Ten by Gretchen McNeil

send him running.
    “You’re lost in your head again,” he said. “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing,” she lied.
    “Good. Come on.”
    They turned toward the foyer, but T.J. immediately paused. It was like he didn’t want to pass by that slash on the wall. Meg didn’t blame him, and she secretly rejoiced when instead of using the front door, T.J. headed down the hall, through the living room. They passed Kumiko and Gunner spooning on the couch, and Nathan flipping through a magazine on the window seat, but no one said a word. In the kitchen, Vivian leaned against the counter sipping a room-temperature Diet Coke.
    “You’re going down to the boathouse,” she said simply.
    “Yep.” T.J. opened the door to the back patio. “With any luck, we’ll find a radio.”
    “Right,” she said with an arched brow. “The radio. I’m sure that’s all you’re doing down at the boathouse.”
    “It is,” T.J. said flatly. “Come on, Meg.”
    Vivian followed them to the patio door. “Are you sure you know how to use one?”
    She just could not stop micromanaging, could she?
    T.J. ushered Meg through the door onto the patio. “Yep.”
    Vivian took a few steps toward them. “Maybe I should come with you just in—”
    “Nope,” he said with a smile, then closed the door in her face. “Damn, that girl is a pain in the ass,” he said under his breath.
    “Understatement of the century.”
    T.J. opened the door that led to the backyard, exposing the full force of the storm. Sheets of rain obscured the view of the trees beyond the yard, and the temperature was at least twenty degrees colder than it even was in the heatless house.
    “Stick with me, okay?” T.J. said. “The path down to the boathouse is kind of treacherous.”
    Treacherous? Great. “I’ll try.”
    “Ready?” T.J. buttoned his coat up to his chin, whipped his beanie out of his pocket, and pulled it down to his ears.
    Meg lifted her hood over her head. “Ready.”
    T.J. dashed down the steps into the rain. With a deep breath, Meg followed.

FIFTEEN
    THE GROUNDS AROUND WHITE ROCK HOUSE WERE a muddy mess that sucked at Meg’s boots as she trekked across the yard. It felt as if she were slogging through ankle-deep sand, and it took twice as much strength as usual to put one foot in front of the other. The wind was even more brutal than it had been the night before, gusting across the island, trying to uproot every tree and topple every structure in its path. Towering Douglas firs cowered before the tempest, and though Meg should have been able to hear the shuddering branches and the waves crashing against the rocks below, the only sound in her ears was the relentless, howling wind.
    Meg struggled to keep up with T.J. He was at least six inches taller than she was, and his star-football-player legs had no trouble driving through the muck of the yard. He reached the tree line a full thirty seconds before she did and hardly seemed to notice when she plodded up behind him.
    He stared off to the right and Meg followed his eye. Cutting through the forest was a series of wooden walkways leading down the side of the hill. They were the same kind as the footbridge that had been washed off the isthmus. The beams were rough and water-damaged, their once-brown wood now grayed and pitted with age. T.J. stepped on the first deck and tested his weight against its solidity. The walkway bounced a little, but it appeared sturdy and sound.
    “Should be okay,” T.J. shouted through a wall of rain. He grabbed her hand and led her down through the trees.
    The walkways were slanted and uneven—some took ten steps to traverse, others took three—and even the rubber grip on the bottom of Meg’s boots had a difficult time retaining traction on the waterlogged planks. Meg tried not to let her eyes stray over the side of the hill, where a steep drop-off ended on the jagged rocks below.
    Maybe this trip to the boathouse wasn’t such a good idea. Rickety wooden land bridge?