The Day Will Come Read Online Free Page A

to look around, will you?”
    Loader nodded, revealing no thoughts or feelings about the request, and knelt on the ground. I looked at him, then back at the first guy.
    “Well, go ahead,” Skull Cap said. “Climb on.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “You want to find your friends or not? He won’t drop you.”
    I wasn’t worried about being dropped. I was worried about being creeped out. But how else was I going to find anyone in this chaos?
    “Well. Okay.” I swung my leg over Loader’s shoulder and he pushed himself up, like a camel. Suddenly I had a new view of the parking lot, and a slew of people peering up at me, surprise on their faces.
    “Any luck?” Skull Cap asked.
    “Not yet.”
    “Go ahead, Loader. Give her a ride.”
    “I don’t—” I began, but was cut off when my steed began to move.
    Slowly we made our way forward, the crowd parting like the Red Sea before us. It was too dark to see well, and I found myself blinking often to keep my vision clear. If I hadn’t been so worried about Nick I would’ve been much more concerned with people seeing me up there. As it was, I had to make use of my resources.
    “Stella?”
    I swung around at the call of my name, Loader fortunately so well-grounded there was no fear of tipping over.
    Lenny looked up at me, amusement in his eyes.
    Lucy stood beside him giggling, her hands on her hips. “What in the name of Pete are you doing up there?”
    “What do you think I’m doing?” I held up my hands, not quite sure how to communicate with Loader, who had yet to say a word, or even grunt. I patted him on the head. “Uh, Loader? Can I get down?”
    He knelt, allowing me to slip off his shoulders.
    “Thank you for the…um…ride.”
    He nodded, his face as blank as before, and turned to go, on-lookers scurrying out of his path.
    “Where did you find that? ” Lenny asked.
    I waved off his question. “Any sign of Nick?”
    Lucy shook her head, concern in her eyes. “We’ve been looking. For both of you.”
    I surveyed the area. We stood next to Lucy’s Civic, about twenty feet from a streetlight and a tree with a dead limb sticking out the top. “You guys going to stay right here?”
    Lucy shrugged. “Don’t know where else we’d go. They’re not letting anybody leave.”
    “Not that we could get out if we tried,” Lenny said.
    “Then I’m going to hunt around for Nick.”
    “Shouldn’t have let your bulldozer take off,” Lenny said.
    “His name was Loader, not Dozer. Anyway, I could get up on you.”
    Lenny winced. “Normally I’d do it, but I wrenched my back something good carrying Norm out of the building.”
    “Norm?”
    Lenny and Lucy glanced behind them to Lucy’s car, where the man from the wheelchair was sitting, the woman beside him.
    “Oh. Norm. He okay?”
    Lucy nodded. “Just scared. And exhausted.”
    As he had a right to be. “Okay, I’ll be back.”
    I headed away, searching the faces for Nick’s, but couldn’t find anyone who even approached his clean shaven state. Shaved heads, sure, but most faces were covered with beards or week-old scruff. Harley T-shirts, flyaway hair, round beer bellies. They were all there. But no movie star blonds in clean jeans.
    When I’d made a full circle and reached the entrance to the parking lot I spotted several ambulances with paramedics treating those injured in the rush out of the building. It was at the third one of these I found Nick, sitting on the back ledge of the vehicle. I bee-lined a path to him, stopping only when I could reach out and put a hand on his shoulder.
    He blinked slowly and looked up at me, his eyes glassy.
    “Nick? What’s wrong?”
    “Can’t find anything wrong, ma’am,” the paramedic said. “I pulled him out of the crowd because he looked dazed, but his vitals are fine, and he says he wasn’t bumped on the head.”
    “He’s been weird like this all night.” I squeezed Nick’s shoulder. “Haven’t you, Nick?”
    He sighed. “I’m sorry. I