Under a Broken Sun Read Online Free PDF Page A

matted hair concealed the sticky blood on the healing wound.  Nothing fatal.
    After I had dressed her wound, without her even waking up, I sat back against the wall and thought, shivering as the cold settled itself on my bare chest.  My nose felt busted up but wasn’t bleeding, yet I twitched as I touched it.  No broken bones otherwise, and a few deep breaths proved the lungs still worked.  Head still pounding from the bump.  I took a few of aspirin and looked around.  We’d need a cover or something.  The temperature continued to drop.  To my right a large collapsed cardboard box lay on the ground.  Sad to say, it looked inviting.  Until it moved.
    I approached it, thinking there might be a raccoon or worse, a rat, inside.  What I saw confused the hell out of me.

 
    4.    
     
    The body of a teenage girl lay curled up on the ground.
    In the shadows, with the sun setting, I couldn’t tell if she was alive or not.  The cold seemed to bring her around.  She shivered, curled up into herself, and looked for the cardboard I just pulled away from her.  When she realized it was gone she shot up with a start.  I let out a breath.
    I crouched down to her level.  “Hey.”
    She looked me up and down, and then wrapped her arms around my neck in a tight squeeze.  “Whoa,” I said as I pulled her off.  “Do I know you?”
    She pulled away, and in the light that remained I could see her face.  Her blond hair.
    “Ashley?” I asked.  “You’re the chick from the airport, the one who pulled the guy out.”
    “Mm-hm.”  She grabbed me again in a bear hug, shaking and squeezing every drop of protection she could out of me. 
    “Where are your parents?” I asked.  She turned and looked at the parking garage.
    She pointed.  “We were on our way to our car, trying to see if we could get out of there.  We got in but the car didn’t start.  Didn’t make a sound.  My mom told me to go try the parking assistance phone on the wall near the stairwell.  The plane hit and threw me down the stairs.  I tried to get upstairs to see if my parents were ok, but I saw their car flipped over and sticking out of the departure entrance.  So I ran.  This place seemed as good as any.”
    I checked her out while she talked.  No major cuts, but she winced as she shifted her weight.  Had to be sore as hell.  And her back was gonna have one helluva bruise to brag about.  But otherwise she seemed ok.  Amazing.
    I took her back to where Marilyn lay.
    Marilyn moaned as she slid herself up to a sitting position.  I built a small fire with the cardboard box and a lighter Marilyn had in the pocket of her black pants.  Tiny flames lit the underpass and Ashley and I huddled together around the fire, shivering.  “What happened?” Marilyn said, her voice barely a whisper.  She touched the hoodie piece wrapped around her head, and then slowly took it off.
    “The parking garage blew up,” I said.  “Another airplane.”
    “Oh.”  She looked at my bare chest and then at the rag she held in her hand.  “Sorry.” 
    “Don’t worry about it.  I found a T-shirt.”  I said through chattering teeth.  I pulled out a grubby and smelly gray T-shirt that probably once lived a clean white life, but it was better than nothing.
    "You're actually going to wear that?"  Ashley asked. 
    Marilyn looked behind me.  “Who’s she?”
    “Ashley,” I said, handing Marilyn a couple of aspirin.  “Here, for the headache.”  She tried to dry-swallow them but couldn’t.  She hawked them out. 
    “Oh, God, now I feel worse.”   Marilyn glanced at Ashley with eyes half shut.  “What’s your story?”
    Ashley told her about her parents, and I mentioned how Ashley helped us pull the reverend guy out from underneath the beam.
    “You never told me his name,” Marilyn said.
    “Some reverend guy.  Reverend Hill, I think.”
    “Reverend Jesse Hill?” Marilyn asked.  “You’ve never heard of him?”
    “Nope,”