❝ CHAPTER 7 ❞

Chapter 7 ─ A Tactical Channel

━━━━━ EMMA AND RAY were on the road heading towards San Francisco were there girls were. They had the radio on and had been listening to the news reports about the earthquake. "You ever think about what our life would be like if we hadn't lost Mallory?" Emma asked, talking over the radio and breaking the silence between them.

Ray looked at her for a brief moment, then his eyes went back onto the road. "Em, don't." Ray said.

"I do. All the time." She was looking at him as she said it.

"We moved on."

"No, we didn't move on. We stopped moving."

"You didn't lose her on your watch." Ray said, bluntly.

"No. But I lost her."

"Can we not talk about this?"

"You owe it to me. This! This is the most I have gotten out of you since she died. I need to know, Ray. Was it me? What did I do? Because I never blamed you."

"I don't want to talk about it. It doesn't matter. She's gone. Now you're gone... What's the point?"

"I guess the point is... this is why I didn't stick around." The two became silent, Emma looking anywhere but Ray and Ray continued to keep his eyes on the road.

"Hey! Hey! Look out! Watch out! You have to stop!" A woman shouted from the side of the road.

"Hey! Slow down! Hey!" The road beneath them started to shake the truck.

"Ray!" He pressed down on the brakes, causing the truck to slide to a stop; the two sliding forward in their seats at the force of the stop. They both climbed out of the truck and walked to the edge of the broken road. Next to them was a gas station that had been ripped in half. They were looking at the fault line. "What is this?" Emma questioned.

"The San Andreas fault." The two climbed back into the truck and Ray turned it around heading back towards the couple they had seen prior to stopping. Ray stepped out of the truck looking at them. "We owe you guys a huge thanks." Ray told them.

"Really." Emma said, as she came up next to Ray.

"No need. We nearly made the same mistake ourselves but busted an axle when we went off the road." He told them.

"Thank goodness my eyes are better than his." The woman said, prompting her husband to turn towards her.

"Heh. Do you know if there's any way around this?" Emma proceeded to ask.

"Well... the 198 might not be out. Through the pass."

"How far is that?" Ray asked.

"Oh, you got to backtrack, maybe, 70 miles or so." Emma sighed, closing her eyes. She opened them back up and placed them on Ray. He looked up and placed his eyes on the cap that rested on the head of the man.

"Sir, if you don't mind me asking where'd you get your hat?" They all gathered in the truck and made it to the Burdge. Emma stood next to Ray on the outside of the truck with the couple now in their seats. "You guys really bailed us out. You sure we can't fly you anywhere?"

"Yeah. Our son lives in the mountains. There's no place to land. Thanks for the wheels." He said with a smile on his face.

"You bet. Be safe." They said their goodbyes and drove off. Ray and Emma walked to one of the hangers and opened the door looking at the small plane. Emma was in the back of the plane grabbing headphones while Ray was at the front. "We should be fueled up in a couple of minutes."

She walked back towards him. "Okay. Great." She sat down in the set next to Ray. He was looking down at the headphones in his hands. Emma took notice of his posture and got a better look at him. "Everything okay?" She asked.

"You asked me before if it was you. It wasn't. I knew you didn't blame me. I just didn't know how to deal with Mallory's death." A silence fell upon them for a few seconds before Ray continued. "It was my idea to take Mallory rafting that day."

"Ray. You can't blame yourself for what happened."

"It's just different when it's your own kid."

"I know."

"Sometimes I can't get that look she had outta my head. The moment she realized... that I wasn't going to be able to save her. And then coming home every day to you, Blake and Basil only made it harder. And having to worry whether or not Basil would make it through the night, it was hard. Because nothing was the way it used to be. And the way it used to be was... it was perfect. I should have let you in. I just didn't know how. I am so sorry for how things ended with us, Em. I really am."

Emma lifted her hand placing it behind Ray's head. "If you couldn't save our daughter then nobody could have."

Ray took a second, composing himself together. "I miss her so much."

"Me, too." Emma whispered softly. She placed her hand on his knee gently. "Let's go get our daughters." The two smiled softly at each other. Then Ray began working to get the engine started. Once it was on he took off for the open sky heading towards Blake and Basil.

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Basil walked next to Hugo, with Blake next to him and Ben on her other side while Ollie was next to him. There were other people around them, following them while a police officer directed them on where to go.

"Just a few more blocks to Lombard Avenue which leads to Coit Tower." Ollie told them.

"Do you mind if I ask why you wear two of the same necklaces?" Basil looked over at her sister as she lifted her hand to the necklace. She too had one of the same as well, and it prompted Basil to hold onto hers.

"Um... One of them used to be our sister's. I uh started wearing it after she died. We had given them to each other for Christmas the year before." Blake said. Basil lifted her hand in the air.

"I wear one of her favorite bracelets." Basil mentioned, the sadness echoing from her voice.

"I'm... I am so sorry. I didn't mean..."

"No. It's okay. I am not hiding them." Blake stopped talking for a second, her eyes landing on a fire truck not far from them. Basil looked at her sister and followed her eye sight to see the same thing. An idea popped into both their heads as they exchanged a brief look with each other. "Hey. Check it out." Blake said as she and Basil ran through the crowd of people.

"What are you doing?" Ben questioned the Gaines sisters.

"They should have a supply box. It will have stuff that we can use." Basil said, as she and Blake opened the doors on the side of the fire truck and began to look for it.

"Is this it?" Ollie asked, pulling a metal box out of the fire truck. Basil stood up and walked over to Ollie with a smile on her face.

"Yes!" Blake said as she came up behind Basil. Hugo and Ben eventually joined them as Ollie opened the box. The two kneeled down and began to move through it searching for a walkie. Blake found the walkie and started flipping to the channel that they needed to be on. "Here we go. Every city has a tactical channel that first responders use to communicate on. We can listen in and we can see what's going on. Okay."

Basil grabbed a few things handing them over to Ollie while Blake did the same thing. The brunette lifted her head when she saw Hugo and Ben walking away from the three of them. Something had caught their attention, that much was clear.

"Blake! Basil!" Ben called out to the sisters. "I think we're going to have a problem with that big nozzle thing you were talking about."

"What? What do you mean?" Basil stood up walking over to Hugo and Ben, just as Blake and Ollie followed behind her. Basil stared at Coit Tower, she knew that they were doing to have to come up with a different plan of action. "Oh, my God." It looked like it had been burning for a while at least.

"We have to go to Plan B." Basil breathed out.

"I didn't think we had one." Ben said, looking over at Basil.

"We do now." Blake said shortly after. "We need to get to the next highest ground so that we can signal our dad in the helicopter."

"That would be Nob Hill. It's the highest point in the city. It's the other way."

"Okay. Come on!" Blake and Basil started to walk away, even Ollie and Hugo were following them.

"No. Blake, Basil, wait! Wait! Just... Just wait." He called out to them. The two turned back towards Ben as he looked around. Eventually he walked over to a car and climbed on the trunk of it to climb up onto the hood of the car. He turned back towards them and walked down the car jumping off of it. "Blake, Basil, we'd be the only ones going that way." He told them.

"Our dad said to get to higher ground, so that's what we got to do." Blake informed him.

"But... What if he doesn't make it?"

"Listen, I know this sounds crazy. But you have to trust me and my sister that he will."

"I... I ca..."

Ollie walked forward, eyes on his older brother. "Ben. Did you know about the push-button phone working with the landline? The supply box? Tactical radio channels? I really think we should stick with them." Ben looked at their other brother.

"I agree with Ollie." He said, eyes still on his brothers. Eventually Ben started to nod his head.

"Okay. Looks like we're going to Nob Hill."

"Okay. Let's go." The five turned around and started to head in the other direction of where everyone else was going.

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