I Died When the Sky Fell, Now I Wake Up Holding Lightning novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Medic

She recruits Ward and warns the staff meeting about the sky, and is laughed down while Lorraine smiles.

Ward Lindgren lived on the ground floor of my building, in the unit by the mailboxes.

He worked nights as a hospital security guard and had been a medic in the Army.

I knew that because he had once stitched my thumb on his kitchen table when I cut it on a can, and had not charged me.

I knocked at seven the next morning, when his shift had just ended.

He opened the door in sweatpants, with a mug in his hand and a red beard that wanted trimming.

"Mullaney," he said. "It's early."

"I need a medic," I said. "I can pay."

I put twelve thousand dollars in cash on his kitchen table, in a bank envelope.

He looked at it for a while.

"For what?" he said.

"On July eighth, at 3:14 in the morning, the sky is going to ring," I said.

"Every phone dies and the grid goes."

"The hospital generators last two days, and then people start dying in the hallways."

"I want you ready for it."

Ward set his mug down.

"You're a dispatcher," he said. "Are you sick?"

"I'm not sick."

"Did someone hurt you?"

"No."

He pushed the envelope an inch back toward me.

"Greta, I'm going to say this nicely. That sounds like a thing a person says when they need to sleep."

I held out my hand over his table.

I did not try hard.

A thread of blue light came off my fingertips and ran across the wood to his coffee mug.

It touched the metal, and the kitchen lamp above us flared and went out.

Ward did not move for a long moment.

Then he took the envelope and slid it all the way across the table to himself.

"Okay," he said.

"Okay?"

"I carried bodies out of a building in Kandahar that was a lot less strange than this," he said. "What do you need first?"

"A go-bag for six," I said. "Trauma supplies. And I need you at the library tonight at six."

"Why the library?"

"The county is holding a public preparedness forum," I said. "Lorraine Pruitt is running it."

I could not save everyone by myself.

But I could make the county hear it out loud, in front of two hundred people and a microphone.

The library meeting room was almost full by six.

There were two hundred folding chairs, and a table at the front with a pitcher of water and a banner that read COUNTY CONTINUITY FORUM.

Lorraine sat at the center of the table in her gray cardigan.

She saw me come in and waved, as warm as ever.

I took the back row with Ward beside me.

For forty minutes she showed slides of generators, bottled water and a map of the county's shelters.

Shelter Four was on the map, in green.

When she asked for questions, I stood up.

"Lorraine," I said. "On July eighth, there is going to be an event."

People turned around.

"What kind of event, Greta?" she said, gently.

"The sky will ring at 3:14 a.m. and the power will fail. The shelter roster for Shelter Four has four hundred and ten county employees on it and only two hundred seats. You've been taking money for the seats."

The room went quiet.

Then someone near the front laughed.

Someone else joined in.

A man in a polo shirt said, "Is this a bit?"

A woman said, "That's the dispatcher who walked out yesterday."

Lorraine lifted both hands, and the laughter eased.

"Everyone, please," she said. "Greta is a valued friend. She's had a very hard week, and I'm sure she's exhausted. Let's all give her grace."

She smiled at me.

It was the warmest smile in the room.

Ward put a hand on my arm.

"We're leaving," he said quietly.

I let him walk me out through the aisle and the doors.

Behind us the room's laughter turned into polite applause.

I stood in the parking lot with my face hot and my hands blue with light, and Ward stepped in front of me so no one could see.

"Easy," he said. "Breathe."

"She heard every word," I said. "She didn't even blink."

"No," he said. "She didn't."

The library door opened behind us.

Lorraine came out alone, carrying her purse.

She stopped three steps away.

She was still smiling, and she lowered her voice.

"Greta," she said. "Your lineman came to my office last week asking for the Shelter Four roster. The same roster you described just now."

I stared at her.

"Ask him how he knew it existed," she said, and went to her car.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend