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  “Very well,” she said, raising her voice. “Keep up the good work, Lex.” She could toss him a bone by using the moniker he preferred. Perhaps that would keep him quiet, let her save what little face she had left in front of these country buffoons. She didn’t care what they said about her when she left, but Petal needed them to respect her and work extremely hard while she was here.

  “Of course, ma’am,” Lex said respectfully, turning to his crew. “Come on you lazy, useless sacks of nothing. Why isn’t this tree cleared? I need it out of the way to move the truck so we can do our job.”

  Almost immediately the two chainsaws fired back to life. Clearly the men had been waiting for that order from their boss.

  Petal stepped back and then turned, heading for the truck. Vince hurried to catch up. “On to the next site, Director?”

  She shook her head. “No, Vince. Let’s get back to base and see what else we can do from there. I’m convinced that the crews are now aware of the gravity of the situation.”

  The other man seemed to sigh with relief. “And perhaps lunch on the way?”

  Petal tried not to groan. He was choosing now to try and get her somewhere alone to talk? The reports she’d read on his misconduct might have been understating things. He had no tact at all.

  “We can hit up a drive-through, sure. Make sure you get enough for the rest of the office.”

  She grinned internally as the realization he’d just agreed to buy lunch for everyone dawned on Vince.

  At least she didn’t have to put up with his shit.

  4. Bad News, Pt. 2

  Lex

  “Good work again, boys,” he said as they pulled in to the parking lot at the shop. “Go grab some water and start reloading the truck with supplies. It’s going to be a long day.”

  His men, a pair of brothers named Ronnie and Ryan, were good people. They worked hard, knew their trade, and weren’t afraid to get dirty. They also weren’t overly imaginative, so he had to ensure that he was clear with them what he expected. But to their credit, give them a task, and they got it done without stopping. He couldn’t ask for more than that.

  But it was a good thing he was the crew leader.

  “You going to get some more pinkies?” Ronnie asked, using slang for the work orders.

  “Yep.” He started to turn the key when the radio switched over to a news broadcast.

  “The Surrey sheriff’s office is asking everyone to keep an eye out for a missing woman. Leslie Mckay has been missing since yesterday morning. She was last known to be driving to work. Her normal route is along George Street and then on to East Avenue. She was driving a green four-door sedan, older model. Leslie is described as a redhead, five foot six, one hundred seventy pounds. If you see her or know her whereabouts, please contact the sheriff’s office.”

  “Shit,” he muttered, killing the engine.

  “What?” Ryan asked, following him out of the truck. “Did you know her?”

  “No. But it sounds like we had the first casualty of the storm,” he said. “I was hoping that people would get to shelter and be okay, but it appears someone didn’t.”

  Lex took it hard whenever someone in Surrey died of non-natural causes. He considered the inhabitants to be his friends. There were only two thousand or so of them in the entire valley. A very small number, many of whom he knew by name, or at least sight. While it was possible Leslie might still be alive, after the damage the storm had caused, he had his doubts.

  “I just hope there aren’t any more,” he muttered, then shook his head and straightened his back. “Okay boys, get the truck cleaned up and top up all the parts we used, plus anything else we said we might need. I’m going to go see where we’re off to next.”

  Leaving the brothers to it he headed inside, marching right to Vince’s office. It was closed. He tried the door handle, but it was locked. Lex wondered if perhaps Miss Olson hadn’t heeded his words to come back to the office and work from there. Frowning, he turned and headed down to the command pit.

  The pit was the operations brain for Western Hydro. It was dominated by the huge map of Surrey and surrounding countryside, with all the known hydro lines, generators, transformers, property, etcetera on it. It was electronic and could be color-coded to show problems down to a single line between poles. Green was good. Orange was minor, red was major, and black was unknown.

  His eyes scanned the map with practiced experience. Every morning he came in and looked it over, memorizing it anew and looking at the various sectors for usual culprits and new problems. By this point in time he was quite used to it all. Well, mostly. The map had never shown anywhere near this much red before. Whereas orange and red were usually a tiny minority, today they appeared to be the majority. A swath of green had begun to cut through it from west toward east, indicative of where the workers had been progressing. But overall there was still nearly as much red as there was green.

  “Lex, what are you doing back here?”

  He turned as Vince approached him.

  “I’m done.”

  Vince’s brow furrowed for a second, then he nodded. “Right. I have more for you, here.” He stuffed a handful of crinkled pink sheets at Lex.

  Scanning them quickly, Lex realized the issue. “Vince, why is nobody working here?” He pointed on the map to the east side of town on the single trunk-line from the hydro dam to Surrey.

  Vince worked his jaw. “There’s so much damage in town itself. It makes sense to work our way out there.”

  “I’m changing my work order,” he said to his boss. It wasn’t a question or a request. It was an order. Lex rarely spoke that way, because he didn’t like ordering people around. But he’d long ago realized he had the blood of an Alpha in him, and that he could use it when necessary to his advantage. In this case, it would be to the advantage of nearly two hundred homes in Surrey.

  “You’re changing it? We don’t even know what’s wrong out there,” Vince told him.

  He was right; the map was colored black over a section, not red or amber. Which meant that his boss hadn’t even sent anyone out there to see what was wrong. Imbecile. Couldn’t he read the map?

  “Vince, look. If you repair that section, whatever is wrong, and then these ones here, here and here,” he said, pointing in rapid succession, “then we can restore power to over two hundred houses, and the businesses in this area here. It’s not much, but think of the morale boost it would be to the town to show them that we’re starting to restore hydro to it.”

  Vince nodded. “What are you proposing?”

  He considered for a moment, then laid out his plan. “I’ll go check out what’s wrong up there in the black zone. In the meantime, my crew will start work on the red zones. We’ll get that work done, and then start to branch off from there. Have Jay’s crew start working out from where you’ve had all the crews to come and meet up with us. Any luck, and by tomorrow morning we’ll have restored power to nearly fifty percent of Surrey, if not more.”

  He neglected to mention that if they’d started out by the dam and worked their way inward, they could have already had power to ten or even fifteen percent of the town. It wouldn’t do to insult Vince, when he needed him to not resist his change of plans.

  “Agreed.”

  Both of them turned to see the speaker Petal walk up to join them at the map. Lex managed not to sigh in relief that she didn’t shut his plan down, but he suspected she wasn’t quite finished.

  “Thank you. I’ll go get things organized.” He turned to go, but Director Olson held up a hand, stopping him in his tracks, much to his astonishment.

  Lex looked down at his chest, half-expecting to see a physical barrier there, so abruptly had he come to an unexpected halt. He tried to bully his way through the resistance, but his body just seemed to ignore every command he sent it. Reluctantly, but still confused, Lex backed down and waited for Director Olson to speak.

  “I’m going with you.”

  “What? I thought we’
d established that you’re better suited here in the office.”

  He regretted the words the instant he said them. There was no way she was going to stay at the shop after that. It was all but a challenge to her abilities to be useful to the recovery efforts.

  “Perhaps. But I refuse to let any employee go on their own after a disaster like this. Like Vince said, you don’t know what it’s like out there. Nobody has been out that way yet. Your plan is sound, but you’re not going alone. Vince can handle things here while I accompany you.”

  Lex forcibly stopped his teeth from grinding together. “I’m in charge out there. I’m not going to have you second-guessing everything I do.”

  “Agreed.”

  There was exactly zero hesitation in her voice. Either she expected to overrule him once they were away from others, or she had suddenly developed an understanding of the seriousness of the job and his professionalism. Somehow Lex didn’t think he was that lucky.

  He turned back to Vince. “I’ll check in before we pass Sonnett’s Creek. After that, I have no idea whether we’ll be in contact. I’ll keep in touch as I can. Make sure it’s all relayed to Ronnie and Ryan.”

  “Will do,” his boss replied, clearly anxious to have both of them out of his hair for a while.

  Lex nodded and then motioned with his chin at the director. “Well, let’s go. No time to waste.”

  This time his body responded when he told it to walk away. Behind him he could hear her shoes hurry across the floor to keep up. Feeling somewhat spiteful, he lengthened his stride, forcing her to race to keep up with him. It was petty, but just then he didn’t care. She was coming with him just to try and demonstrate that she wasn’t useless.

  Why did it have to be with him?

  “What’s so important about Sonnett’s Creek?” she asked as they walked. Well, he walked, she half-jogged.

  “There’s only one cell phone tower between there and the Surrey dam. Reception is notoriously spotty, and if the tower went down in the storm, then there is no reception. So, we may have to investigate and then double back to report in.”

  He walked out to the motor pool and snagged the keys for the truck that Vince and the director had been using earlier in the day. Then, with the director in tow, he went over to his crew, told them where they were to go next, and gave them the associated pink sheets. They didn’t put up a fuss, simply nodding and then having a brief argument over who got to drive. Inevitably Ronnie won by decree of being older.

  That settled, he hopped in the truck and waited for the director to join him.

  “Okay, Director. Last chance to back out.”

  He desperately wished she would. If he could go alone, Lex could use his wolf to survey the area, covering the ground much quicker than the truck.

  “No, I think not. Come on now. Get this thing moving, will you?” She pulled her door closed and buckled up, emphasizing her point.

  Lex sighed and turned the key. She was being an idiot, but he had to give her credit, she wasn’t willing to back down from heading out into the unknown. Hopefully she just remained quiet for the drive, so that it didn’t become any more painful than it already was.

  5. From Bad to Worse

  Lex

  The road was worse than he’d imagined. As it rose up and followed the curve of the hills heading east toward the dam, the damage got worse. Trees, rocks, and more were strewn across it, forcing him to cut several apart and heave them out of the way, or take the truck essentially off-roading.

  At one point they came to a section of road that was partially washed out. The sun was out and baking the ground solid, but he knew it wouldn’t last. After testing the remaining lane he carefully guided the truck over it, moving extremely slowly in case it started to give way. This wasn’t the sort of thing he should have been doing, especially with the director in the car. But she had been stoic about the entire journey so far, even pulling on a pair of gloves and helping drag several branches out of the way while he dealt with the bigger pieces at several stops. He had to give her credit; she was proving to be more useful than he’d thought possible. Perhaps his talk with her earlier had made an impression.

  “This is just incredible,” she said, looking behind them at the washed-out road, bracing her hands on the door and dash as he took the truck over more branches, the entire cab jumping and bouncing wildly. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”

  “Not in my entire time here,” he replied absently while swerving to avoid a pothole.

  “You’ve lived elsewhere?”

  The question snagged his attention and he frowned, focusing on the road while replaying the conversation back over in his head. The words came to him, and he cursed himself silently. It would be easy to play off, but he needed to be more careful around her. What was going on with him? Normally he was much more on guard and alert about such things.

  “No,” he said gruffly. “I just meant that I’d never seen anything here either. But we have television. You see the effects of hurricanes and tornadoes. They look like this. Except more widespread.”

  Director Olson nodded thoughtfully. “You saw that too then?”

  “Hmm?”

  “That it was a very localized storm. As in, Surrey and the road up here to the dam. The rest of the valley at large seems to have gotten off lightly, if not been left untouched. That’s extremely unnatural. The odds of something like this happening are…well, I don’t have to tell you just how astronomical they are.” She shook her head in his peripheral vision. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. It shouldn’t have been able to happen. But it had. It raised a hell of a lot of questions, and most of them were ones he couldn’t discuss with her, Vince, Jay, or just about anyone he knew. The only resource he could consult, his father, didn’t have a phone let alone a computer. To find out, Lex would have to venture up north to find him in person. Right now though, his town needed him, and leaving wasn’t an option.

  “Is anyone else coming?” he asked after several minutes of silence. At the moment the road was remarkably clear of debris beyond the odd branch. He had to continually change lanes, but besides that, they made good time for once.

  “What do you mean?”

  “To Surrey. We need help. The road repair alone is going to be more than we can manage. If left to our own devices, it could take us years to recover. If ever.”

  The director shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m only in charge of the hydro dam and our assets in and around Surrey. When I first heard of the storm I hopped on practically the next flight and came out here as soon as I could. I have no idea what’s going on in regard to state help.” She paused and looked over at him. “I’m sorry. I can tell how much the town means to you, but I just don’t know.”

  He nodded, but his mind was elsewhere. She’d hopped on the first flight out to Surrey after hearing about it? That was impressive. He would have expected corporate bigwigs to take their time, see who drew the short straw to have to come out to the middle of nowhere to coordinate disaster relief efforts. None of them were supposed to want to come out here. After all, he couldn’t remember the last time someone visited, and he’d been working there for damn near twenty years!

  His mostly successful attempts to avoid such visits notwithstanding, he knew it had been years at a minimum. Yet Director Olson here had just gone and done what needed to be done. And she’d almost instantly recognized that Vince was useless and started taking over for him to ensure that things got done the best way she knew how.

  “Why?” he asked calmly as the cab jumped slightly over a branch that was thicker than it had looked to him.

  “Why what?” She’d been leaning forward looking out the windshield, but now she sat back and glanced over at him.

  “Why did you hop on the next flight to come here?” It was a blunt question, but he was extremely curious as to her answer.

  “It’s my job?” She answered him as if the question was stupid, and the an
swer so obvious he should have known it before speaking. “I’m in charge of this region. A disaster of this level hasn’t been seen in years, if not decades. What was I going to do, sit in my office and try to get someone else to do it?”

  Lex shrugged. “Yeah. Isn’t that what you corporate bigwigs are supposed to do, Director?”

  He knew the question was abrasive, but he really didn’t care. Far too often he’d seen or heard of people being screwed over by big-time hotshot executives who cared nothing for the common worker. At some point he’d developed a bit of a stigma about them.

  The director started to reply, then stopped and considered her words.

  “Call me Petal.”

  “Why?”

  “I apologize for not having my shiny white nametag on me,” she said dryly, “but if I did, you’d see I had Petal on it where yours says Lex.”

  He smiled at the reference to his actions when he’d met her earlier in the day. There was some fight in this one. He liked it.

  “All right. Petal,” he relented, willing to give her that much. If she was okay with him addressing her by name, then he could find the courtesy to do that much. It seemed that her rough shell from earlier was, if not coming apart, at least cracking a little at the seams.

  “I did it because it was my job, Lex. I like my job. I take it seriously. I have responsibilities, and those responsibilities are composed of people and equipment. Not just one or the other. Staying all comfortable in my office, while preferable of course, just wasn’t in the cards. It wasn’t the right thing to do, let alone ignoring the fact that this is literally why I get paid as much as I do, to deal with situations like this.”