as she struggled to speak, her throat clicking painfully from the effort. “C-casualties are….”
“Casualties are people that have been killed or have been seriously hurt,” Daniel said softly, still rocking Rose slowly in his arms.
“So, b-because he s-said injuries, that m-means p-people have b-been hurt b-but not too b-badly?” Rose asked slowly in order to get her question out, looking up at him with wide eyes that were shimmering with tears.
I looked at Gabe, who still looked pale. He flicked his eyes to mine and grimaced.
“That’s what we hope,” I heard Daniel say, my eyes still on Gabe’s. “We won’t know more until we get out of here.”
“Thanks, D-Daddy D-Danny,” Rose murmured. She burrowed her head into the crook of Daniel’s neck, her tense shoulders relaxing slightly with every breath she released.
I finally put two and two together, and my eyes flew to Daniel, who was cuddling Rose even harder, a hand rubbing her back soothingly as she nestled against him.
Just like a father would do with his daughter.
Rose had called himDaddy. Why hadn’t it registered that he was her dad, and she was his daughter? That meant there would have to be a mother somewhere out there.
Whatever faint stirrings of attraction I had felt for Daniel only minutes ago disappeared entirely as I realized he was off-limits. Concern rose in its place when I realized his wife, Rose’s mom, was likely out there, alone. If it were my mom in that situation,I’d be freaking the hell out, but they didn’t seem to be worried about getting out of the bunker we were in.
