Dust & Rain by Amy Cross

Author:Amy Cross [Cross, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackwych Books Ltd
Published: 2024-07-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

They stood in silence on the roof of the Merrington Stanley, watching the pitch-black night sky as rain battered the city. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, an almost perfectly circular flash of light briefly disturbed the darkness.

“See?” Ivan said, unable to hide the sense of excitement in his voice. “I told you! I've been keeping track of them for a few hours now. At first they were hard to make out properly, but as it got darker I was able to see them more clearly. There's no obvious pattern, I can't predict exactly when they'll happen, only that they keep coming and that they seem to be speeding up.”

“Speeding up?” Cally asked nervously.

“It's like they're building toward something,” he continued.

“Like what?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” he said, turning to her, “but they're clearly not natural. Whatever they are, they're above the clouds and they're obviously man-made. My best guess is that they're something the government's trying out, something they think might help with this mess.”

“I don't see what a bunch of lights can do,” she replied.

“Neither do I, but it at least shows that someone's out there. Someone's still working to fix everything. Doesn't that give you a sense of hope?”

“I guess,” she said, although there was no real enthusiasm in her voice. “Hope doesn't feel very easy right now, though. Even if the rest of the world suddenly sprang back to normal, Mum and Dad would still be dead and I'd still have this bite on my ankle to remind me of how she...”

Her voice trailed off for a moment. No matter how hard she tried, she was unable to stop herself replaying those awful few seconds over and over again. Sometimes she felt that she was doomed to spend the rest of her life – however short that might be – stuck in that loop of horror.

“Well, I told you about that already,” she added softly.

“You're going to be okay,” he replied. “I know how lame that sounds, and I know it's so easy to say, but I've got this really good feeling. There's something about you, Cally, that just seems so calm and so... good. I'm pretty bad at putting things into words, but I just feel that someone like you has to survive this mess.”

“Now you're just making stuff up.”

“No, I mean it!”

“Right now I just want to be distracted,” she replied, barely able to make out his face in the darkness. “Is that crazy? I just want to forget about everything and everyone else, and I want to... not have to think about any of it. I don't even know if that's possible, but I feel like I have to at least try.”

“I get it,” he said, reaching over and taking hold of her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “We're going to -”

Before he could finish, they both heard voices somewhere in the distance. They looked across the roof, and although they couldn't make out what was being said, they could hear the voices continuing somewhere down in the street.

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