Page 89 of Midnightsong
“Lulu!” Angie raised her voice, her mind in a panicked, scattered place she couldn’t get out of. Her dining table had overturned and blocked her path to the scratching post, and Angie grabbed at it, flinging it out of her way with what strength she could muster.
Lulu backed away, her rounded back pressing into the wall behind her, and swatted at her when Angie attempted another grab.
“What’s the matter with you?” She clenched her jaw. Another attempt at grabbing her cat sent Lulu jumping up to a ledge where the wall met the ceiling, far from her reach.
She groaned loudly into her hands and forced herself to stop and take a deep breath.
Angie moved slower, spoke in a murmur, and held out her hand again. “Come here.” After a moment’s thought, Lulu skulked forward an inch and sniffed and headbutted her fingers.
Lulu stayed still as Angie picked her up, and she didn’t fight to cling to her woolen scratching post. “Good girl. You’re safe now.” Angie held her cat to her beating heart, Lulu’s shivers calming, and stroked the back of her head and neck. Keeping a firm grip on her cat, she walked to the closet where she normally kept her cat carrier.
The closet door was open and empty; remnants of her belongings scattered on the floor. The carrier was nowhere to be found.
Shit, what was she going to do now? She pocketed her seaflute and pulled out her phone, saved by her water-resistant casing.
She called Mia.
No answer.
Bàba was next.
He didn’t answer either, and she texted in their group chat, and Stefan and Ken about the tsunami.
Her family chat was eerily silent, but Stefan and Ken responded immediately, asking if she was okay, and that they were on their way to check on Bàba, and Mia and the kids.
After a brief chat with them, Angie replaced her phone with her seaflute, and leaned against the nearest wall, calling Kaden.
“Angie, Angie are you okay?” His voice was frantic. “Have you heard from your family?”
“No, why? Should I have?” Angie peeled herself away from the wall, sucking in a gasp.
“My uncle attacked Creston. I tried to stop him, but his sentinels pulled me away. I’m sorry, I couldn’t warn your family in time.”
Just when Angie thought this day couldn’t get any worse. Her eyes watered, sending a silent prayer to her ancestors Bàba or Mia weren’t at the docks that day. Mia still brought her kids around to visit Bàba there every now and again.
“This can’t be happening,” Angie mumbled, blinking away her tears. “We were–we were hit with a tsunami here too.”
Kaden snapped what she assumed was a curse in Renyuhua. “I tried to stop this. I’m so sorry, Angie, and thank the Goddess you’re okay.” A pause. “I’m looking for your father to make sure he’s okay, but I can’t find him.”
Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she pulled it out.
Mia.
“Hey, Kaden. Mia’s calling, let me get this. I’ll talk to you again soon, okay?”
Angie walked out to the front of her building, tired of standing in knee-deep water. She trudged to the outside communal porch. The chairs and tables were gone.
“Mia? Are you okay? Is Bàba okay? Kaden told me about the attack there,” Angie rattled off as soon as she answered.
Lulu squirmed, claws digging through Angie’s jacket and into her shoulders.
It hurt.
Sweeping the landscape, she found nothing sturdy to sit on. The three steps leading up to the porch had been broken through, and she took a ginger step onto the sand.
A large piece of wet driftwood rested before her, something the sea must have swept in.
Her pants and the bottom of her shirt were already wet, so what did she care about sitting on a damp log?
