Chapter 154

Adam had no idea how he was alive.
He remembered handing Rain off to Seth, and then, the next thing he remembered, the world was on fire, and the sky was falling down on him. Every single cell in his body was in agony. He couldn’t move, couldn’t lift a hand to try and push his way out, and the smoke was enough to keep him from even wanting to suck in a breath. He was certain he was about to die.
Adam had let himself drift on then, feeling like it would be better to die unconscious than to be awake while he was breathing his last.
But here he was now, lying in a bed in a makeshift hospital near the Oklasaw border. All around him, doctors and medical students were hustling around, doing their best to help the injured.
He had an IV in his arm and knew that the medicine was coursing through his body. It was the only thing he could feel. The rest of his body was numb from the pain medicine, which was essential at the moment. He knew he needed surgery. One of the medics had come by to tell him what was wrong, and the list of broken bones was exhausting. They were planning to take him in to piece him back together just as soon as they could, but right now, there were other patients coming in that needed to be stabilized.
He didn’t have any internal bleeding, which was remarkable. They’d done a scan and saw plenty of broken bones but nothing else. So Adam would wait his turn.
“Rain will be landing in a moment,” one of the medics who had been treating him earlier said as he came by with a chart in his hand. “They finally got her stable enough to move her,” he continued. “Mist is with her.”
“That’s great,” Adam said. He wanted to see Rain so badly, he could hardly stand it. He knew that she was alive, that he’d gotten her out of the building in time, but he needed to see her for himself. The idea that perhaps there’d been a mistake and the woman they were talking about was someone else flickered in his mind, as ridiculous as it seemed. He wanted to see her, to touch her, to kiss her, to take her home and start their new life together.
And then he thought of Mist. She wouldn’t be doing any of the things she’d wanted to do when this was all over with. She would be starting over, but not with Walt. Thinking of Walt made Adam tear up. He was such a good person. It didn’t seem possible that he was gone. The idea that maybe that had been a mistake, too, that Walt was actually still out there somewhere, working with the rescued Dicks or the women they’d saved was an easy one to get caught up on, but he knew that wasn’t the case.
Adam drifted off to sleep again, but when he heard someone saying his name, he managed to open his eyes. It was that medic, whose name tag said Fritz. “Here she is,” he said, stepping aside. Adam looked over at the bed next to him.
It was Rain. Her eyes were closed, and her face was still a little dirty as if someone had done their best to wipe the ash and smoke from her beautiful features but couldn’t quite get it all. Her red hair was spilling out all around her shoulders and across the pillow. She looked peaceful, lying there, and he hoped that she was having good dreams.
One of the medics did something to her IV bag, and a few moments later, Rain’s eyelids began to flutter. And then her eyes were fixed on him, and she was smiling.
“Hi,” Adam said, wishing he could reach her. “How are you?”
“I’ve been better.” Her voice was hoarse and raspy. “How are you?”
“Better now. Are you in any pain?”
“Not at the moment,” she said. “Are you?”
“No. But I do need to have surgery.”
Her eyebrows shot up in concern. “Why?”
“I’ve got a few broken bones. I’ll be fine, though.”
She slowly shook her head. “I’m so sorry, babe. I wish I could fix you.”
He couldn’t help but grin at her. “You already have. I’m sure you will again.”
She smiled at him for a few seconds before she said, “You saved me.”
He nodded. “You and Mist saved me--and then you saved Mist. We all worked together, baby.”
Rain drew in a deep breath as if a rush of memories was coming back to her. “Where is Mist?”
“I’m not sure. They said that she was on your flight here.”
“I hope she’s okay,” Rain said, her voice just a whisper.
“I think she is,” he said. “They said she was.”
“They?”
“The medics.”
“Oh.” Rain nodded. It was clear she was a little loopy from the medicine.
“I feel like there are a million things I want to tell you, but I don’t think any of it should be said right now.” Adam gave her a half-smile, wishing he could ask her how she was feeling about Mother White’s revelation and how she felt about getting out of there alive. And then there was Walt….
“I know,” Rain agreed. “I still don’t understand…. Once you took the men to the campsite, you came back?” she asked.
Apparently, they were talking about some of it right then and there, then. Adam nodded. “I had to. I had to come back to check on you. Did you expect me to just leave you behind?”
“No, but I wish you would have.” She gave him a look that let him know that she thought all of this would’ve been a lot simpler if he had never come back, but then, who knows what might’ve happened to her if he hadn’t. “By the time I came back, Lightning was already dead. She must’ve almost made it to the door because there was a lot of fresh blood right there. ” Adam adjusted the sheet that was lying over him and resituated on the cot. He wished he could sit up a bit to see her better, but he couldn’t. It was all he could do to turn his head to look at her.
“When did you run into Mother White?” she asked, her face still showing her distress at thinking about poor Lightning.
“When I got back into the building, after I saw all of that fresh blood in the hallway near the door I’d led the men out, I ran back to the office to see what was going on, and Lightning was sitting in the seat in front of the computer. She wasn’t doing anything, but the computer was running. I was confused, so I went in to see what she was doing and find out where you were. I whirled her chair around and….” He stopped talking, thinking about how grotesque Lightning’s pale white face had been, her neck sliced from one side to the other.
“And then Mother White found you?” Rain asked.
“Yes. It had been a trick, obviously.” He wanted to call the woman every derogatory remark he’d ever heard, but he kept those words to himself. There was no point now. She was dead, after all.
“She grabbed you?”
He nodded. “She hit me pretty hard and then she hauled me down the hallway. I tried to reason with her, but that wasn’t possible, and then she slammed the butt of her gun into the base of my skull.”
“How much of the conversation I was having with her at The Bridge did you hear?” Rain asked.
“Enough,” he replied. “Do you believe her, Rain? Do you think she really was your mother?”
Rain swallowed so hard, he could see her throat moving. “I think so. I felt like there was some sort of a connection between us from the moment I first saw her. She creeped me out in a way I could never quite put my finger on. I just don’t understand why she wanted me to join her. She had to know that what she was doing was wrong and that it was a lost cause. Why would she want me to go down with her sinking ship?”
“Clearly, the woman was delusional.” It was the best Adam could offer.
Rain nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“After I took the bike back with the thumb drive, what happened?”
“I had a shootout with that girl in the tree, and then I ran for the building, thinking I needed to warn our forces and find Mist. But when I found Seth, he said he already knew that they needed to evacuate. He was in the process of getting everyone out. I told him to go find Josie back at camp, and then I went after Mist.”
“He went back for you after he found Josie?”
Rain nodded. “Yes, apparently. He wanted to go with me then, but he knew he needed to make sure that everyone else got out first. And you came back for me again because you hadn’t learned your lesson the first time.” She smiled at him, and Adam shrugged.
“Well, I couldn’t trust you not to get yourself hurt without me.”
“When did you find me? I don’t remember much of anything.”
“You were about ten yards from the door, but there was a huge chunk of wall on your leg. I helped you push that off and then carried you to Seth. He got you out right before the ceiling came down on me.”
“You helped me with my pinned leg?” she asked. Adam nodded. “Huh. I wondered why I was suddenly so strong.”
He couldn’t help but laugh. “You didn’t know I was there?”
She shook her head. “No. I thought I heard you say something before I blacked out, but then I thought it was probably just my imagination.”
Adam smiled at her. “It wasn’t your imagination. I was there. I’ll always be there for you, Rain. Just like you’re always there for me.”
“Thank you, Adam,” Rain said, her voice groggy.
“Thank you, Rain. I love you. You know that, right?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I know. I love you, too.”
“When this is all over, and we’re back in Quebec, do you think you might wanna get married?”
“Yes, of course,” Rain said. “I’d definitely want to get married someday. As soon as I find the right guy.”
Adam raised an eyebrow, and Rain started giggling, He shook his head. “I kind of meant would you want to marry me, silly. But….”
“Oh! Right! Yeah, sure. I think that might be okay.”
“Do you now? Do you?” He couldn’t help but laugh at her. “I think you should go back to sleep, Rain.”
“I think you’re right. Will you still be here when I wake up?”
“Always.”