ALLUSIVE AFTERSHOCK (16 page)

“Let’s get back down to
the cellar. I’m tired,” Max said.

Once we were back down
in the cellar, I sat with my back against the wall across the room from Court.
The temperature had dropped considerably and my arms began to get chilly. I put
my sweater on and wished for a jacket instead.

I glanced over at
Courtland who lay on the floor trembling. I stood up and walked over to him.

“You’re freezing. I
could try to reposition the blanket you’re on top of and drape part of it over
you.”

“I don’t know if that
would help. My ankle is throbbing and my hand is on fire while the rest of me
is frozen. I can’t stop shivering,” he said through chattering teeth, “and the ibuprofen
is wearing off.”

“I’ll get some more
pills and I should probably put fresh gauze on the burns. That should help a
little.” I opened the medical kit, took out four more pills, and handed them to
him. I poured a little water in a cup and helped him to sit again. After he
swallowed the pills, I sat on the floor beside him and cut some more strips,
soaking them with water. I carefully removed the old strips from his skin and
reapplied the clean, cool gauze.

“The fresh dressings
should help with the burning for a little while, but I don’t know what I can do
for the chills.”

I’d read somewhere that
body heat was the best cure for the chills, but no way was I going to lie down
with Court. I stood in the middle of the room trying to decide where the best
spot would be for me to sleep when Max yelled out from the other side of the
room.

“Awesome! Here, Adela,
catch,” he said, throwing a sleeping bag at me.

“Fantastic! God bless
your mom,” I said, instantly regretting mentioning her.

“Yeah, she thought of
almost everything, didn’t she?” Max agreed. His cheery smile disappeared as he
turned to grab another bag and toss it over toward me.

I unwrapped one of the
sleeping bags, pulled down the zipper, opened it like a blanket, then placed
the thick cover on top of Courtland, being careful to keep his ankle and hand
outside of it. He opened his eyes.

“Thank you,” he said
with a shiver.

“You’re welcome.” I stood
over him a moment to make sure he was okay and he reached out and took my arm
in his hand.

“I’m glad you found
me.”

I nodded and he closed
his eyes before scrunching them tightly as a small groan escaped from his
throat. I wished there was something more I could do for his pain.

I walked over, picked
up the other bag, spread it out on the floor across the room from Courtland,
and slid in. Pulling the zipper up to my chin, I turned my face turned toward
Court to keep an eye on him in case he needed any help.

Max laid out his
sleeping bag beside mine, scooted in, and zipped it up.

“Good night, Adela.”

“Pleasant dreams. That’s
what my dad always says.” The moment I mentioned my dad the longing for his
hugs overwhelmed me and silent tears dripped down my cheeks. I sniffled, trying
to be quiet, but couldn’t contain them any longer and my whimpering increased.
No one said anything while I cried myself to sleep.

I hated lying awake
listening to Adela cry, knowing there was absolutely nothing I could do. I
wanted to hold and comfort her. I wanted to cry with her for my dad and for
Shiloh, for her mom and her dad and her little sister and brother. I wanted to
cry for my stupidity in spraining my freaking ankle and burning my hand and leg,
because the damn pain was excruciating and I wondered how many more days I
would be in agony before I’d be able to get up and out of this little hell-hole
I’d landed in.

We had three mouths to
feed with very few supplies. I could have gone another ten years without being
forced to live with Max. Too bad the guy hadn’t paid more attention to what his
mom put down here. If it had been my mom and cellar, I would have helped her
carry some of the stuff, made suggestions for things, like maybe an iPod and a
nice set of Bose speakers—something to help pass the time. The Wendells had
plenty of money. They could have afforded to build a complete shelter if they’d
wanted to.

I hated relying on
other people to take care of me, especially an idiot like Maxen Wendell, wine
boy.

I was amazed how a guy,
even one as obnoxious as Max, with most every girl in school hanging all over
him could be so completely oblivious to the affections of someone as beautiful
as Adela Castielle. I was even more amazed that Adela could possibly be
attracted to such a Neanderthal. He’d been an arrogant kid, too, always trying
to outdo everyone … well mostly me. I supposed he was lucky this part of his
property wasn’t demolished in the quake, although I seriously doubted that Max
even realized what he had. He wanted to go out and find other people. Good. It
wasn’t a bad idea. I hoped he’d leave tomorrow. I needed to be strong and
realistic. This wasn’t the best situation. We couldn’t hole up here for too
long. As I listened to Adela sniffle over on the other side of the room, I
wondered if she would leave with Max.

Courtland’s low groans startled
me awake and I opened my eyes into darkness. I had no idea how long we had been
asleep. It was impossible to tell what time it was down in the cellar with no
windows to let in the sunshine and I wished I’d worn my watch yesterday.

I shimmied my way out
of the sleeping bag and glanced over at Max. He didn’t move a muscle except for
his lips that made a small puffing noise with each breath he took. It was sort
of comical and made me think of a little puffer fish. I smiled and quietly walked
over to Court to see if I could do anything for him. I stood over him, a
position I seemed to be in a lot since yesterday.

He must have sensed my
presence because he opened his eyes. “Hi.”

“Hi yourself. Um … maybe
if I change the gauze again it might help with some of the pain.”

“Okay. Any more ibuprofen?”

“Yeah, I’ll get those
too.”

I shuffled my way
through the dark to the shelves where I’d left the medical kit and tripped over
something, falling face first onto the cement floor. I stretched out my hands
to break my fall and scraped the bottom part of my left palm, the same hand I
hurt yesterday, in the process. “Ouch.”

“You okay, Adela?”
Court said.

“Um, yeah. I tripped
and scraped my hand.”

Max grumbled and tossed
a bit in his sleeping bag as I glanced behind to see what I tripped over. It
was a book, a rather thick book. I picked it up, but had a hard time making out
the title in the dim light so I placed it on the shelf, thinking I’d come over
later with a candle. A book might be somewhat comforting to read and help pass
the time while we waited. Waited for what, I wasn’t exactly sure. Court to get
better? Max to decide to leave?

I located the
flashlight, lit a candle, picked up the medical kit, and walked back to Courtland.

I poured him a cup of
water and handed him four of the tablets. “There are only eight more pills in
here.”

“Enough for two more
doses. Should be enough to get me through another night. The pain should start
to decrease by then.”

I reached for his
bandages and he grabbed my hand. “You’re bleeding again.”

I looked at the palm of
my hand, saw a little bit of blood dripping from the scrapes I’d gotten when I
tripped. “Oh. It’s nothing,” I said and rubbed off the blood with a piece of
the gauze before reaching again for his bandages. Again, he stopped me.

“Take care of yourself
first. Then me.”

“Really, I’m fine. If I
worried about every little scrape and cut I managed to get on my hands I’d be a
basket case.”

“No. Wash the cut off
so it doesn’t get infected and put a Band-Aid on it.”

“Okay.” I stood up,
poured a quarter-sized spot of water onto a piece of gauze, and wiped off my
hand.

“Adela, what are you
doing? We need that to drink,” Max yelled.

Startled, I glanced at
Court who grimaced, then back at Max as he sat up, rubbing his hand over his
face. “I scraped my hand and I’m only wiping off the blood before I put a Band-Aid
on. Besides, I only used a tiny drop.”

“Okay, just making
sure. That’s all the water we have.”

“I know.” I rolled my
eyes while drying my hand, opened a Band-Aid, and stuck it over the scrapes. I
sat down next to Courtland again, unwrapped the bandages from his hand, and
studied his burns. “Your hand seems to be getting better. The blisters have
gotten smaller.”

I poured a couple of
inches of water into a cup, emptying the bottle, and dipped in a new strip until
it was saturated before gently placing the gauze over part of the burn on his
leg. After dipping two pieces, the water in the cup disappeared. “I better go
get another bottle of water. This one’s empty.”

“What time is it?” Max asked,
still sitting in his sleeping bag.

“I’m not sure. Just go
back to sleep, Max.”

“Who can sleep with all
the groaning going on over there and you two chit-chatting.”

“Maybe you would like
to change places with me,” Court said.

I chuckled to myself at
the way they bickered back and forth, almost like brothers. The whole scene
made me think about the fight they had when they were younger. The more I
listened to them, the more I wondered if Max had told me the entire story.

All in all, I thought
Courtland was being a very good sport.

“Maybe. Then I’d have Adela
catering to me instead of you, which reminds me, what should we eat for
breakfast?” Max shoved off the top of his sleeping bag, stood, and walked over
to the shelves. He picked up the can of beef stew. “This looks good to me.” He
opened the can and lit the little container of Sterno.

I walked back to
Courtland and finished changing his bandages. As I placed the last new strip
over his hand, the lines in his forehead smoothed out some and he smiled.

“Thank you.”

“You say that a lot.”

“Do I? Well, I mean it
and I want you to know.”

Max came over with
three bowls of the stew and handed one to each of us. I placed my hand under
Court’s arm to help him into a sitting position.

“I think I can do this.
My hand is a little better today. Thanks.” He smiled.

Unsure of where to go, I
sat down on the floor next to Court. The cement was cold but sitting on his
blanket seemed a bit too close and going over to sit on my sleeping bag seemed
like a statement that I didn’t want anything to do with him. I didn’t want him
to think that.

“You can sit over here
if you want. The floor must be kind of cold. I won’t bite,” Court said, patting
the quilt beside him with his hand.

“Um … okay.” I sat
inches from his good leg and scooped up a spoonful of stew, nervous for some
unknown reason. The idea of Courtland Reese being concerned about me sitting on
the cold floor and wanting me to know he was thankful made me feel rather
special. For some other reason, sitting only a few inches from his leg made my
stomach flutter a bit, in a good way. I ate slowly, not wanting the feeling to
disappear.

Max finished his stew
and walked over to where all the stuff was stored. He stood in front of the
shelves staring at everything for a while then turned toward us. “We really don’t
have much in the way of supplies. We’re going to need to find some food and more
water.”

“Max, we can’t leave
Court here. How will he be able to get anything he might need?”

“His hand is better. I
heard him say so.”

“But what about his ankle?
He can’t walk on it yet, and what if his hand gets infected?”

“Well, not much we can
do about that even if we stayed here. Infections take oral antibiotics and we
don’t have any, but I do know we won’t survive if we stay here and do nothing.
Come on, Adela, you need to come with me.”

“I disagree. We all
need to stay together. I won’t leave him here like this.” I stood with my arms
crossed over my chest. There was no way I was going to let Maxen Wendell tell me
what I should or shouldn’t do. I never had before, and I certainly wouldn’t
now.

“He’ll be fine. Won’t
you, Court?”

Court nodded. “Go with
him, Adela. You can find help and send someone back.”

“No,” I said, glancing
at Court and then back at Max. I must have looked like a three-year-old
throwing a temper tantrum, but I didn’t care. “I’m staying here and that’s it.”

“Sheesh. Adela, you are
really being stubborn. Okay, I’ll go by myself.”

I wanted to tell him
not to go. We needed to stay together and … Max was my family.
Please stay
here.
“Max, please reconsider. We have enough food and water for a couple
of days. Courtland will be okay by then, won’t you Court? Then we can all go
together.” I glanced back at him, my eyes pleading, hoping for his support.

“Adela, as much as I
hate to admit it, Max is right. Someone needs to go get help. I don’t know how
long I’ll be like this. You’ve done a great job of helping me so far, but no
matter how many strips of wet gauze you apply, if infection sets in, I’m gonna need
antibiotics.”

I had a horrible
feeling if Max left, I might not ever see him again. I knew they were both
right, though, especially the way Courtland put it, so I caved. “Okay. I’ll
stay here with Court until he can walk. But you’ll be back before then, right?
Won’t you come back before dark?”

“I’ll try, but it
depends. I’ll need to take some of the water with me. No telling how long it
will be before I find more.”

“You should take a
couple of cans of soup, too. We’ll still have enough cans here to last two
days. Take the half-full gallon of water with you. We’ll survive on the full
one.”