Sharp Edges

Chapter Fourteen

Steve and Natasha left the farm the following morning and with that, Yelena, James, and Cara began to fall into a rhythm of their own. Strangely, it didn't take much time at all for them to adjust to one another. It should have been more disruptive to have a child around, or at least Yelena had assumed it would be, but the little girl was incredibly adaptive.

She'd had to be. Really, all three of them were. They had their own scars that had come from their previous lives, but there was also a sense amongst them that they all knew just how lucky they were. That the life they had now wasn't what was supposed to happen to them, so they needed to protect it.

Cara's biggest trouble with adjusting was hoarding food. The young girl hadn't known when she would be fed next before she reached the farm, so she snuck food and hid it in her room for later, just in case. It was never held against her, though. They understood.

In spite of all they had working against them, the three became a small... well, they hadn't described themselves as a family quite yet. To Yelena, putting a label on it felt like it might jinx what it was they had. So instead, they just... lived.

Yelena was out in the chicken coop with Max checking on eggs as she turned her eyes up to the sky. It had looked like a storm was coming in all day, though it didn't look quite as threatening earlier as it did right now. The sky was getting dark with an almost greenish hue. She'd never seen anything like it before.

Once she finished gathering the eggs, she closed up the coop just as she began to feel small pelts of ice against her skin. Hail. "What?" she murmured to herself, confused by the midwestern weather pattern as she made her way back to the house.

James stood in front of the television, his arms crossed, as the screen changed and a man stood in front of a large multicolored blotch. "A tornado warning has been issued for Harson County. If you have a safe place, get there now. Away from any doors or windows," the newsman stated.

It made James' hair stand on end. "Lena? Cara?" He called. James never got nervous. But this was setting him on edge.

"Hmm?" Yelena vocalized from the kitchen as she set the basket of eggs into the sink.

"Yeah?" Cara called as she descended the stairs. "It's raining ice outside, I think," she said, familiar with the noise of hail without knowing the word for it.

"Go to the cellar, grab a flashlight, candles, and I'll get a couple of blankets," he told them. "The man on the weather screen says it's a tornado warning for our county."

Yelena stepped out of the kitchen to stop at the bottom of the stairs, a worried expression on her face. She reached out to take Cara's hand. "Come with me," she said, sensing the urgency in James's voice. She whistled for Max to join them. "Come on buddy," she said, going with Cara and the dog into the kitchen again to get flashlights and candles.

Once they gathered the items, she led them out onto the front porch. The wind was picking up, and in the distance, it looked like a funnel was reaching down from the sky. "Jamie, hurry!" she warned before she took hold of Cara and made her way towards the cellar.

James grabbed the blankets off the couch and turned, his boots falling heavy on the wooden floor. He stepped outside onto the porch and instantly spotted the funnel in the distance.

He turned towards Yelena before jumping off the porch and running to them. James scooped Cara off the ground so they could run faster.

Once they reached the cellar, James used his metal arm to pull it open easily and waited for Yelena to push Max down the stairs before giving Cara to her. Then he followed them both down and shut the door behind him before latching it shut from the inside.