Dean glanced at the open roofline, rain falling straight into her living room. "So are you."
Martha stepped into her ruined entryway, shoes squelching on wet boards. She stared at her living room again. The couch was tipped. The coffee table was split.
A framed photo of her and her husband at the county fair lay face down in a puddle. Martha knelt, flipped it over carefully, wiped the glass with the edge of her sleeve.
Her husband's grin looked back at her through a smear of mud, like he was still amused by the world's cruelty.
Behind her, voices rose outside, short, sharp, local. "You can't be here."
Martha stood slowly and turned. Three townsmen had come up her driveway, stepping around debris like they owned the path.
One was Larry Fitch from the hardware store. Martha knew him because he'd raised prices every winter and then smiled about supply issues. Another was a volunteer firefighter she'd seen at church events, his turnout jacket half-zipped, face pale with exhaustion.
The third was younger, a cousin of somebody, jaw tight with borrowed courage. Larry Fitch didn't look at Martha's roof. He looked at the riders.
"This is private property," he said, voice loud enough to carry. "You people need to move along."
Martha's hands curled into fists. "It is private property," she said. "Mine. And I told them they can be here."
Larry smiled, flashed quick and false. "Martha, you don't understand. They're... they're not safe. Sheriff's coming. You'll get yourself in trouble."
Martha stared at him. "My house is in pieces, Larry. Trouble already found me."
The volunteer firefighter cleared his throat, eyes not meeting hers. "We've got a shelter at the school. We can get you there, Martha. You shouldn't stay here with..."
"With what?" Martha cut in.
He hesitated, then dropped his eyes to the patches. "With them."
Dean didn't step forward. He didn't threaten. He simply said, calm as stone, "Ma'am, if you want to go to the shelter, we'll take you."
Larry Fitch's expression changed at the word take. "See?" he snapped, pointing like he'd just proven something. "That's what I'm talking about."
Martha's voice went cold. "Dean isn't kidnapping me, Larry. He's offering to help. Like I offered to help when your town sirens didn't go off."
Larry opened his mouth. A siren finally wailed in the distance, late and useless. Then another sound joined it, engines, multiple, approaching fast.
Deputy Rusk's SUV pulled up again, followed by a second county vehicle. Behind them, a larger truck with a light bar, a sheriff's unit, rolled through the debris like it didn't care what it crushed.
The sheriff stepped out before it fully stopped. He was heavier than Rusk, older, with a belly that suggested comfort and a face that suggested he enjoyed being feared.
His uniform was dry. His boots were spotless. He looked at the riders the way a man looked at a mess he intended to clean up.
Then he looked at Martha. "Mrs. Caldwell," he called, voice carrying, "step away from them, or..."
Martha didn't move. Dean's posture shifted, not forward, not back, just set like a door being braced.
The sheriff's eyes flicked to Dean. "And you," he said, voice sharpened, "hands where I can see them."
Dean lifted his hands slightly, palms open. The sheriff nodded once as if that satisfied him, then pointed at Martha's porch with a thick finger.
"Ma'am, I'm going to ask you one time to come over here."
Martha felt the eyes of her neighbors on her back, felt Larry Fitch almost vibrating with the need for her to obey so he could feel right.