Hours slid by with barely a word between Ethan and Cade. Cade had spent most of the time huddled on a mothball-scented blanket underneath the basement stairs, keeping a wary eye on the door above. Ethan, for his part, had done everything he could think of to keep himself busy, primarily to keep his mind off the night’s horrific events. He had scrounged up a flashlight from a toolbox in the basement, and with the aid of the single light source, Ethan had begun to dig through boxes and crates in search of potential weapons. Something told him they were going to need anything they could find.
“Are we really going to get out of here?” Cade asked, her voice hollow with exhaustion.
“Out of Memphis?” Ethan asked. He pulled a hammer free from its tool kit and studied it before he set it down on the floor beside the box. “Yeah, we are. I just need to decide which way.”
Cade took two slow, deep breaths and looked out between two wooden steps. She stared across the dark basement to watch Ethan as he dug through the detritus of her time living in the house. Ethan shone his light toward her hiding place; her icy blue eyes were vacant as she stared in his direction. She gave a sudden decisive nod. “So what exactly are we going to do?” she asked. Her voice was oddly calm, and Ethan raised an eyebrow at how collected she suddenly sounded. “Are we just going to get out of here, pick up Anna, and take off?”
“That’s the idea,” Ethan confirmed. He took a hatchet out of a box and studied the edge of its blade, testing its sharpness. He set the weapon down on top of the toolbox with a metallic clang and joined Cade under the stairs. He settled down beside her and got as comfortable as the thin blanket on the concrete floor would allow.
“How bad do you think all this is?”
Cade’s eyes had shifted to the darkness in front of her, but she looked back at him as he spoke, raising an eyebrow. “I think you would know better than me, Eth,” she said softly. “You’re the one who was listening to the police scanner.”
“I know. I just … it’s so unbelievable, you know?” Ethan tried to explain. “I mean, how does something like this happen here? In Memphis? In America?”
Cade shook her head and looked down at her lap. Ethan followed her gaze and realized that she held her cell phone in her hand, punching buttons on its display with a slow, careful hand. “What makes you think America is immune to horrible things?” she asked once she looked up from the phone. “What makes America so special that she shouldn’t have to deal with tragedy?”
Ethan blew out a breath of frustration and shook his head. “It’s not that. I don’t think we’re special, at least not when it comes to bad things. I just figured there’d have been more warning is all. More talk of something happening here, maybe some lead-up to the riots. We don’t know anything about them! Are they political? Social? Economic? What’s going on? There hasn’t been anything resembling real unrest in Memphis, and now suddenly we’re just … completely immersed in it.”
Cade pressed her lips together, looking uncertain. “I don’t know. I hadn’t heard anything either. But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.” She paused and squinted at the display of the cell phone in her hand before she asked, “So what’s the plan? Where are we going to go?”
“I’m thinking Gadsden.”
“Gadsden?” Cade repeated, her tone uncertain. “Gadsden, Alabama?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.” Ethan wrapped an arm around Cade’s shoulders and gave her a gentle, affectionate squeeze. He rested his cheek against the top of her head as she relaxed against him, and it occurred to him that Cade was shell-shocked. She hadn’t been acting like the woman he’d known for seven years, the woman who had been so confident and assured, never letting anything bother her. He thought perhaps she was traumatized by what she’d seen that day. “My mother lives in Gadsden now, remember? I figure we can stay with her for a day or two. I tried calling her to let her know we’re coming, but I think the phone lines are still down.”
“I’m not sure your mom will appreciate three visitors showing up at her door without any notice,” Cade said. She disentangled herself from Ethan’s grip and stood. She stretched almost languidly, rolled her shoulders, and moved to the one unblocked window in the basement. She stood up on her toes to look out the window, fingers clinging to the edge of the windowsill for balance as she tried to check the street outside.
Ethan started to get up to follow Cade to the window, but something made him pause beside the stairs to watch her for a moment. He gripped the step beside him as his green eyes scanned the woman’s figure. Her dark hair hung loosely to her shoulders and shaded her olive-skinned face, and her blue eyes still shone with tears she would likely never shed. Cade had never been someone who wore her emotions on her sleeve, and before tonight, Ethan had never seen her show anything but cheerfulness. For the moment he watched her, Ethan thought that Cade was suddenly the perfect picture of sadness and melancholy, like her heart was slowly breaking. He swallowed hard as he considered everything Cade had been through that night, everything they both had been through. It was nothing short of traumatic. He’d never dealt with anything like it, and he had no idea what to do for Cade to help her cope with it either.
“I think Mom will be fine with it,” Ethan finally replied. He kept his voice low, his hand still gripping the wooden stair. “You know she likes you, and Anna and I haven’t been down to see her since before Halloween. Considering all the shit going on right now, I seriously doubt she’ll mind.”
Cade nodded and stepped away from the window. She turned to look at Ethan through the dim light of the flashlight he held and brushed her hair back from her face. “The sooner we get going, then, the better,” she said, her voice the steadiest Ethan had heard all night. “I don’t want to stay around this house any longer than absolutely necessary.”