Free Deploy by Jamie Magee Page A

look whole,” Nolan said as he stepped forward and looked into the massive closet Declan and Justice had hid in. He glanced down to the bag, then to Justice. “Good thing I packed a survival bag, eh?”
    Declan’s glare was homicidal, enough so that Chasen stepped up, smiling calmly at Justice as he pulled Nolan back a bit. Chasen could read Declan and knew he was seconds from snapping—on who it didn’t matter. He just needed a place to put his frustration with life as a whole.
    Before anyone could say anything else the doors at the other end of the hall opened and through them, with flashlights in hand, came the Sheriff and Murdock.
    Justice clenched her fist and did her best to seem calm. She had already assumed at this point, one way or another, her father was going to figure out she had been with Declan, but she thought she still had a hope of playing it down, at least she thought she’d have time to recover a bit from this emotionally strung out night before she had to deal with it.
    “What’s going on here?” the Sheriff asked as his flashlight hit everyone’s face at least once. The only one who bothered to flinch was Justice, the others stared him down.
    Chasen Rawlings nodded his head toward the Sheriff. “What’s up, Hoss,” he said, calling Monty Souter by the same he had called him since they were boys and Monty struggled to keep up on the ball field.  “We found your girl down here, forget somebody?” he asked as his sharp gaze flipped to Murdock whose entire body was taut as he glared down Declan.
    “You found her?” the Sheriff asked in an incredulous tone. “Why are you here?”
    “Heard about the damage,” Chasen said, calm as ever, as he held on a little tighter to Nolan. He could feel him tensing, wanting another piece of Murdock just because he could take it.
    “You heard an entire wing of the high school was gone, and you decided to come and gawk?”
    “No,” Chasen ticked his toward Nolan. “He left his truck here. We came to see if it was here or in a tree somewhere. We needed the keys to his toolbox to get the tools to free the truck bed—they were in his locker down here, which is where we found your girl.”
    When the Sheriff glanced to Justice as if to confirm their story, Chasen spoke up again. “You need us to take your boy and her home? I’m sure you have your hands full.”
    The Sheriff smirked at the audacity of the question. It didn’t matter that they were in the middle of a disaster, there was bad blood between the families and Sheriff Monty Souter would be damned if he’d hand his son over, much less Dawn Everly’s daughter, a woman he regretted not making his, to a Rawlings.
    “Best be moving on now, boys,” the Sheriff said as he reached for Justice’s arm. “They’re declaring the building unstable.”
    “Right,” Chasen said, urging Nolan behind him before reaching down and grabbing the bag on the floor and then having to use his body to move Declan back. Declan was steadfastly focused on Justice, and she was much the same as she looked over her shoulder at him while being pulled the other way.
    “Six days, son,” Chasen said, urging Declan forward.
    Outside looked like a warzone in the truest of senses. Emergency personal could be heard in every direction. The fences around the fields were no more, and yes one wing of the school was gone, so was just about every window.
    “I was worried about you,” Chasen said to Declan when he nodded for the other boys to walk on. Nolan did walk on, but only a few steps. He was determined to hear what went down. To hear what their daddy’s take on the matter was.
    “It didn’t sound like this down there,” Declan said as he watched the Sheriff’s cruiser leave.
    “I bet not.”
    Declan didn’t bother to respond.
    “That girl is seventeen, Declan. Barely that.”
    “Yeah.”
    “And you have a plan,” Chasen said.
    “I do.”
    “So you and I are clear right now.”
    “Do as I say not as I do,”