[Niall]
To say the hurricane was bad is a gross understatement. For the first time, almost all of the adults that ordered our lives and—we thought—protected us, left. The trainers went first, then the scientists. Security was supposed to stay, but I think they left when they realized how bad the storm was getting, and it wasn't like they had permission or space to take all of us with them. The only people left were the ones who took care of the nursery. They were minimally staffed, though, so it wasn’t like they had much time for us. So there we were, for the first time feeling alone, in the middle of the worst storm we had ever witnessed.
We watched from barred windows as the rain got worse and lightning touched down outside. Some of us pretended to ignore it, occasionally commenting about how everything was going to be fine. Others, like me, tried to make jokes to distract ourselves and one another. Some rattled off information about storms and survival techniques that we learned from our classes, as if the knowledge would offer some protection. Others paced or stood in silence. Many began to panic.
Then the storm surge came.
It’s funny—you’d think we would all scream. Watch the waves batter the shore, rising in seconds well-beyond where high-tide normally ended. See them ripping through trees, engulfing the rest of the compound and just start shrieking. We didn’t. We were dead quiet—could’ve heard a pen drop. The screaming didn’t start until we realized that water was coming into the building.
The surge hit the building with a roar. Water poured from underneath the doors, gushing onto the floor and racing toward us. For a moment, we were stunned, almost unable to believe it was happening. Then came the screams and shouts as we all began to race in a panic toward the stairwell. We pressed against one another, grabbing the younger kids and practically throwing them to front so they wouldn’t be swept away. By the time I made it onto the stairs, the water reached my thighs and showed no signs of stopping. The drag against my legs was so strong—if we hadn’t been forced to exercise so much, I might have been knocked off my feet.
We had made it to the second floor and huddled together, gasping and catching our breath. Someone had begun to count to make sure everyone was there. A lemur-hybrid named Janice had gotten to the end of the role-call, and we thought everything was good, until her face froze, suddenly stricken.
“What’s wrong?” a boy in the crowd asked—Tyler, a scrappy guy with cheetah genes.
Janice’s lips trembled and her wide eyes searched the crowd.
“Janice—what's up?” Tyler asked again, more insistently.
Her hands flew to her mouth and she choked back a sob. “Oh no—no, no, no—”
By now, everyone was staring at Janice, tensed and prepared for the worst. Some looked around. Realization began to dawn on their faces.
“Janice!” Tyler snapped, clenching his fists, his voice tight with the anxiety of ignorance and dread.
Someone in the group spoke up: “The nursery.”
The voice was low and monotone, but a silent horror spread throughout the group.The nursery was on the first floor.
“Maybe—maybe it’s not completely flooded—maybe we can—” stammered one girl, on the verge of hyperventilating. She didn’t finish her sentence before dashing back into the stairwell. Two of her friends called after her, racing to bring her back. There was no need, though—she returned less than a minute later, eyes wide, haunted.
“It’s completely flooded,” she whispered listlessly. “That means…” she trailed off.
“They’re gone,” one of her friends finished.
Last I knew, there were thirty babies in the nursery, and five staff taking care of them during the storm. Six of the children were with us—mostly siblings of older kids who decided to take them for a little while. That still left twenty-four children, many too young to walk, let alone swim. Too young to even be afraid of the water gushing into the room until they were underneath. Too young to understand why they couldn’t breathe—
My gaze landed on Dee, one of the few people holding an infant. Her whole body trembled and she gripped Parker so tightly I was almost concerned. Her eyes were wide and her gaze stricken. She was mouthing something, but made no audible sound or actual words.
I clutched my forehead, feeling distant from my body. “Maybe the staff were able to get some of them out,” I suggested. My voice sounded higher than I remembered. “Everyone listen! Can somebody hear—can somebody hear them? Maybe they’re on the other side of the building. Just—just listen, okay?”
Perhaps someone else with enhanced hearing would be able to pick them up. If the staff were able to hold two kids each and made it to the second floor, fourteen babies would still be dead, but at least ten could make it. Ten wouldn’t have to die—like that.
Some of the others gazed at me grimly, and some just looked away. A few were listening though, myself included. My own hearing was somewhat enhanced, but I couldn’t pick up on anything beyond our group and the storm outside. Out of everyone, I didn’t have the absolute best hearing, though, so maybe someone else’s auditory abilities would prove more fruitful.
My friend, Mehmet, looked over apologetically. He had feline genes, and was one of the people out of the group that heard the best. “I don’t think they made it, dude.”
I blinked. “Oh.”
My hands suddenly began to shake. I couldn’t get the image of all those kids—babies—out of my head. My stomach hurt.
“Guys, we can’t stay here! We need to keep moving!” one girl yelled, coming out of the stairwell. “The water is still rising!”
Murmurs, gasps, and stifled sobs emanated from the group. I swallowed and tried to push down my nausea. In an instant, we were running up the stairs again, hoping that the third floor would be a refuge. This time, there was more of a push to get the little ones ahead, the thought of the nursery still fresh in our minds.
Even that wasn’t enough.
We formed something akin to a chain to get the kids to safety more quickly. I was in the middle, and the flow was beginning to thin when the screaming started. It wasn’t like any of the screams of fear I’d heard prior. It was a deeper than that—more terrified, desperate, anguished. Less a sound someone made, and more a noise unwillingly ripped from them by something primal.
Many of us froze, others whipped their heads, trying to see what was happening. Children kept running past us, but even they sometimes paused to look off in terror. We just had to keep pushing them forward. The sound came from down the stairs—if anything, we needed them to get to the third floor faster.
Eventually, the last of the group came forward, their faces pale and contorted into expressions of horror. Dee was among them, holding Parker with one arm and dragging a girl about eight years old with the other. The younger girl was screaming and crying, and I instantly recognized the wail from earlier.
“Let me go! Let me go!” she shrieked, trying to writhe from Dee’s grasp. “Please—I can get them! I’m part dolphin—please—I can do it! Let me go—I need to help them!”
Dee said nothing, holding firm her grip on the girl and dragging her up the stairs as quickly as she could manage. We weren’t super close then, but I knew Dee from my cohort. Seeing that she was one of the last coming, I broke from the chain and hooked my arms under the flailing girl, scooping her up so Dee could keep moving easier, especially while holding Parker.
“Thanks.” Her voice was hollow, like her body was making sound, but her mind had left.
The girl continued to flail and scream until we made it to the third floor. I set her down, and she tried to rush back into the stairwell a few times, but on the fifth try, suddenly collapsed the ground, curling in on herself and sobbing incoherently.
I knelt next to the girl and looked back up at Dee, who stared almost vacantly. Parker cried loudly on her shoulder. Her gaze unnerved me, goosebumps prickling up my arms. “What happened?” I asked, not sure I wanted the answer.
“Electric equipment got damaged,” she whispered hoarsely.
“What—” I began to say when the meaning of her words hit me. Damaged electric equipment and water. My hands began to shake again. “So, they—?”
Dee pursed her lips and nodded.
“How many—? Who—?” I stammered.
“Michael, from our cohort. And three kids from hers,” Dee gestured to the little girl who was still wailing at my feet.
“Oh.”
My stomach really hurt, and I pressed my hand to my mouth. Swallowing back vomit was an active struggle. I knew Michael well. We were close. He was a fun guy—loved to play pranks. One time, he army-crawled through the barracks with a cape of underwear he taped together, insisting he was on a mission from his trainer and demanding a pair of everyone’s boxers. He actually managed to convince a few guys he was serious.
And just like that, he was dead, along with three kids who had barely begun to live.
I couldn’t stop the images that flooded my mind. Back in training, we saw what tasers did to a person. I knew how a body jerked convulsed while being shocked. This would have been so much worse. I imagined Michael, fighting against the water to pull the little ones through, and wearing the same desperate, terrified expression as everyone else. How the shock would have frozen them—stunned, pained faces gazing up as they writhed like worms, unable to exercise the tiniest amount of control over their own bodies, until their expressions went blank and lifeless. I imagined them slowly sinking, still twitching, under the dark water.
I gagged and walked back to the stairwell, now empty except for dark waves that lapped against the landing below. They seemed to have stopped rising. I walked down to a few steps just above the landing. The water slapped against the stairs, gray and dirty. The droplets spraying up seemed to stain the light concrete. Somewhere down below that sludge, Michael floated lifeless alongside the bodies of three other children.
Then, I did throw up.
Now, I hissed and pressed my eyes shut, trying to force the memory away. It came back so easily. Everything about it was always so real, almost like it was threatening to burst into the present and become reality again. Sometimes, it replayed in my dreams and I woke up sweating and gasping. A few times, I startled Parker awake. He’d ask what was wrong, but how could I explain that to him—how could I recount that story to him when it was a memory he was so fortunate to not be able to remember?
Dee was right: we were too young. Too fucking young.
Too young then. Too young in the days after when we had to escape by boat to another place we hoped was near. Too young in the year and half that followed, when we were on the streets, scrounging meals from dumpsters and stealing baby formula.
But still, we couldn’t try to shield the kids from everything now. Yes, they deserved better than having to go through it—Dee deserved better than to have this illness. But the real world doesn’t work based on what people deserve. We all had to deal with it whether we wanted to or not, and it would be easier to deal with together and in the open. Being pushed away was its own kind of Hell.
“Hey.”
Dee’s clammy, shaky hand pressed against my cheek, unpleasantly wet and cool. I opened my eyes to see her staring at me, looking guilty. “Sorry,” she said.
“For?” I asked, resting my hand on her wrist, which was a little less clammy. Touching her, I felt more in the moment—although, the moment was sweaty. Her pulse beat under my thumb. I couldn’t tell whose was faster: hers or mine.
“Making you remember…I know your memories can be vivid,” she said, her light brown eyes moving as she studied my face.
I smiled. “Since when have you been able to make me do anything?” I teased, my gaze lingering on her lips. I cleared my throat and forced myself to look back at her eyes before pulling away. “Look,” I started. “What we all went through sucked, and yeah, we were too young. The kids especially. But right now, something is wrong—and sure, you’re the one who’s sick, but we all love you, so it hurts us too. And it’s going to hurt for all of us, regardless of how much you try to protect the kids. Or me. But it’s worse to see this happening to you and to be shut out.”
Dee’s shoulders slumped an she lowered her gaze, jaw clenched. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. She leaned her head into her hands and sighed. “The last thing I want is for you guys to worry.”
I thought I must have misspoken, because that wasn't the point I was trying to make. Yeah, I was trying to tell her how much it hurt to be pushed away when she wasn't doing well, but I didn't want her to just feel bad that we were worried. That just brought us back to square one. I mean, I didn't want her to worry the kids by shutting them out, but—I don’t know. It just made me frustrated at myself.
“It’s—not—that’s not what meant,” I stammered, trying to find the right words. “Not everything is about protection, from worry or pain or whatever—look, Dee, we’re going through this with you, one way or another. Please, don’t push us away. All of us can see something happening, and we just wanna be here.”
Dee glanced up at me from the corner of her eye and shifted uncomfortably, folding her arms across her chest. One finger tapped anxiously. “It’s just…hard,” she said. “With you, not as much, but with the kids…”
“Hey, you don’t have to tell them everything,” I told her, resting my hand on her shoulder. “Start by not trying to pretend everything is okay when it’s not. Step one. That’s all you have to do.”
Dee laughed, which sounded more like a harsh bark. “Sure.”
“What are you laughing at? I’m serious,” I said. Under other circumstances, I would have playfully shoved her.
“You know it isn’t that easy,” she replied with a crooked smile.
“Nothing is easy for us,” I said. It was true, which made me sad, but I found myself smiling anyway. “We do it though.”
Dee laughed again and nodding, sighing. “Yeah. Yeah, we do,” she agreed. “I’ll…try.”
“See? Look at you, doing hard things and being a badass!” I grinned and “punched” her shoulder very, very lightly.
Dee looked at my fist and raised a brow. “That didn’t feel like a punch you’d give a badass.”
I blinked. “Are you seriously complaining that I didn’t just deck you as hard as I could?”
She shrugged. “I mean, you gave me a compliment and followed it with a wimpy punch…”
“I’m not going to hit you,” I said dryly.
Dee rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” Then she winked.
I shook my head and laughed, resisting the sudden urge to kiss her. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Oh? What was that? Did Niall just call someone else ridiculous?” She teased.
“Well, I would know, wouldn’t I?” I quipped. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the white edge of the family medical kit and suddenly remembered what I was supposed to be doing. “Okay, now let me finish checking you over.”
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