“Joe!!”

I screamed uselessly into the wind, driven back by its force. One moment he’d been there, and the next he was gone. I could hear my own voice, shrill and echoing off the dank stone walls. I scrambled back up towards the opening, calling into nothingness. Sharp bits of flying debris ripped into my skin, tearing at my face and hands. I had to squeeze my eyes shut… It was only when Margie pulled me back that I collapsed in shock and utter exhaustion.

I sat in a heap at the bottom of our stone crypt, in a haze of pain and disbelief. Joe had saved me… he had saved all of us… even little Emily… He was bigger than life, stronger than any man I’d ever known. He was all I’d ever wanted for as long as I could remember.

He had asked me to marry him…

I sat staring out as the storm lifted, gently and easily dissolving into nothingness. It was suddenly as if it had never been…

I climbed out, ignoring Margie’s warnings and stood staring into what was left of the night. Hours before, Joe and I had been swept away in a storm of our own… I could still feel the ache between my legs that he’d left behind. I’d become a woman in his arms… his woman…

I was going to be his wife...

But the world I saw now wasn’t the same world I’d left behind. Nothing remained of the farmhouse but the foundation and a tangle of wreckage. Our truck was on its side and almost unrecognizable. The one the Walker’s had brought was simply gone.

Empty plains stretched out in every direction in the dim morning light. A few remaining stars twinkled overhead before fading into the dawn. I helped Margie get her husband out of the cellar and we made him a bed on the ground with anything we could scavenge. Rainwater sat in the broken shells of a random cup or bowl. We found what we could, under a clear sky and a rising sun.

I picked up a wooden bucket, its handle still intact and put a few scraps of the food inside. I found a bottle and filled it with water from an upturned china bowl. It sat at the top of a pile of broken plates and chairs. Legs stuck out at odd angles, and the old pink towel Joe had used to dry me after my bath was tangled amongst them. The world had turned on its head and we’d been shaken out by the heels. But the china bowl sat perfectly atop, as if it had been placed there with care…

I grabbed the last of what I found and crammed it into the bucket. Dean and Ryan knew where we’d been headed before the twister hit. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky now, and I knew rescue crews would soon be on their way.

Margie looked up at me from where she sat next to her husband. His color had come back and she had been giving him water as often as he would drink. She looked down at him and back to me. I could see that she knew… and she understood.

“I have to find him,” I said simply. “He isn’t gone… I’d know it in my heart.

But he needs me.”

She smiled and offered her hand, squeezing mine… I could feel the strength in the gesture, in the bond between us. Two women who loved their men…

I let go, closing my eyes and turning my face into the sun. I opened my heart wide and listened as it whispered…

I turned to the left and headed out.

* * *

Thank God, my cell had been in the pocket of my jeans. In everything that had happened, it was still there. I turned it on and stuck it into my shirt pocket. The battery was low, but it was better than nothing. At least it offered a chance that a rescue team could find us.

“Talk to me, Joe…,” I whispered through dry lips. “I’m right here…”

I watched the movement of the sun through the sky to keep my bearings. But I followed my heart. Miles of empty, desolate land passed under my feet. There was nothing to do but go forward. But as my legs moved me forward, my mind drifted back. A thousand memories of him…

When Dean had been off with his friends, it had been Joe who’d stayed behind, helping me with my math and making sure I had dinner. He’d taken me up to the big house when my dad had been too drunk to stand. He’d tucked me in with a blanket when I’d fallen asleep on the couch, and taken me back home only when Dad had sobered up. I could only imagine the hell his grandmother must have given him. She’d resented all of us from the day her son had allowed us to move in. We hadn’t had much of a family once Dad died, but at least Dean and I hadn’t lost each other. We’d been able to stay together. Joe had made sure of it.

I flashed to all the times I’d needed him and all the times he’d been there. All the times we’d said goodbye, and life had taken us in different directions… But even in the absences, he’d always been there. Never a day had passed, in all the years apart, that he hadn’t been my first thought in the morning and the last one at night. In my dreams, we’d always been together, and it seemed as if the binding thread between us had only grown stronger in the years apart. I felt it when I saw his face in the bus station. I felt it in his touch when he first kissed me. The longer I walked without finding him, the less hope I should have had. But each step drove the next… I could still feel his skin on my skin and hear the echoes of our love in the night…

I would find him… there was no other choice. As faint as it was, I could hear my name on his lips… and I followed.