Page 20 of Rival Hearts

I could hear the panic in the kid’s voice. To the right were a set of stairs to the front door, and with the dog tucked against my chest, I fought the current to get a foot on the first stair not covered in water. Hoisting myself up, I carried the dog like a football and entered the house. Inside, a toddler or baby wailed. My heart clenched. They might be relatively safe in the house, but they might not. If Maggie and her crews couldn’t stem the tide, the water would only keep rising.

I made my way through the house to the balcony. From there, I scanned the roofline. The little one’s cries had halted at the sound of my footsteps, but I wasn’t going near the child in the house until I had a plan. “Kid?”

Over the edge of the roof, the boy’s brown head appeared. “The water is rising so fast. I—I tried to call Callie’s parents and couldn’t get an answer.”

“Okay, okay.” My mind ticked through all the options. Over the balcony edge, the water was now covering the steps, at the door to the house. Going back that way would be too dangerous to wrangle a dog and two kids. If we got swept away, we all might drown because I’d go down before I let anything happen to either of these kids. A memory was surfacing from when I took a disaster training course in China. On a lark, and with nothing better to do at the time, I’d loved the adrenaline rush of all the dangerous situations we’d been put in for a week. “Tyler, Kelvin!” I waited for them to find me from the shore. When they pinned me with their gazes, I said, “Get a ladder and get to the roof of the neighbor’s house. A long ladder. A really longladder.” I didn’t wait to see if they’d comply. I needed to calm the baby in the house and the babysitter. “Okay,” I said, turning my attention to the kid on the roof. “How old are you? How old is the one you’re babysitting?”

“Callie is a year old. I’m twelve.”

“All right. Does Callie have one of those baby carrier things?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you come down and check for me? I’ve got a plan to get us out of here, but it’s not going to be easy.”

The boy nodded and scrambled off the roof to the balcony and disappeared into the house. I ran a hand through my hair, the shaking dog still clutched like a football. Was my plan a good or foolish one? When the boy returned, he had a modified backpack clutched in his hand.

“Like this?”

I eyed it, trying to remember the ones I’d seen while traveling. In Vietnam, I’d strapped a woman’s baby to me when the single mother had fallen behind during our group hike. The carrier had been easy enough to figure out. “Hold the dog.” I passed the boy the shivering bundle and slid the pack on my shoulders, testing the feel of it. “We’re going to Callie’s room, and I need you to strap her into the backpack, okay?”

“Okay.” The kid nodded and led us to Callie’s room.

There in a crib, a chubby, tear-stained face almost stole my heart. When her dark-brown eyes met mine, I was reminded of another pair of eyes this dark, this soulful. Ones I’d probably gladly drown for, even if I’d never admit it out loud.

The boy dropped the dog in the crib and lifted Callie out. I went on my knees while the kid clipped her in and tightened the straps. Once he was done, I carefully removed the pack from my back and checked all the connections. For my plan, I had to be certain Callie was secure.

The house groaned, and the boy jumped. “What was that?”

“Nothing to worry about,” I said, easing the backpack with Callie bundled tight onto my shoulders, and I grabbed the dog. “To the balcony.” I wasn’t sure the noises were nothing, but instead could be a sign that the house wasn’t going to hold against the force of the water. We needed to get out of there.

On the balcony, I called to Kelvin and Tyler to get to the roof of the house across from us with the ladder. The kid scrambled onto the roof, and I passed him the pup before hoisting myself over the ledge onto the pitched surface. Luckily, my wet boots had no trouble gripping the shingles. I searched the roof for a good place to wedge the ladder, and when I’d found one, I signaled to Kelvin and Tyler to lower the ladder across. In the distance, sirens wailed.

“The firetrucks are trying to figure out a way to get here,” Tyler called as he and Kelvin worked to close the gap between the houses. Luckily, the houses were of similar heights and closer together than most houses in Little Falls. The road was a court, a dead end, and staring out, it was clear the path had been consumed with the rapidly rising river from the broken water main.

“You be careful, Grady! You’re going to be our next mayor.” An older woman stuck her head out her second-story window, the screen gone.

I grimaced at the reminder and pressed the ladder into the roof, testing. It slipped. I righted the ladder and cursed under my breath, starting to sweat. The wail of sirens grew closer. Underneath us, the house shuddered.

“What was that?” The boy’s voice shook with terror, and he clutched the dog to his chest.

“It’s fine,” I said, but when I glanced up, I could see the panic on Tyler and Kelvin’s faces. Had the house actually shifted? I needed to get this ladder secured. Panic rose in my throat. We’d had all the necessary tools in the disaster training course, whichin hindsight didn’t make sense. Who has everything they need in a disaster? The ladder we used had spikes on it to secure it to the roof. I let out a frustrated noise.

The firetruck bounced along neighbors’ lawns as it made its way toward us. How far did their ladders reach? Almost as soon as the truck came to a stop, the fire chief was out of the vehicle along with other firefighters, securing the truck. The ladder began to extend, and a firefighter headed toward them. I breathed a sigh of relief that I wouldn’t have to rely on my shoddy across-the-roofs plan.

“You go first.” I put the young boy in front of me. “Take the dog.”

“I’ll take the dog,” the firefighter said, holding out her hands for the boy to drop the dog into them. “Hold onto both rails and come down the ladder backward. I’ll be—”

The house groaned and jerked, almost tossing me to my knees. Callie let out a cry of distress.

“Down the ladder,” the firefighter ordered before calling over to Tyler and Kelvin. “Evacuate that house—everyone who lives in it. If this one goes, it might take others.” She radioed to her colleagues while she coached them onto the ladder with her.

As I left the roof and followed the boy and the firefighter down, the house groaned again. “What about the people in this house’s path?” I called over my shoulder, careful to hold on tight, aware of the bundle on my back.

“We’ve got units evacuating everyone in the water’s path,” she replied as they continued to scale the ladder.

At the bottom, I turned Callie and the boy over to the firefighters and went to join Tyler, Kelvin, and the reporter on dry land.

---