Wrong Kind of Paradise (29 page)

collapsed into a coughing fit. One of her hands brushed against the fabric of his shirt, and she grasped it to

pull him closer.

Glancing up as the remains of a wrecked ship bobbled toward them, she braced herself and closed

her eyes. It missed her by mere inches, but the wall behind her gave way. They were both swept along

with the wave.

Blac! She’d lost contact with him.

The wall of water hurtled her down the street.
Swim
!

Refusing to die like this, determined to live, she kicked her way to the surface and looked for

something to cling to. The remains of the ship drifted toward her and she kicked her legs, reaching out and

finally grasping the edge.

Angel clung to the broken piece of wood and all strength left her body. Blackness caved in around

her for mere seconds.

Jerking awake as the water, receded she inhaled air. Her feet found solid ground and she wobbled

on shaky legs. Shock seized hold of her, and hysteria threatened to overcome her. Tremors wracked her

body, and she stumbled to her knees.

I’m alive!

Sobs shook her frame, and relief washed over her. Her fingers sank into the muddied ground which

oozed between her digits. Numb, she stayed on all fours and cried.

She couldn’t breathe and her heart raced inside her chest. Every muscle inside her body ached. Her

arms quivered and collapsed to her elbows as her forehead fell to the damp earth imprinting itself into the

ground.

I’m alive! I’m alive
.

Blac!
She snapped her head back up.
I have to find him!

Lugging herself to her feet, she headed back toward the devastated town. Sopping wet, moisture

plastered Angel’s hair to her face and neck as she slogged through the knee-high water. Blac! Where was

he?

She called his name. Hefting a broken piece of debris from the water, she shivered. “Blac! Please

answer me!”

The ground slanted, and she stumbled to her knees in the water. A pale corpse floated by her and

she screamed, shooting to her feet in fear. Her hands shook as she covered her mouth, peering around.

Most of the city had vanished, as if into thin air. What few buildings remained were skeletal structures of

what they’d once been.

A hazy fog clouded her vision and she struggled to focus on anything.
Why? Why did this happen
?

Papa! Had she lost them both?

She glanced down the street in the distance. The entire north end of the town and pier were under

water. Ships anchored in the bay had sunk under the force of the tide and many of their tall peaks gouged

the surface of the water like weeds.

Devastation and debris floated on the surface of the water. She dug through chunks of wood and

pulled up a broken bowl. She tossed it behind her and kept digging.

Angel coughed and tears burned behind her eyelids. Blac! Where could he be?

The water level receded slowly, and she trudged through the muddied liquid. Dread swept over her

as she wrapped her arms around her middle. Chills surfaced across her skin and her teeth chattered. More

bodies surfaced as she searched the area. Vomit rose in her throat.

How could this have happened? Why now? How had things gone so wrong?

She called out for her father. Alone in the middle of the water-filled street, she aimlessly turned

around. Lost. Scared. Exhausted. She could barely summon the strength to put one foot in front of the

other, and her voice grew softer as the futility of her situation finally hit her.

Her hands covered her face as she crashed to her knees and cried. The thought of never seeing her

father again or having Blac’s arms around her sent huge shafts of pain through her chest. Ragged sobs

wracked her body, and the force of the tears as they spewed from her eyes hurt. Mindless, numbing

despair assailed her, and she simply could not get up anymore.

I’ve lost both my father and Blac now...I have no one...I’m all alone.

She swallowed around the lump of fear that clogged her throat. An eerie silence filled the air as the

water wafted back out to the sea, taking with it the remains of a town lost to an early grave. A town that

had paid for its sin in death.

So many people...dead. So much life lost. The British crown jewel had lost its luster; the only

remains of its splendor lay in broken heaps of ruins.

She plunged her hands down into the water and something wrapped around them. Frowning, she

lifted the remains of someone’s silk red dress. She tugged at it until the trapped material pulled free and

the body of a young girl emerged. Angel hurled the fabric away from her and gagged. She watched the

body sink back into the waiting arms of the water due to the weight of the dress. No older than fifteen, the

girl’s green eyes were frozen in death and her lips blue from the chill in the water.

Angel screamed and screamed. The sound echoed in the vast emptiness and only reminded her of

just how alone she really was.

Something nudged her elbow and she turned to see a hat with a long yellow feather floating past her

toward the mouth of town, which had long since disappeared. She reached out for the hat and crushed it to

her chest. The feather tickled her wet nose and her heart squeezed so tight she feared it would split.

Blac couldn’t leave her. Not now!

She scrambled to her feet and sloshed through the mire back the way she’d come. Frantically, she

searched some more.

Minutes, or perhaps hours passed, and she pressed through the knee-high water, barely able to put

one foot in front of the other. Misery cloaked her and wrapped her in its embrace. She could not shake the

fear of being alone for the first time in life, and hope had long since vanished.

When Blac had told her she’d been sheltered, she’d never believed him until now. Now she knew

her father had shielded her from the horror of the world, and for once she was grateful for it. For now

faced with the shocking truth of reality, Angel’s only wish was that she could return to the way things

were.

A flash of white caught her attention and she paused. What was that? She squinted to see through the

gloom and misty haze that had settled over the area. She ran through the muck.

“Blac!” she yelled. “Blac!”

Relief washed over her and whooshed from her chest. He lay bent over the remaining rubble of a

wall, but he wasn’t moving. She rushed forward and knelt, lifting his head to peer into his face. Leaning

close, she listened. His breath was shallow, but he lived!

“Blac! Oh my God! Please stay with me.” Her heart thundered inside her chest as she attempted to

lift him away from the wall but he wouldn’t budge. She cursed.

Racing around to the other side, she knelt and wiggled her shoulder in between Blac and the wall.

Bracing her feet, she used her legs to lift him from the wall onto her shoulder.

She struggled and tears coursed down her cheeks. “Please, stay with me. I can’t live without you. I

don’t want to live without you!” She chanted to him, over and over again how much she loved him, as if

her words alone would wake him. “Please God,” she prayed. “I will do anything. Just please bring him

back to me.”

“Anything, huh?”

Angel collapsed in relief, her hands curled into the fabric of his shirt. He ran a hand over her wet

hair. “Angel love, look at me,” Blac commanded.

Attempting to control her anguish, she peered up at him through watery eyes. He cupped her cheeks.

“I love you too, but my legs are pinned. You must try to lift this beam behind me.”

She nodded and scrambled to her feet and peered around him. Sure enough, a large, fractured wood

beam trapped his feet against the half wall. She choked. “I can’t do this...I don’t think I can do this...”

“Angel.” His tone was harsh to get her attention. “You must. Now try to free my legs.”

Taking a deep breath, she wrapped both arms around the large beam and heaved. It didn’t budge.

Not even an inch. Weak from exhaustion and emotional trauma, she attempted to move it again. But again

nothing happened.

“Try again,” he whispered. “Don’t give up now.”

Angel maneuvered herself, one foot on either side of the beam, and hoisted it in her arms. It moved

slightly but toppled back down. Frustration and anger gave strength to her arms and she tried again. This

time it moved.

But before she could celebrate even that smallest victory a hand in her hair yanked her back. She

collided with a wide chest, and the viscount’s face entered her peripheral vision. “You didn’t think you

really got away, did you?”

Soured breath assaulted her and she cringed. How had he lived? Of all the people in Port Royal

who’d died, why had he been allowed to live? Her hands clawed at his arms as she fought against him.

Blood from a wound on his forehead ran down the side of his face and smeared across her cheek. “Let me

go!”

He laughed. Those dark eyes took on an eerie sheen as if he had lapsed into madness. Angel reared

back and nailed him in the nose with the back of her head. He howled and let her go.

“Run, Angel!” Blac yelled out.

Her feet took flight and she raced through the mire down an alley with half-standing buildings on

either side. She glanced back briefly to see the viscount following her in a steady, unhurried pace.

Horror seized her as she turned the corner because she knew she had nowhere to hide.

Twenty-three

Blac roared his frustration as the viscount strode down the alley after Angel.

He strained against the beam, but his legs were too weak to move the impediment. Helpless, anger

knotted in his gut and gnashed his teeth together. He shouted obscenities at the viscount to get his attention,

but he knew it was useless. Why would the viscount bother with a man who was already on the last legs

of life, when the object of his fascination was scared and running down an alley with nowhere to hide?

Blac gasped and placed a palm over the burning stitch in his side. His hand came away smeared

with blood where the broken slither of wood had embedded within his side during the impact in the

wagon. The wound was close to his most vital organs. He was losing a lot of blood, and it weakened him.

He’d been happy that in Angel’s incoherent state, she hadn’t noticed the entrenched piece of wood

in his side. But he cursed himself now for not having her patch him up while they’d had the chance. Now

he was trapped and bleeding like a stuck pig.

He growled.

The warmth of the liquid coasted down his side to soak into the cool, damp cloth of his breeches. If

he could withdraw the sliver of wood from his flesh, he might be able to staunch the flow. But he wasn’t

sure he could reach it. What made it worse was even if he could, it was too far around his side to

comfortably apply pressure to the wound for long.

He was dying
.

Death had never been a fear of his. Until now. He closed his eyes and Angel’s face appeared.

Cursing God and his own inability to protect the one person in his life who’d loved him wholeheartedly,

Blac tried to heave the heavy beam off his calves once again. He couldn’t give up now.

~*~

Washed out remains of half walls and fractured structures were all that remained in this part of the

town. Angel slogged through knee-high water.

The further she went, the higher the flood waters grew. The sky darkened under the cloud of

destruction and dust. It hung over the area like a shroud and settled heavily in her lungs. But it was the

silence that alarmed her. There were no voices, no screams, no sounds of activities, as if every person in

town had simply been wiped away with a brush of nature’s wand. Trepidation settled in her weak

stomach and caused it to churn.

Her heart pounded inside her chest and she glanced around, searching for some place to hide. The

most horrible, sour smell assaulted her as she moved between the half buildings. She kept her back to the

brick wall and slipped inside a half opened door. The building had lost its roof and large sections of the

south wall. Darkness encased her and fear enveloped her in its grasp.

She attempted to shush her breathing and glanced outside the opened door to see if the viscount had

followed her. She strained to hear anything. A steady trickle of water dripped somewhere close by. Its

steady trickle ticked each second by. She held her breath. Ducking back inside the building, she glanced

around.

It was a large brick structure. A warehouse of some kind full of large boxes and crates, many of

them smashed, lying across the ground in large pieces. The stairs in the back had been washed out. She

plodded across the room to a rather large shipping crate where the wave had tossed it against the north

wall. Leaning against it, she pushed with her legs until it moved. The slush of water seemed loud in the

unnatural silence.

Sweat beaded on her brow as she climbed atop it. She jumped and grasped the remaining rail on the

stairs above. She hung there for several seconds but she heard the slosh of water outside and froze.