Page 14 of Reconciling the Consequences

She sighed and nodded. “Alright, help me do my hair and get dressed, then we’ll go.”

Kara gasped as Johnny pulled the truck into her driveway. Tears immediately lined her eyes. Her house was destroyed. Johnny had sugarcoated it. Half the house was justgone. Her heart broke into a million pieces.

This was the first place that was everhers. Not something she had to share with Marcos or her mother. Not a room in a place she rented with roommates at university.

No.It was hers and hers alone.

“Where was most of your personal stuff?” Johnny asked softly.

Kara snapped out of her daze. “I honestly never had a lot. My mother… single mom, you know? We moved around a lot, and things were lost over the years. I have a couple shoeboxes in those under-the-bed plastic totes from over the years. I have a safety deposit box downtown for anything really important. Everything else was on my laptop…” she trailed off, realizing. “Johnny! My laptop! My phone!”

“Easy,” he murmured gently. “They’re back at the house. Devil and Rockstar already grabbed them on their first pass through this place, along with your bathroom stuff.”

Kara felt her heart calm down a bit. She looked up at Johnny, seeing the calmness he emanated. She nodded slowly. “When was that?”

“The morning after the fire. Once the heat from the fire department cooled off, they came through seeing what they could salvage. When they saw your bedroom mostly untouched, they grabbed anything that looked important. I think they grabbed your bathroom shit on a whim, hoping you would come back to them after the hospital.”

Kara frowned. “But not you?” she questioned.

Johnny shook his head and looked away. He stared hard out the windshield of the truck. “I never thought you’d be mine again.”

Kara didn’t say anything after that. She opened the passenger door of the truck as best she could with her left hand and slowly climbed out. She wasn’t wearing shoes. She had on a pair of Johnny’s boxers and a baggy, gray Taylor Construction T-shirt that would have reached her knees had she not knotted it at her waist.

“Shit, Kara,” Johnny said and quickly jumped out of his truck.

He jogged around to her side, but she was already headed toward the house, barefoot. “There’s probably broken glass everywhere,” he snapped.

“So find me shoes,” she snapped back.

In the end, she found that a lot of her work clothes had been destroyed. Her bedroom had been soaked. The ceiling was black, but she could see holes where the fire had eaten through. Dust and dirt, soot and grime covered everything in a filthy layer.

Her walk-in closet was a nightmare, her silk blouses and dresses ruined. She peeked in some of the garment bags hanging in the closet to find that, though things might be wet, they might be salvageable if she could pull them out quickly so they wouldn’t mold.

She saved all her jeans and T-shirts from the closet, but most of her work things were ruined. Her precious high heels, her handbags, belts, all of it was ruined. She knew her homeowner’s insurance would or should cover a lot of it, but it was still sad.

Johnny brought extra-large, black contractor bags into her bedroom so she could pack her things. Most of the stuff in her dressers was made of cotton or polyester or nylon—things like yoga pants and pajama shirts, her socks, underwear, and bras, sweaters, and hoodies—and was relatively unscathed.

She dumped everything from her dressers into the bags to take back to Johnny’s. Johnny loaded his truck for her while she continued. When her dressers were done, she pulled out all the plastic totes from under bed. Everything looked sealed and dry in the multiple totes, so she stacked them for Johnny and moved on.

She had Johnny grab the totes from the top shelves of her walk-in closet, and then she was done. Anything worth saving fit into the back of an eight-foot truck bed.

“This too.” She sighed and patted the heavy cedar chest at the foot of her bed that she was sitting on.

“Seriously?” Johnny groaned.

She just nodded and panted. Her ribs ached; her knee was on fire. She had clearly overdone it, but she had needed to do all of this sooner rather than later.

“Yo, prospect!” Johnny yelled over his shoulder.

Kara jumped when she saw a young kid come running down what was left of her hallway. He was all gangly arms and legs, baggy blue jeans, and white T-shirt. He had a black leather cut with the Ravagers Knight patch on the front.

She bet if he turned around she would see the menacing skeleton in armor holding a scythe. The prospect vest would have the top rocker missing, and the bottom rocker would sayprospect.

“What’s up, boss?” the kid asked, looking verygreen; he couldn’t have been older than eighteen or nineteen.

“Let’s pick this up.” Johnny motioned to the large chest she was sitting on.

Kara sighed and got back up to make room for Johnny and the kid. She stepped out of the way and glanced at the back of the kid’s cut. The large dead knight on his back matched the one on Johnny’s cut, the cut that no Ravager Knight left home without.

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