A Little Beyond Hope by Tracie Puckett

Author:Tracie Puckett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: hea, ya, first love, na
Publisher: Tracie Puckett

Chapter Four

Luke rushed down the stairs, his face horror-stricken by what he’d just witnessed. And in spite of the look of terror gleaming in his eyes, I fully expected him to snap out of it. Matt, Kara, and I turned to Luke, each of us waiting for him to flip into his protective mode, start barking out orders, and secure some kind of safety plan for us.

Luke, above anyone else, was the one person who would know what to do in an emergency situation like this, and yet he seemed to freeze the moment a potential threat had turned very real. He didn’t move; he was frozen there, looking as shocked as the rest of us felt. His face was void of any emotion, his eyes blank. It was almost as if he’d completely checked out.

“Luke,” I said, clapping a hand in front of him. “What do we do?”

He looked between the three of us, and I swear I saw his shoulders rise with a subtle shrug.

The wind howled louder, and I shivered as I turned to look at the others. Kara stood frozen in place, looking just as fearful as Luke. She still held onto the book of matches she’d used to light the candles at our feet. Matt was the only one of us who seemed to have any clue what to do.

“Kara,” he said, stepping into the leadership role that none of us wanted to take. “Kill the candles. We don’t know the severity of the situation out there, and we need to be as cautious as possible, especially if things start falling over or getting knocked around. Storms are bad enough; we don’t need a fire, too.” Kara did as she was told. Matt, armed with a flashlight, shot across the dark basement and toward the laundry station. He started tossing boxes out from underneath the built-in folding table, clearing a small shelter for us to hover beneath. He motioned for us to join him as soon as he’d cleared out the storage. The three of us squeezed in, leaving as much room as we could for the one person who hadn’t yet joined us. “Luke?”

His head snapped up, and he finally focused on us as we settled under the table. With a rattle of the foundation shaking above us, he seemed to pull out of his fog at once. He shot across the floor and over to the table, sliding beneath it to join Matt, Kara, and myself.

We sat that way, huddled together and quiet for a few seconds—our backs against the concrete wall, our heads protected by little more than a homemade shelving unit, and our bodies shivering with fear. None of us said a word, instead listening as the wind gained more and more momentum than it had all day. The gusts grew stronger, and the high whistling turned to low, threatening howls. It was close. Too close.

Luke grabbed my hand and slowly raised my fingers to his lips. He brushed a gentle

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