Fault

Part 41

Fallon Connelly 7:06 a.m.

"Where's Price?" Marc asks as they see me standing alone in the street.

"There was an ambulance," I say, still looking in the direction I last saw it. "They took him."

"What? Why didn't you ask them to wait for us?" Marc walks a few feet down the street, as if he might be able to see them and flag them down.

"They couldn't wait," I tell him, an edge creeping into my voice. "Price was..." 

 "What?" Price was what?" Marc trails back to me, agitated.

"Dying," I say, looking Marc right in the eye. "He collapsed right on the sidewalk." Marc closes his mouth as Cal steps up to my left. His eyes are wide.

"The doctors let him go yesterday," Cal says. "I thought he was okay."

I shake my head but avoid launching into the conversation Price and I had the night before. It doesn't matter anymore. Whether Price wants to be or not, he is on his way to getting help. If they get there in time.

Everyone is quiet as they let the fact that Price is gone sink in. From six to five.

"We have a problem," Cal says quietly, clearly trying to keep the kids from hearing. I glance behind him to see Ry-Ann and Justin standing on the sidewalk in front of the apartment doors. They are splitting a red licorice in half.

"What problem?" I ask, sighing. What else could go wrong?

Cal takes my hand and pulls me gently back the way we'd come yesterday. Marc splits off from us and goes to the kids, to occupy them I guess.

"Where are-?" I start to ask until he leads me right to the opening of the alley next to the apartment building. He discreetly points up to the southern sky, in the very direction Kim and Brett left earlier to go.

There, coming toward us slowly are clouds so black that just the sight of them takes the air from my lungs. The storm we were promised is on its way. Cal squeezes the hand he's holding, but I can't register the pain I feel from my cuts.

"We have to go," I say. "Now."