He’d been on edge since we’d left the apartment. The strange thing was that I didn’t think it had anything to do with what had happened with Bret, but with something else entirely. He was pale again, his mouth pinched once more. I wondered if perhaps he hadn’t slept like the rest of us. I worried about him, afraid that he was going to make himself sick with lack of sleep and nutrition.

   I didn’t like the idea of staying here, or going back outside. Unfortunately we didn’t have a choice. “I want to read this,” Aiden replied, tapping his fingers on the pages before him. “Maybe we should go back to the apartment till tomorrow night then.”

   “Are we taking all this stuff with us?” Jenna inquired softly. I had noticed that she had become a lot more agreeable, and nicer, since she’d seen Cade and I holding hands in front of Bret. “It’s pretty heavy.”

   “I guess we can leave it,” Aiden answered but his attention was elsewhere. He was like a pit bull when he became focused on something, he locked onto it and wouldn’t let go, and right now he was focused on that manual.

   “There’s no guarantee we’ll be able to make it back here,” I protested instantly.

   “Hmm, true,” Aiden muttered.

   I sighed as I shook my head at him. I moved away from the counter, heading to the back of the store. The windows held a glimpse of the ocean. Through the trees and homes, I could just make out the light of the moon sparkling across the gleaming surface of the water. It all looked so peaceful, so wonderfully normal and safe. For one brief moment I could almost believe that everything was as it should be. That there was no fear, hunger, or pain anymore.

   I closed my eyes, wrapping my arms around myself as I tried to bottle the rush of emotions that surged up in me. For one brief, poignant moment, I allowed myself to long for everything that we had lost, everything that we would never have again. Then, I opened my eyes, and forced myself to accept the fact that this was our new reality. Running, hiding, being hungry, scared, dirty, and tired was all we would know for the rest of our lives. But at least we were alive, we still had loved ones, and we were still moving which was more than I could say for most people.

   “Are you ok Bethy?”

   I hadn’t heard Abby approach, but she was suddenly at my side. “I’m fine.”

   “Are you sure? You seem so… ah… I don’t know, but you don’t seem like you lately.”

   She was trying to discreetly ask about Cade, but I didn’t have any answers for her. I didn’t know what it all meant, how it would all turn out. All I knew was that everything was very complicated and I wasn’t ready to talk about it. “None of us are the same lately.”

   “Bret…”

   “I don’t want to talk about it Abby.”

   “He loves you Bethany. He’s our friend. What are you doing?” I turned back to the window, unable to stand the wounded, pleading look in her eyes anymore. I felt bad enough without her heaping more guilt onto me. “Cade is…”

   I glanced sharply at her. “Is what?” I grated.

   She shrugged her delicate shoulders. “I don’t know; he’s always been distant, aloof, so cold and hard. He’s a stranger, we barely know him. Bethany…”

   “I can’t explain it Abby, I just can’t. It’s completely unexplainable but Cade isn’t those things, not really.”

   Abby was silent, her gaze drifted slowly toward where Jenna stood with Molly. I knew she was thinking about when Cade had threatened to leave Jenna at the dump. “That iswho he is Bethy. It’s the way he is toward all of us.” Her dark eyes came slowly back to me. They were wide with dawning understanding, her mouth parted slightly as she gazed at me in surprise. “It’s just not who he is with you.”

   I shifted slightly before turning my attention back to the window. She was right, Cade was hard, he was cold, he was deadly, and he was volatile. They were all traits that he had clearly exhibited over the past few days. He just wasn’t like that with me, he never would be. I knew that intrinsically. I didn’t know how to explain that to her though, and I wasn’t sure she would understand even if I could explain it to her, especially when I didn’t. People had been weary of Cade for years; that wasn’t going to change simply because I wanted it to.

   She sighed softly and rested her hand lightly on my arm. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

   “I don’t,” I admitted honestly.

   She squeezed my arm gently before hooking her arm through mine and leaning against my side. “He is gorgeous,” she muttered.

   I chuckled softly as I hugged her to me, taking solace in her warmth. “It’s time to head back.” Cade was suddenly beside us, he didn’t acknowledge the midnight hair falling into one of his eyes as he focused on me. “Your brother is determined to read that thing cover to cover.”

   “Of course he is,” Abby said as she pulled away from me.

   She only made it one step before an echoing, crashing screech froze her in place. The sound rumbled throughout the night, shaking the building as its crescendo rose to ever higher levels. Abby threw her hands over her ears. She took a step back as it grew steadily louder, and more ear piercing with every second. I didn’t even realize that Jenna was screaming until Molly slammed her hand over Jenna’s mouth to silence her. It made little difference though; I never heard Jenna’s screams above the rising shriek pulsating through the air. It was so loud that the bones in my body, and my teeth, began to rattle.

  Abby was nearly on top of me as she fell back. Cade seized hold of my arms as a series of rambling crashes, and the brutal squeal of twisted metal, resonated through the air. It seemed to go on forever, rising and falling in streams of sound that shook the windows and caused the floor to tremble and shake. I didn’t know what the hell was causing the noise but I was beginning to fear that it was never going to stop, that it was just going to continue endlessly on until it deafened us, or drove us all mad with fear and confusion.

   And then suddenly it stopped. The ensuing, encompassing quiet was more unnerving than the awful sound had been. We all held our breaths, our eyes wide in the dark as we strained to hear or see anything. My ears were ringing; I was shaking slightly within Cade’s grip. I kept waiting for the noise to start again, kept waiting for something to happen, but the world remained eerily quiet.

   “What… what the hell was that?” Molly gasped.

   Aiden took a step from behind the counter; his face far paler than normal. “I think it was the bridge.”

   “What!?”

   “The bridge, I think the bridge just collapsed, or was blown up, or whatever. But I’m pretty sure that was the Bourne bridge.”

   Horror curdled through me. Though I couldn’t see it from here, I knew that he was right. The Bourne bridge was gone. It had been a constant staple in my life. As a child I had feared driving over it, terrified that it would collapse beneath us. After my father’s death I hadn’t stayed in a car long enough to make the trip over the bridge until a couple of years ago. Both bridges were a major topic of conversation for the locals, in the summer, when the tourists flooded in and created massive congestion. Everyone planned their days around them, knew when to avoid them, or when they were going to be completely screwed and have to sit in traffic, sometimes for hours. The bridges had been nearly identical, and beautiful. They were large, sweeping testimonials to the architecture and technology of the thirties and now, at least one of them was a pile of rubble within the canal it had once gracefully spanned.