Unbreakable Rules (Too Many Rules Book 3) (4 page)

She was blind. Why hadn't Ryan warned me?

A warm wash of shame passed through me. What was I supposed to do? "Um, Hi," I answered.

Amanda immediately shifted to place her hand in front of me. I grasped it. As we shook, I glanced at Ryan, giving him my stink eye for not warning me. He didn't react. I swear the man was as observant as a telephone pole.

Keep it cool, Ryan, I kept muttering to myself, being sure she didn't hear. My heart hadn't beat normally since she'd answered the door at her grandmother's. Every time she looked away, I wiped my hands on my pants trying to get my palms dry. Something that was turning out to be impossible.

Now, while shaking Amada's hand, she shot me a look like she was pissed or something. What'd I do, now? See, this is why I avoided people. They were all screwed up.

"I'll be right back," I told them before heading to the back yard.

I had to get out of there for a moment. Get my head back on straight. Besides, there was something I wanted to check. I'd seen it over at Mrs. Thompson's, but I wanted to confirm it.

I slid the glass back door open and stepped onto the deck. My stomach turned over. The valley was dark. The town of Port Wilson was darker than black asphalt. Something had taken out both the town and our neighborhood three or four miles apart. This wasn't some drunk hitting a transformer.

I shuffled to the side of the deck and looked around the corner up to the top of Mount Spelling. I should have seen three tall towers with red blinking aircraft warning lights. Nothing. It was as if the night had swallowed them up. I shuddered thinking about being up in a plane on a night like this.

Glancing back to the town I was able to relax a little. Two small white lights were slowly making their way through where I knew the town stood. Those headlights along with my working phone let me know that it hadn't been some Nuclear EMP bomb that had taken out all the electronics.

I laughed at myself. That was the nerd in me, immediately jumping to the worst case scenario. No, this was just the power grid and all the emergency generators that the world had counted on to keep things going.

No way should they have all gone out at the same time. It didn't make sense. My stomach clenched and a slow chill ran down my back.

"What is it?" Hailey asked as she stepped out onto the deck. She held my flashlight. I had a feeling I couldn't have gotten it away from her if I tried.

"The town's out also," I said.

Her eyebrows narrowed as she looked out over the valley. I studied her while she studied the blackness. The faint glow from the flashlight cast her in a magical, soft embrace that emphasized each and every outstanding feature. Her pert little nose, high cheekbones, and soft cascading hair pulled at my insides. I wanted to touch, to caress.

Man, I had it bad. Whose idea was it to invite her over? Yours, you pathetic idiot.

"I think Seattle is out also," Hailey said, her eyes scrunching up as she peered into the darkness.

"Why?"

"There's usually a slight yellow glow to the west, especially when we have low clouds like this. I don't see anything."

She was right, my breath hitched. If Seattle was without power, then there was no telling when it would come back on. My fingers itched to get back to work. I couldn't afford to be late, too much depended on me finishing this job. I might have to skip school tomorrow so I could finish. Hell, if there was no power the school would be shut down. Neat, a snow day without snow.

We stood next to each other looking into the night. Civilization seemed to have disappeared. That thin line that separated us from nature had been crossed.

Laughing to myself on the inside I tried to focus on the important things. Hailey Martin was standing next to me on my deck, talking to me like we were deciding which homework assignment to tackle first.

The silence between us began to grow. I knew I was supposed to say something. Preferably witty and entertaining. Skills I had never mastered. Maybe something to make her feel welcome or reassure her that everything would be okay. Different scenarios ran through my head, but they all seemed lame and condescending.

Just as the tension reached that awkward stage, Hailey said, "You didn't tell me your sister was blind."

Her statement surprised me. Where did that come from? She hadn't said, 'I didn't know your sister was blind.' No, she'd said I hadn't informed her, as if I had some obligation or something.

"Um. I guess I didn't think about it. It's not something that I think about all that much." Okay, that sounded dumb. "I mean, I think about it, just not that it's new or anything. You know, it's always been there."

You're babbling Ryan. Stop. See, this is what happens when people talk, they say too much.

Frowning, she shook her head. "It's just that I felt like such an idiot," she said.

Now it was my turn to frown. Why had she felt like an idiot? When? What part? I swear I'll never understand. Besides, why was it my fault?

"Don't worry about it," she said. "Next time, a little heads-up would be nice, okay?" Smiling she reached up and patted my shoulder, then turned back to staring at the darkness.

My insides froze and the air seemed to tingle around me. Right then, for that moment, I wanted this to go on forever. The two of us, standing next to each other in the dark.

"Why haven't I ever seen you visiting your grandmother?" I asked, desperate to keep the conversation going.

She shrugged her shoulders. "My mom and Nana don't get along very well. Mom's a little controlling and the one person she can't control is Nana. She's always had to visit us at our house."

Smiling up at me with a twinkle in her eye she said, "Besides, you were probably buried in your computer or a chessboard on those few times I did come over to visit."

Wow, maybe she did know more about me than I thought.

"I heard you broke up with Numb N ... um, your boyfriend."

She cringed for a moment and I worried that I'd said the wrong thing. It wouldn't have been the first time. Holding my breath, I waited for her answer.

"Yes, I did. Everybody thinks he broke up with me. An impression I hoped to fix tonight online. How'd you know I broke up with him and not the other way around?" she asked. Her eyes focused on mine, desperately wanting to know the answer.

Now it was my turn to shrug my shoulders. "Jarret McGee has always been dumber than a bag of potatoes, but he isn't an idiot. No way did he break up with you."

She laughed, her smile lighting up the night. "Thank you, that's sweet."

Our eyes locked for a magical moment. Even in the faint glow from the flashlight, I could see the yellow specks of gold in her blue eyes. They seemed to melt something inside of me. We held each other's stare for a moment more before she turned away to look out over the dark valley again.

"Why?" I asked, wanting to bask in her attention again.

"Why what?"

"Why did you break up with him?"

She was silent for a moment, continuing to stare into the night. I wondered if she was going to answer.

"I had my reasons," she said with that beautiful shoulder shrug of hers. "We just weren't right for each other." She glanced at me with a raised eyebrow as if asking whether I understood. Me, being as socially adept as a potted plant, didn't understand.

"What does that mean?" I blurted out before I could stop myself. Even I knew that I was probably getting way to personal.

"He wasn't who I thought he was," she said with a resigned sigh. "Besides, I wanted to be more than an accessory.  Does that make any sense?"

"You're asking me? What I know about relationships could fit inside a coffee cup."

She laughed. "It's just that whenever we did anything, went anywhere, it always had to center around Jarret and his friends. Sports, cars, or seeing who could get the drunkest the quickest. It all seems so pointless after a while."

My confused frown prompted her to continue.

"Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have minded doing those things. Just not all the time, not every time." She paused as if thinking back. "You know, I don't think he ever asked me what I wanted to do. I think he assumed that being with him, in his great and wonderful presence, was more than enough to keep a girl happy."

Wow, like I said, he was dumber than I thought. Any guy who didn't make every day Hailey's most favorite day was dumber than an idiot. Thank God for dumb idiots.

"What about you, are you seeing anyone?" she asked with a cocked eyebrow.

I almost snorted out loud at the absurdity of the question. "uh, ... no. Not right now." Maybe she didn't know anything about me after all.

That tenseness settled over us again. I wondered if Hailey could feel it.

"We should probably go back inside," I said. I'd come out here to get away from the tense drama and it seemed to follow me. She nodded her head and used the flashlight to lead the way back.

Mark and Amanda were both still sitting on the couch. Amanda had retrieved one of her brail books. Her fingers slowly moved back and forth as she read. Mark had moved the candle closer to him so he could continue with the Batman comics.

"Seattle's out also," I told them. "There's no telling how long it's going to be out."

"I'm worried about Mom, can't we call her?" Amanda asked.

"She'll be fine, the hospital is probably the best place to be tonight," I said. A cold chill passed through me as I remembered the blackness of Port Wilson. Why hadn't the hospital emergency lights been on? It should have stood out like a sore thumb.

I didn't say anything, Amanda couldn't fix it. I couldn't fix it either, I realized.

Hailey shot me a look. Her forehead narrowed in concern. She'd had the same thought about the hospital.

"Mark put the book down for a second. We need to talk," I said, trying to keep the worry from creeping into my voice.

Mark dramatically closed the paper magazine and looked up expectantly. "I get nervous whenever you say that. I figure you want to break up or something," he said with a laugh.

"Funny. No, this is serious. If Seattle is out, then the whole grid is down."

"So, we sit here and wait it out," Mark said before dramatically snapping the comic open again and returning to reading.

Damn that boy could piss me off so easily. "Damn it, Mark," I said as I reached over and snatched it from his hands. "This is serious." He glanced at Amanda, then shot me an angry look. I returned his stare for a moment making sure he understood how serious I was.

"What? You think it's the beginning of the end of the world or something? Maybe we're being invaded by aliens, or a comet has hit the other side of the world and the shock waves have created a harmonic interference in step with 120-volt household appliances. Have you checked the stove? Maybe it works, it's on 240."

Where did he get these ideas? Shaking my head, I dropped the book back into his lap and returned to the center of the room.

"Actually Mark, I don't think that," I said, hoping Amanda and Hailey could hear my confidence. "There hasn't been an EMP at least."

"How do you know?" he asked.

"Because my phone still has power, no signal, but the interior electronics are still working, and I saw several planes still up in the sky." There. That should shut him up.

"What is an EMP?" Hailey asked, her beautiful forehead creased with curiosity.

"An Electric Magnetic Pulse," Mark said before I could answer. "It's a special nuclear bomb set off high in the atmosphere. The pulse it creates ruins all non-shielded electronics. That's about ninety-nine point nine percent of them."

"Why would anyone want to stop me using my MP3 player?" Amanda asked.

"It's not your MP3 player they're after. Almost everything we use today has electronics in it. From your car to the refrigerator. From the hospital's heart-lung machines to the power system. From the gas pumps to the railway lines. Shut all that down and the world grinds to a halt. Nothing works. Nothing moves. And, eventually, nothing lives. Not like it used to."

Hailey's face had gone white. My heart stopped at the thought that I had scared her. "But, like I said, it wasn't an EMP. Too many things off the grid are still working."

"So boy genius," Mark said making me want to strangle him. I hated that nickname. He only used it when he was mad. Probably still pissed off that I'd embarrassed him in front of Amanda and Hailey. "If it wasn't an EMP, what was it?"

"How should I know?" I answered, exasperated that we had gotten off course. "It really doesn't matter. What I was trying to say earlier was that it might be off for a while. Maybe days."

"Okay, and like I said. We sit it out. Miss a couple of days of school, then life returns to its normal hellish self, and the world moves on."

"Yes, but there are some things we can do to make it easier."

"What?" Hailey asked before Mark could make another snide remark.

"For one, no more going into the refrigerator or freezer," I said, shooting a look at the fresh Mountain Dew Mark had retrieved. "Every time we open the doors the quicker stuff is going to spoil." Mark caught my meaning and took a long drink from his can of Mt. Dew. "We need to fill all the bathtubs with water," I continued. "In fact, every container we can find."

"I'm not drinking out of the bathtub," Amanda said.

"It's not for drinking. It's for the commodes. Our water supply is pumped up to Mount Spelling, then gravity feeds to us. Without power, the water's going to go dry pretty quick. Believe me, we do not want to lose indoor plumbing."