EMP Catastrophe , Hamilton, Grace [phonics readers txt] 📗

he couldn’t put his finger on why until Kathleen let out a sharp gasp.

“Max!” she called, bolting for Jade. “Oh my god, Matt. It’s Max.”

22

Max heard his name being called out from far away. A set of strong arms helped him stand up. He leaned into the weight and focused on putting one foot in front of the other, but he honestly felt as though he was being dragged. The trees cast long swaying shadows over the asphalt. The bright sunlight nearly blinded him, and he squinted up into the blue sky. It still amazed him that he was outside in the real world instead of locked up in the metropolitan center of Chicago. Soon, the dark tunnel that had been closing in around his vision became a tight pinpoint of exhaustion. He might have lost consciousness. He couldn’t remember. All he knew was that he heard Kathleen calling out to him again and he forced himself to blink and look for her. He’d come this far for her, after all. Might as well pull himself out of brain trauma long enough to say hello. His brain trauma had other ideas.

When he came to, it seemed as though no time had passed. His lungs still ached from slogging up the hill to the hotel. His legs felt as though they’d been put on wrong. Points of pain echoed throughout his joints, but it was the internal ones deep inside that made him worry. He hoped it was nothing more than deep bruising. He’d brushed off his car accident as an escape, not a traumatic event, but was starting to realize that maybe he’d been injured worse than he initially thought. It didn’t help that he’d been beaten up, either. Beaten up twice.

The dark-haired young lady who had found him sprawled on the ground helped him to his feet and steered him along the road. Earlier, he’d tripped, not sure if he’d caught his foot on something or if it was due to his own clumsiness, and his quick twenty-minute break face down in the dirt had turned into an unconscious hour. He’d come to with her patting his cheeks and asking if he was okay, just before she’d pulled him to his feet like some kind of superhuman.

The young woman’s thin, but strong, arms fell away from him, replaced by two stronger supports. Max swayed and blinked, looking into the blue eyes of his brother-in-law. “Matt?” he asked, knowing he sounded incredulous, as though Matthew had dropped from the sky like an angel.

Matthew chuckled. “That’s the most excited anyone has been to see me in a while. Long time, no see.”

“Glad the two of you are exchanging pleasantries,” a familiar voice said.

Max grinned because he’d know that snark anywhere. He’d grown up with it, watched it sharpen from bratty sister to a wit that could leave him smiling against his will. “Aw, Kathy. You found me!”

“Are you drunk?” Kathleen asked, slinging Max’s other arm over her shoulder.

“Concussion,” Max corrected.

“You’re going to have to explain that one later,” Kathleen said as they rounded the corner and a large rustic hotel sitting in a clearing came into view.

“Wow, it’s really pretty,” Max said, hating how dumb he sounded. The mountains appeared black and stark against the blue sky. Pine needles drifted down from the trees in slow motion. The scent of clean water and freshly turned dirt reached his nostrils. He could imagine families trucking up here with their kids, taking nature walks and exploring the woods. Doing Boy Scout stuff, or whatever it was that people did on vacation. For a moment he held back tears, so happy he was here, and not anywhere else in the whole world.

“Max?” Kathleen’s voice floated around him. “Max, are you okay? You’re looking a little green.”

“Just woozy,” he said, blinking rapidly.

“Are you sure? Max, are you sure? Are you listening to me?”

Her endless questions actually comforted him instead of annoying him this time. He wanted to answer them, pleased that she had so much to say to him, but the black tunnel tightened again and he lost a moment of time before coming to with a jerk. “I’m okay,” he said, even as he felt a deep fear wash over him. Should he be passing out this much? “Seriously. I’m okay.”

Kathleen patted his cheek over the raw slap that Jade had left. “We are going inside, and then you’re getting a physical. You just fainted.”

“Lies,” Max said. “I might have passed out, but I would never faint.”

“Get the smelling salts,” Matthew murmured under his breath.

“Max, for once in your life, shut up.” Kathleen huffed in irritation and helped him walk up the front steps of the sturdy log entryway to the hotel. He stumbled, but Kathleen had become a terrifying force with a purpose, and Max was led up a series of stairs and dumped into a bed in a retro-styled room with tiny rose-bloom wallpaper. “Ouch,” he said, even though he hadn’t been in pain, not really, and Kathleen glared at him. “I’m getting the first aid kit,” she said and stormed out of the room.

“Don’t forget the smelling salts!” Max shouted to her back before that tunnel of blackness tightened and stole his consciousness for a couple minutes more. Maybe he shouldn’t have joked about fainting. He might actually need to be worried about this whole blacking out thing.

He woke with his body thrashing, momentarily disoriented, before relaxing when he saw the rose wallpaper. He squinted his eyes open. The room was quiet with the door halfway shut for privacy, but Max could still see the shapes and profiles of Matthew and the young woman who had saved him deep in a heated conversation just beyond his room. The young woman had her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, and the arms crossed tight over her chest set the tone for the scowl twisting her lips as she glared at his brother-in-law.

“No matter what you say, it won’t make a