"About four miles. Mile an hour—that's not exactly a quick pace, is it?"
Reese squinted as he stared out into the sunlight toward the north. "That puts us in Ellsworth at about…8 o'clock if we leave right now." He turned and looked at the others. Ben leaned on his crutch, waiting.
Jo continued picking through the rubble, grunting to herself and throwing odds and ends in her backpack. "Don't look at me," she said, not looking up. "You make a decision. I'll go along with whatever you want to do, but in the meantime, I'm going to keep looking for everything I can find.”
Reese looked at the map on Ben's phone again. Three miles. It wasn't very far. Back before the tsunami, he wouldn't have hesitated to walk three miles. It might take an hour to get there at a good pace, but with Ben hobbling along on a crutch with a busted leg, and all the debris and destruction scattered around them? They’d be lucky to make it to Ellsworth by midnight.
But then again…every mile down the road was a mile closer to home. A mile closer to Cami and Amber. Reese clenched his hands into fists.
"Let's get moving. We’re burning daylight."
Chapter 16
Lavelle Homestead
Northwest of Charleston, South Carolina
Cami was in the master bedroom closet, wrapping up her inventory of the gun safe, reaching for her favorite 9mm Glock when she heard a car door. The master bedroom was adjacent to the garage, and the closet she was in happened to be the closest livable area inside the house to the driveway. It had always been one of her pet peeves that she could be in the closet and hear someone pull up in the driveway.
With absolutely no other sounds in the house—no background noise of air-conditioners or TVs or radios—she heard very clearly the muffled whoomp. Holding the empty Glock in her hand, Cami selected a loaded magazine from the shelf in the gun safe and rammed it home. She pulled the slide back, checked that she had a round in the pipe, and let it go. Pulling out her favorite concealed carry paddle holster, she slipped the firearm in the small of her back and dropped her t-shirt over it, then scurried from the room after locking the safe.
"Amber! Mitch! Either of you two out front?" she called as quietly as possible.
"No mom, we’re both in the kitchen setting up the radio—what's up?" Amber called from the other side of the house.
Cami rushed down the hallway toward the kitchen, keeping a wary eye on the front door. "Somebody just pulled up in our driveway. You two stay here."
Without waiting to hear arguments, Cami turned and walked confidently toward the front door. A shadow passed in front of the frosted window that covered part of the door before Cami heard a soft knock.
She approached the door, took a deep breath, then unlocked it and opened it, one hand behind her back, resting on the Glock’s grip. “Hello?”
Mia Stevens, a neighbor—more of an acquaintance, really—from the newer, more crowded side of the neighborhood, stood on Cami’s doorstep, her face a mask of worry. A little younger than Cami, Mia had a couple of kids just getting into their teenage years. Cami had seen them playing outside several times on her occasional walks through the neighborhood.
"Mia?" Cami asked, lowering her hand to her side. She opened the door. "Is everything okay? Come on in," Cami said, looking over Mia's shoulder to make sure the woman was alone.
"Hi Cami, I'm so sorry to bother you…” Mia said, stepping inside the cool interior of the Lavelle household.
"My goodness, how do you keep your house so cool? You still have power?"
"Oh—no," Cami stuttered. "We just open the windows. It's such a nice day and there's a lovely breeze…”
Mia nodded, understanding. "Of course—I should do that. But don't you worry that the power’s going to come back on? Running air conditioning with windows open…”
Cami shut the door behind them and directed Mia toward the kitchen. "Oh, I'm not too worried. I'd rather have the house aired out, anyway. Too much air-conditioning irritates my allergies, you know? Hey, you want something to drink?” Cami asked, desperate to change the subject. “Let's go in the kitchen and sit down."
Cami led Mia through the house and after, introducing Amber and Mitch, she went to the fridge and got everyone a bottle of cold water.
Mia drank half of hers before realizing it was refrigerated. "You have cold water!"
Cami shrugged, making eye signals at Amber and Mitch to stay quiet. "Oh, we don't open the fridge very much—turns out it will stay cold a lot longer than people think if you just leave it shut. You haven't lived here very long, have you? Not gone through many hurricanes?"
Even in the dim, natural light in the kitchen, Cami easily saw Mia blush as she looked down. "No, Jimmy and I have only been here for a year and a half. We haven’t been through a hurricane yet.”
Cami nodded and sat down to join the others. "Don't worry, you’ll get the hang of it. If you have any questions or need help with anything, don't be a stranger, okay?"
Mia held the water bottle with two slightly trembling hands. "You think it's going to last a long time? The power outage, I mean?”
Cami took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "Honestly? Yeah. I do. I don't have anything to back it up. Just a gut reaction, I guess," Cami said, as neutral as she could.
"All I wanted to do was go to the store and get some bottled water and toilet paper—we’re almost out and…” Mia, put a hand over her eyes and
