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

gunshot wound in the first place when she hadn’t gotten her way.

“Let’s focus on what’s really important, here,” David continued, talking to Kathleen as if she might be easily spooked. “For now, Jade is part of this group. We should get her input. It doesn’t make sense to exclude her.”

“It doesn’t make sense to include her,” Kathleen snapped back. “From what Matt told me, she isn’t exactly trustworthy.”

Jade’s cheeks flared red. “I know I did wrong before, but I plan on making it up. To everyone.” Her fingers sought the fringe of her jacket, and she began rubbing the leather.

“She saved my life, Kathleen,” David said.

“From what I hear, she was the reason your life was in danger in the first place,” Kathleen countered. Her voice rose in anger.

“Kathleen…” Matthew began.

“She deserves to have a say,” David said. “Yes, she did injure me, but as the wounded party, if I think she has value to our group, then you have no reason to doubt my logic.”

“Please,” Matthew said to Kathleen softly. “We can’t turn on each other.”

Kathleen went quiet and pursed her lips. She looked at Matthew with those narrowed eyes for a moment as if sizing him up. “Fine,” she finally said and then pushed past them all to enter the hotel.

David gave Matthew a pointed look.

“She’s been through a lot,” Matthew said, suddenly feeling the need to defend his wife.

“I’m sure she has, but Matt, I wasn’t lying when I said we needed to focus on what was important. Safety. Survival. That needs to be first and foremost in our discussion. Not turning on others.”

“I know, Dad,” Matthew said and motioned for Jade to follow them inside. He felt on the fence about everything. The fight that had almost exploded between his wife and father left him uneasy. He didn’t trust Jade, either, but she was very street-smart compared to Matthew’s book-smart. If David could trust her for now, so could Matthew. For now.

When Matthew stepped inside the hotel’s main lounge area, his eyes were immediately drawn to the bullet hole in the wall where he’d missed shooting Samuel. Had that been today? It seemed like a lifetime ago. In reality, it had been earlier that afternoon. He’d almost killed someone.

Jade eased past him and settled in one of the wingback chairs with her hands clasped in front of her. She’d gone very still, as though she were a rabbit in the fox’s den.

David sat next to Ruth on the love seat. Matthew made his way over to where Kathleen sat on the sofa. Patton was sitting cross-legged at her feet, and Allison sat in the middle. Matthew sat on the other side of Allison and gave her a comforting smile. He didn’t like the listless way she looked back at him, as if she were a ghost. As soon as he sat, he felt his legs relax and nearly groaned in relief. He had been on his feet for so long. Then he spread his hands and began to speak, as though delivering some kind of speech.

“I know we’ve been through a lot,” he began, “and I know that our experiences have made us all scared and worried about what we need to do next. We need to think of our home as our castle, and our castle needs to be fortified. When we bought this place, we knew it had a lot of issues that needed to be fixed. This place hadn’t been well-maintained.”

“Some of the doors have cracks in them,” Ruth murmured. “There’s water damage and rot.”

“Right,” Matthew said and fought the urge to rub his face with his hands. He didn’t want anyone to know how overwhelmed he suddenly felt. “We need to find all those cracks and patch them up. Honestly, we need to make a list of everything that needs to be fixed. Secondly, we need to create some kind of perimeter fence.”

“That’s a good idea,” Kathleen piped up. “Right now, it’s only there as a property marker.”

“It will help us know when people are coming here,” Ruth added and then said in a stronger voice. “I don’t want to be surprised by anyone else again.”

David took her hand and squeezed tightly. “We also need to know what our food supply looks like,” he said. “There’s a lot of mouths to feed, and chances are our supplies won’t last us long. If we can take an inventory of what we have, we can make a plan about meals and how long we can stretch everything out.”

“Grandma and I got some food from the grocery store,” Patton piped up. “We’ve been smoking and dehydrating meat and canning everything else. Plus, there was an abandoned van on the side of the road. We took some food from that too.”

“It’s good to know we have food,” Matthew said, even as he watched Kathleen’s face darken at the mention of the delivery van. “I assume you got a lot of perishable items?”

“From the van, yes,” Ruth said. “I also got a lot of rice and boxed food from the store.”

Matthew began to feel a little bit better knowing that. “That’s great. Now that we know we have food for the time being, we can focus on making sure the hotel feels safe for everyone. I want us to be comfortable and settled here. We shouldn’t be looking over our shoulders in our own home as though we’re expecting to be attacked. We’ll need to take inventory of everything that needs to be fixed, starting with those windows.” He pointed to the picture windows.

“Agreed,” Kathleen said. “Then we need to find a way to craft a protective fence that keeps people away and off our property.”

“We could build a gate across the road,” Matthew said, latching onto her enthusiasm. “Then we’d be able to completely control who comes and goes.”

Kathleen nodded and grinned at him, and Matthew felt as though it had been ages since he’d seen her smile like that.

“I’m in agreement,” David said. “Making this