Free The Debt by Tyler King Page A

that.”
    It had gotten dark outside. Thick gray clouds moved in over the tree line in the backyard. I’d always liked thunderstorms at night—the colors, the sounds, the electricity that made my hair stand up straight on my arms, and the smell of the rain getting closer. I’d been in Clearwater once when a hurricane changed course and pounded us for two days. I’d watched from the balcony of our hotel room as it moved closer to shore. That was by far my favorite kind of weather, right before all hell broke loose.
    “What is it?” she asked.
    “Nothing. Storm’s coming.”
    “Then start it already, Mr. Music Snob.”
    I narrowed my eyes at her, setting the needle to the record before climbing back on the bed. I sprawled out on my back and closed my eyes to just listen. We lay sideways across the mattress, Hadley on her stomach while she flipped through the booklet that went with the record.
    For five tracks, we listened to the tragic tones of the blues album. This one was good—heartbreaking and enviably great, actually. The guitars made me feel like a complete hack. I let my mind wander inside the melodies, all but ignoring the lyrics. It was so elegant and simple to the ear but complicated to produce. Like good classical piano, the result of so much intricacy was to make it sound effortless. These guys were fucking geniuses. Well, Hadley was never getting this record back.
    A flash of white light filled my room. A deafening crack shook the house. We both flinched; my breath stuck as a lump in my throat for the second it took to recognize the storm had arrived. Hadley let out a fit of relieved laughter.
    “Storm’s here,” she said.
    To punctuate her statement, another and impossibly closer burst of white lit up my room, followed by the shattering thunder. The music stopped. Hadley and I were left in complete darkness.
    “Maybe it will come back on,” she said.
    Not likely. We lived in the middle of fuck-all nowhere. The power lines were old and fickle. The slightest tremble in the weather and we’d be without power for hours—days if heavy winds downed trees across the two-lane road or too much rain caused flooding that made repairs more time-consuming.
    “I’ve got a flashlight.” I sat up and reached into my nightstand, grabbing the torch that sat next to the lockbox for the Beretta.
    I set the flashlight on the nightstand and let it reflect off the wall. It was enough to fill the room, and with that, I noticed her fingers worrying the hem of her jeans.
    “Give it a second,” I said. “The generator will kick on.”
    Without fail, I checked the generator outside the garage on the first of every month to make sure it was fueled. During a storm freshman year, we lost power for two days, which meant the house was without the security system for just as long. We got by just fine at Tom’s house, but Hadley didn’t sleep at all. She was agitated and anxious all night as Tom and I stayed up to watch movies with her as a means of distraction. Following that episode, I made the investment in a generator. It was enough to power the security alarm and floodlights on each corner of the exterior, plus connect the fridge and A/C.
    Just as it was supposed to, three beeps sounded from downstairs, indicating that the keypad in the foyer had reset itself.
    “See? No worries.”
    Hadley looked up and nodded. She was doing her best to fake it. “Thank you. For remembering.”
    “It’s my job.”
    Hadley was in the unenviable position to sort of need me. The least I could do was take my responsibilities seriously.
    “Right.” She looked out the window being pelted by rain.
    “We should probably go ahead and lock up.”
    It was too early to contemplate sleeping, but the sooner we got it over with, the sooner she’d relax.
    “Yeah.”
    Her mood had deteriorated. For the last hour, everything had been as close to perfect as I could hope for. I didn’t want to let this little hiccup ruin her evening, but I