Chapter 6: Lightning Hold

The lightning horn went off at ten to three on Sunday morning, three long blasts that shook the whole yard.

It means every hand on the dock stops what they are doing and goes under cover.

No exceptions, and no argument.

I was hauling a hose off Dock Four when the sky to the south went white from edge to edge.

"Hold!" Teo bellowed across the yard. "Everybody inside! Count off at the shack!"

I dropped the hose and ran with the rest of them.

The rain hit before I reached the walkway, a solid gray sheet of it, driven sideways by the front.

I was soaked before I reached the shelter.

A hand closed on my arm and yanked me through a steel door.

The door slammed.

It was dark and warm inside, and loud with rain on the roof, and it smelled of oil and wet canvas.

I was in the pump house.

It sits at the root of Dock Four, a steel shed of motors and pipes, with a row of lockers along one wall.

Royce had me by the arm.

He wore a yellow slicker over his white shirt, and the rain ran off his hair and down his jaw.

"You were last across the yard," he said. "I counted."

"I was coming," I said.

"You were standing in the open for a full minute."

"I was working, Mr. Brockman."

"I know what you were doing," he said.

Lightning flashed through the high window.

In it I saw his face, hard and furious and afraid.

Then it went dark again, and the thunder came down on the roof so loud that the lockers rang.

I didn't think.

I put my hands flat on his chest and pushed him back against the door.

"Not on the dock," I said. "That was your rule."

"It was."

"You're touching me."

"I'm holding your arm," he said. "That's all I'm doing."

"That isn't all you want to do."

"No."

His voice cracked on it.

The lightning came again, whiter, closer, and in that second of light he took my face in both his wet hands and kissed me.

It was not careful.

It was rain and teeth and a groan from low in his chest.

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