Into the Mist (Into the Mist 1)

“Same with me. What are you thinking?” Mercury asked Stella.

“It’s more a feeling than a thought. Let’s go inside. I’ll tell you when I know more, but I can say that I think we can be pretty sure that we’re not going to suddenly bleed out like Amelia or those two men we found by the roadside, but pay attention if someone says they feel wrong or broken.”

“Death words,” Mercury whispered.

Stella looked grim. “Yep. Definitely. There’s probably nothing we can do to help someone if they start feeling broken, but we can be there with them until the end.”

“No one should die alone,” said Mercury.

Imani stared past the two women and spoke softly. “At least they were together—my babies and their daddy. Curtis would’ve held them and been with them and told them everything would be alright.” Imani pressed the back of her hand against her mouth to stop her sob.

Mercury touched her arm. “I’m here. I don’t know what the hell to say, but I’m here.”

“Me too,” Stella said. “We’ve got you.”

Imani drew a deep breath and straightened her back. “Let’s go in and see how we can help.”

Mercury and Stella nodded, and then the three women picked their way around the broken glass and entered the lodge. There was a big foyer inside, where the bellboys and the valet parkers had stations. A huge hearth, so big a person could practically stand inside, was burning with ironic cheer in the middle of the room. Mounds of firewood were stacked neatly beside it. Little shops that carried what Mercury thought of as rustic chic stuff—everything from fleece-lined coats to dream catchers and turquoise jewelry—lined one side of a wide hallway that led from the foyer deeper into the lodge. On the other was the entrance to the Cascade Dining Room. Past that, all they could see through the fading gray day were fallen timbers and debris littering everything. Another, narrower hallway veered from the foyer where they glimpsed the beginning of guest suites. But none of that held their attention because the foyer was humming with activity.

Women Mercury didn’t recognize were struggling to drag mattresses from the direction of the first-floor rooms to join the several already spread out and occupied around the blazing fireplace. Wounded people lay on the mattresses as a tall, ballerina-lithe woman with long wheaten hair that draped in waves almost to her waist carried a potted candle with her and moved gracefully among them.

More wounded huddled in the wide hallway as they waited for their mattresses. Gemma was there with several pots of candles, crouched beside one man whose nose wouldn’t stop dripping blood.

“Oh, good! Stella—Mercury, I need your help!” Gemma called.

“How are you with blood?” Mercury asked Imani.

“Fine, as long as it’s not mine.”

“Let’s go help the kid,” said Stella, and they headed to Gemma.

Even before they reached Gemma, she was firing orders at them. “Doctor Hilary needs as many candles as you can find—and those clean sheets and towels to be ripped into long strips for bandages.” The teenager didn’t look up from the man’s face. She was holding a blood-soaked washcloth against it, but she jerked her chin in the direction of the entrance to the nearest boutique. Just inside, Jenny and Karen tore sheets and towels into strips. “Also, do you remember the store that sells, like, toothbrushes and other stuff people forget when they go on vacay?”

Imani nodded. “The one that’s farther down the hallway there?” She pointed past the restaurant, where timbers had fallen from the ceiling and walls of the lodge.

“That’s it. Can you go down there and grab all the candles you can find and anything that we can use for the wounded? Bandages, Tylenol—anything. Doctor Hilary got some stuff from there earlier, but she’s too busy with hurt people to go back, and everyone not hurt except you guys is already getting the mattresses in here and making bandages.”

“I’ll go,” said Imani.

“I’ll go with you,” Mercury said. “We should stay in pairs and not wander around alone.” She looked up at the cracked ceiling. “How stable is this place?”

“This section is sound, but don’t explore too far away from the main foyer.” The man Gemma was helping spoke through the bloody washcloth. “’Specially not close to the west wing of the lodge that got sucked into that avalanche. You ladies be careful.”

“This is Bob. He’s the lodge’s handyman. He’s worked here for a million or so years and knows everything about Timberline,” said Gemma quickly. “Bob, keep your head back. They’ll be careful—don’t worry.”

“Imani and I are on it,” said Mercury.

“And I’ll go help Karen and Jenny,” said Stella. Then she added. “Hey, so, good thing we have a doctor here.”

Gemma nodded. “She works for the lodge. Uh, guys, we really need that stuff.”

“Okay, right!” Stella said, and the three women hurried off.

“Who is that kid?” Imani asked quietly.

“Gemma Jenkins,” said Stella. “We picked her and her mother up on the highway. They were with some wounded people.”

“She’s intense,” said Imani.