A Boy Like You (Like Us Book 1)(62)

It takes us nearly twice as long to reach the highway, and the bus  vibrates, idling for several minutes while we wait through the line of  cars all trying to merge onto the highway. The traffic isn't thick, but  it's slow.

Eventually, we turn onto the highway and I rest my head against my  seatback and the window, closing my eyes and focusing on nothing but the  long drag of the windshield wipers along the front window glass and the  drumming rain on our metal roof.

I was going to be great.

I let myself have that thought. I've fended it off, not wanting to be  too confident. My usual comfort on the field wasn't enough today. I  wanted to have that edge, to keep myself ready. I wanted to surprise  myself, to do more than I thought I could. I knew I could hit her, but I  didn't just want to get on base hitting from the left side. I wanted to  hit that ball over the fence.         

     



 

I was going to make them all notice me.

Me.

I wanted this. I still want it. I'll wait. It will come.

My eyes flash open when even my dreams begin to feel off balance. The  bus is dark, the wheels are skidding, and nobody onboard is making a  sound. We're all alert as slow motion begins to take over. The river and  washes zigzagging under our roadway have all been overcome with  rain-the water is rushing fast.

The roadway is gone.

Gone.

It crumples underneath the weight of us, and our driver is leaning hard  to one side, trying to keep the wheels right enough to keep us from  falling. But she can't. It doesn't matter how strong she is. It wouldn't  matter if Wes were driving right now.

This is nature-and it's violent and aggressive. It goes where it wants, takes what it wants.

It's taking us.

The bus creaks as the tires give way and our precious balance loses its  battle, the giant vehicle slowly collapsing to the side. I see my  father. He sees me. Our eyes lock as our bodies both press against the  wall, our arms moving as quickly as we can will them to in order to  brace us from the impact.

Cracked pieces of roadway smash into our glass windows, shattering  everything, crumpling the wall of the bus. The wheels are visible  through a gaping hole suddenly opening up in the floor. The bus is  rolling. The bridge is collapsing. The water is rushing.

The screaming begins.

"Hold on!" my father yells, his hands pressed flat on the roof. I reach  too slowly, and as the bus rolls completely, I tumble around the seats,  my head slamming into the bench seat opposite me, my body colliding with  Taryn's.

I blink and my body is on the opposite side from where it was a second  before, my leg now pinned between the broken window casing and some  piece from the underbelly of the bus. The tires are spinning, and the  roar of the rain and water makes it hard to hear anything other than the  shrill screams of my teammates.

For the briefest moment-long enough for a single inhale-everything  stops. The bus is no longer sliding, the bridge is balanced on its own  pieces, and the water is rushing around us, the rest of the roadway high  above us. But we're still. The world is holding on to us.

When I look up, my eyes find Wes's waiting for me. He's too far for me  to reach him, but our eyes lock. My mouth opens to begin its call for  help. The world begins to move again. There's a very specific sound  metal makes when it bends to forces far stronger-that moaning sound, of  the aluminum and steel giving way, echoes like a siren right now.

Gravity.

Water.

Weight.

It all pushes at once. My eyes meet my father's quickly with the snap of  my head, and the sureness that was there during our game is gone. It's  fear. It's familiar terror. It's far worse than any I've ever seen  painted across his eyes before.

"Daddy!" I scream, the bus sliding with my call, the rotation slow at  first, then happening all at once. The bus tumbles end-over-end into the  water, pieces breaking away and water rising around us.

Floods happen quickly. The water explodes in the sky and fills the  hungry earth, the dirt too dry to accept everything. It washes  everything away, and we go along with it.

My father holds fast to a giant yellow slab of metal, and I work to free  my leg, my mind swiveling between panic over the pain and worry for the  world I'm at risk of losing. Then, without any effort at all, my leg is  free and my body is being lifted from the bus, pulled through the  tangled scraps left of the window. My heart thumps wildly, but stops the  moment Wes's arms wrap around me.

I'm home.

I'm safe.

I'm cold.

I see things in small snapshots, as if it's all unfolding in frames from  a comic book: Wes carrying me through the shallow but rising water, up  jagged rocks toward the highway, the bridge behind him in half, metal  cords dangling-support systems that gave way, failed when we needed  them. It's all broken.

Taryn is pulling herself through the water next to us. My teammates are  climbing from the wreckage. Others have already made it to safer  grounds.

The rain is coming down in sharp, slanted lines. It's almost a constant  stream of water, as if someone is dumping it on us rather than rain  falling from the sky.

The bus begins to jerk loose from the jagged rocks it's settled on. Wes  sets me on the asphalt of the highway, dozens of feet above others still  trapped-holding on in the rush of the waters, to what's left of our  bus. The metal beast tears free from the rocks and the water pushes it  into the small strip of metal my father and Bria are clinging to for  safety.

I blink and they disappear.

"Daddy! Daddy!" I scream so loudly my voice cracks and grows hoarse. My  eyes burn, and my throat aches. My heart yearns. It's breaking.         

     



 

"I got him," Wes says, rushing down the edge of the ravine, rocks giving  way under each step he takes until his body is caught in a massive  slide of mud and debris that crashes into the water. The mud is thick,  but I see Wes's arms pound at the water. I see his body fight.

I begin to scream for him now too.

I try to stand, but the pain is sharp-it sears through my entire body, and I collapse on the ground in tears.

"You're really hurt, Joss. You're bleeding. Oh my god, so bad!" Taryn is  next to me; she's holding my leg then covering her mouth. I don't look  down. Whatever she sees makes her sick.

"He'll get him. It's okay, Joss," Kyle says, moving to my other side. He  pulls his wet jacket from his body and wraps it tightly around my leg,  moving his face in front of my view.

I'm shivering. I can't see my leg. I can't see the water below. I can't  see my father or Wes. I only see Kyle. His eyes are drilling into mine.  He's nodding slowly.

"You're okay. They'll be okay," he says, every now and then glancing  over me until I feel the hands of others on me and see the blue uniforms  of paramedics and firefighters take control of everything that  surrounds me.

Kyle stays though. I strain my neck to see-to see anything. But he doesn't let me look.

"Wes will get him. Don't worry. Let them help you now, Joss," he says,  his mouth a hard line. His jaw flexes with the grinding of his teeth. He  doesn't want to have to lie to me.

He's afraid he's lying to me.

The pain is overwhelming. Everything is so cold. My body can't feel anything. The world is yellow.

Bright.

And so very quiet.





Seventeen





"She's going to hate all of that crap hooked up to her," Kyle whispers.

I don't know why they're all whispering. I can hear them. They don't  think I can. They think I'm heavily drugged. I am. But I'm also  awake … and so very aware.

Painfully aware.

My body is numbed. The pain was too much. It made me black out. And when the doctors tried to repair me, I fought them.

I'm a fighter.

So they subdued me.

I think maybe everyone was hoping that my memory would disappear with  the pain meds too. That it would wash away with the waters that  destroyed me.

But I remember.

That's why I lay here with my eyes closed. That's why I don't show how  awake I am. I'll rest. I'll hide. And I'll keep hiding until they find  him.

I know my father made it. I've heard bits and pieces. I've heard his  voice. He somehow found enough to grab in the rush of waters to cling  for life until a rescuer could reach him. He had no idea Wes was  searching.

I don't hear Wes's voice.

But he's alive. I know he's alive.

I feel it.

He's too strong. Water is nothing to Wesley Christopher Stokes.

"Mr. Winters? It really should just be family in here, sir," the nurse reminds my father. He has the same answer every time.

"It's just me. And Kyle is like a brother," he says. It's the fifth time  he's said this, second time to this nurse. I recognize her voice.

"Okay, but he'll need to leave when visiting hours are over," she says. That's the same response from her as well.

"Right," my father says, his gravelly voice a fraction of himself. "Right," he says, the sound even fainter.

I'm not sure how long it's been. When I first heard the voices, I  thought it had only been a few hours. But I've come to realize that it's  really been days. Two … I think? Maybe three.