She shoved herself back again, and something cracked. Loud. The ground beneath her shuddered and tilted, and then she started to slide.
Metal groaned.
Tile and debris and shards of metal scraped her arms as she desperately reached for something to grab on to. Anything. There had to be something to grab. She wasn’t going to—
Her hand cracked against something hard. Pain shot up her arm. She screamed. Then she couldn’t breathe, because suddenly, there was nothing beneath her legs. She was going to fall. Oh, God.
“Help!” she yelled as her searching fingers wrapped around something cold and hard—a desk leg. She jolted to a stop and struggled to keep her hold. The weight of her legs pulled at her, threatening to make her lose her grip, which was slick with sweat and probably blood. This was bad.
“Help!”
Diana struggled to hold on while moving her other arm to grab hold as well. Got it. She felt a surge of triumph that faded as she tried to pull herself up and barely moved an inch. Come on, Diana. You can do it.
Metal groaned again.
The desk leg she was holding moved. Everything around her was moving, and now there was enough light that she could see the large metal filing cabinet looming above her head.
The desk leg trembled. She kept her grip, barely, as it jolted to a stop, but other desks around it were moving, and the cabinet above started to tilt.
“Help me!”
The cabinet was going to come down. She was going to be crushed.
Everything creaked and moaned and shuddered, and she did the only thing she could do to keep from dying as the metal cabinet started to fall. Diana closed her eyes, and, feeling the scream build in her throat, she let go.
Tad
— Chapter 19 —
“HELLO?” TAD YELLED, hoping there was someone around to hear him. “I’m stuck in here!” He listened hard for a response. Any response. The smell of smoke was growing stronger. Holy hell.
“Hello?” he yelled again. “Anyone out there?”
No one yelled back. All he could hear was that idiotic fire alarm. As if everyone trapped in this hole didn’t know they were in trouble.
“Hello!” Still no answer.
The fire alarm stopped screaming.
That should be a good sign, right? He tried to tell himself that someone who knew what they were doing had shut it off.
Only the quiet made it all worse. Now he could hear his breathing coming fast and shallow and the dripping of water from above. The water was no longer pouring out. Just drip, drip, dripping. The sound of each drop made him clench his teeth.
And the smell of smoke was getting stronger.
He listened harder for the sound of voices. Nothing. Just water and a creaking sound of something metal swaying somewhere. The same kind of creaking noise his swing set used to make.
Creak. Creak. Drip. Drip. Creak. Creak. Drip. Drip. This was all like something out of a slasher flick. And in those movies, the guy in the Goodwill dress shoes and screwed-up fancy tux always died.
“Be calm. Be cool,” Tad said aloud, because it was better hearing his own voice than the dripping and creaking and the creepy silence. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Something smashed on top of the table he was crouched beneath, and Tad scrambled out from under it. Time to get out of here.
Tad pushed himself to his feet and wiped his wet, dirty hands on his legs. The crisp crease of the rented tux pants seemed stranger than the broken room.
He looked toward the window. Maybe he could see if the Mustang was out there and if Frankie was trapped in this mess with him. If so . . .
The floor groaned. A section near the window cracked. Yeah—looking for the Mustang would have to wait. He had to get out of this room first.
He spun and looked around for the exit. There were broken tables and tiles and random stuff piled in front of the closed door.
Tad held his breath with the first few steps, waiting to fall through the floor at any minute. But it held. By the time he reached the area near the door and started climbing over the broken tables and chairs, he was feeling more confident. He was getting out of this mess.
Tad turned the door handle and pushed. The door opened three inches, then came to an abrupt stop.
Damn. Something must be blocking it.
Well, if football taught him anything, it was how to hit something hard. He set his feet, took a deep breath, rammed the door with his shoulder, and fell face first into the door frame when the door moved.
Cas
— Chapter 20 —
OW. CAS CRACKED HER ANKLE on something buried in the rubble as she looked for whatever had made the sound she had just heard.
“Hello?” Was it just a falling piece of tile, or was someone there?
The school had been mostly empty when she had climbed the stairs to the third floor that morning. There had been three or four people on the second floor. A guy had been arguing with someone in a room near the stairs on this floor. Maybe it was one of them she was hearing.
She went still. There was the sound again. A chirping ring that was almost impossible to hear under the screaming of the fire alarm.
It was her phone.
She spotted her bag peeking out from under an overturned chair and scrambled to get to it.
She smacked her knee and bit back a yelp as she stumbled over the debris and reached for her bag. Got it. She yanked it toward her and almost lost her balance again when it snagged on a bent desk leg.
Cas tugged the strap and pushed at the desk. It was stuck. Really? Cas pulled harder on the desk, lost her grip, and fell backwards.
She shrieked as she crashed into the broken tile and boards, pulling the desk she’d been trying to move with her.
Finally, everything stilled and her bag was free.
Gulping back tears, she picked up the bag and spotted the glint of metal beneath it. Heart racing, she squatted down and grabbed the gun. The one that had been in her hands when the world blacked out. Shoving it into her bag, she heard the chirping sound again. Cas dug into the side pocket and was relieved to find her phone. She hadn’t lost it or the gun. And her mother was calling.
“Mom?” she yelled as the fire alarm continued to shriek.
“Cas? Where are you? Are you outside the school?”
“I’m in the art room.” Or what was left of it. She looked at the desks and broken ceiling boards that she would have to move in order to get out.
“Where is the art room?” her mother asked. When Cas didn’t answer right away, her mother shouted, “Cassandra? Are you there? Where is the art room?”
“The third floor.”
“Oh, my God. Oh, Cas. There was a bomb. They said on the news someone put bombs in the school and is setting them off.”
A bomb. A bomb exploded.
“It’s going to be all right, honey,” her mother sobbed. “Honest. I’m coming. I’m coming and I’m going to get you out of there and it’s going to be all right.”
All right? This was about as far from all right as she could get. And it wasn’t going to be all right. When was her mother going to understand that? Cas shoved a piece of tile out of her path to the door with her free hand but couldn’t budge the next board. She needed both hands.
“Mom—”
“I’ll call your father. He’ll know what to do. Your father always knows what to do.”
“Mom.”
“The firefighters are on their way. The news said first responders are coming from all over. It sounds like there is some sort of issue about whether they can enter the building, but they train for this—”
“Mom—”
“Don’t panic and be careful. You’ll get out. Look for a door or a window or—”
“Mom!” she yelled. Finally her mother went silent. “Listen to me. I have to use both hands to move the stuff that’s blocking the door so I can get out. So I have to hang up now.”
“No. Cas. No. Just put the pho
ne down so I can hear what’s happening. Please. I have to hear that you’re okay. You can’t hang up on me, because I have to know. I don’t think I could handle not knowing.”
Horns honked on her mother’s side of the call. Her mother yelled at some other driver to stay in their lane. Oh, God. Her mother was going to crash her car if she stayed on the line, and Cas was going to go nuts if she had to keep listening to her mother tell her it was going to be okay. It wasn’t going to be okay!
Her mother’s panic was making all of this worse. Cas looked down at the gun in her hand as her mother yammered about firefighters and police officers and some friend of Dad’s who worked in the mayor’s office. And Cas started to giggle through her tears. Nothing about this was funny, but it was. Because there was smoke and her ankle throbbed and she was trapped on the third floor of a bombed building and whatever phone call Dad made to the mayor’s office wasn’t going to help.
“Mom. I have to save my battery, and you have to drive home. Tell everyone . . .” she took a deep breath as the fire alarm suddenly stopped screaming. The smell of smoke was stronger. Sweat was dripping down her leg. So was blood. She pictured her little sister and the kitten she made Cas admire a dozen times, and the bubble of amusement popped. “Tell everyone I love them. Okay?”
Before her mother could respond, Cas hung up.
12:10 p.m.
Tad
— Chapter 21 —
TAD’S FOOT CONNECTED with something soft. He looked down, choked back a scream, and stumbled back against the lockers.
A person.
Holy hell.
He’d been slamming the door against a person. One who wasn’t moving.
Bile burned the back of his throat. He gagged as he made himself kneel.
“Hey.” He shook the guy’s shoulder. When the man didn’t move, Tad took a deep breath and rolled him over.
Eyes stared blankly. Blood coated the floor. Mr. Rizzo, the biology teacher. He had a piece of splintered wood sticking out of his stomach and blood leaking all over the place.
Nausea bubbled and pushed upward as Tad forced himself to take the teacher’s pulse. Nothing. Tad’s skin crawled, and he scrambled backwards. His stomach cramped. Tad doubled over and threw up. He shook as his stomach emptied and emptied again, until there was nothing more to come out.
Slowly, he pushed himself up to his feet, his legs shaking. Sweat dripped down his forehead. Goddamn, he wanted out of here. He started to take a step away, then looked back down at Mr. Rizzo. He knew he couldn’t hear him, but still Tad said, “I’m sorry, man. Someone will come back and find you. I promise.” For a second, Tad stared at the dead teacher he’d hit with the door. Then he turned to look down the hall.
Everything was trashed. The ceiling was collapsed in places to his right. There were art desks and paint cabinets and crap that must have fallen from the floor above that were blocking the staircase entrance to his left, and water was dripping everywhere. Lockers were opened and debris lined the hallway to the left, but from this end, it looked in better shape down there than here. Time to move.
Racing down the hall, Tad slipped on the wet tile and almost crashed to the floor. Slow and steady wins the race, he told himself as he spotted the entrance to the stairwell. It wasn’t blocked.
Tad kicked something that went flying into the wall with an echoing crash as he ran toward the stairs. He had to get down to the first floor. The front atrium entrance was mostly glass and was probably completely demolished. But there were other exits and a ton of windows to escape from if he could just get down—
“Hello?”
Tad stopped and held his breath. There was dripping and the sound of something buzzing and—
“Is someone there? Can you please help me?”
He stilled at the sound of a voice. When the guy called out again, Tad let out the breath he had been holding. It wasn’t Frankie.
Tad looked over his shoulder at the stairwell. If he got out of the school, he could tell the firefighters that there was someone trapped on this floor. They had the training to deal with this crap. He’d probably make things worse if he tried to move something he shouldn’t and maybe bring the whole building down.
But if Frankie was still in here somewhere and heard someone yelling for help, he wouldn’t run for the exit. Frankie would be the hero everyone assumed he was. He’d say it was his job as captain to tell Tad to beat a path to safety and let him handle saving the day.
Well, screw that.
Tad turned and headed back down the hall as fast as he could without looking at Mr. Rizzo’s lifeless body. As he navigated the debris, he listened for the guy to yell again.
Come on, man. Give me another signal.
“Hey, is someone here?” Tad hollered as he got closer to the cave-in of desks and two-by-fours and tons of other junk that must have once been on the floor above this one. This sucks. “Hello! Anyone there?”
No response.
Come on. Yell again. “Hey. Is anyone there?”
“Hello?” the voice came again, and it sounded as if it was just on the other side of that mess.
Everything in Tad screamed to get out while he could.
He pictured Mr. Rizzo’s lifeless eyes.
God, he hated this.
“Hang tight. I’m coming.” Tad grabbed a two-by-four, yanked it out of the rubble, and threw it behind him. Then he tugged another free. All he needed was just enough space to tunnel through, find the guy, and bring him out.
Another board. Some tile. Good enough. He climbed over a desk and around a bunch of beams. “Hey, man, can you hear me? Tell me where you are.”
“In the bathroom.”
Which was currently blocked by a piece of the ceiling that had fallen in. Awesome. Just freakin’ awesome.
Tad studied the wreckage, pulled hard at another board, and stumbled back as it came free. He threw it to the side, and as he reached for another, he was pitched forward as the school rocked with another explosion.
Dust and bits of tile fell from the ceiling. The boards and desks shook. Metal groaned somewhere behind him.
The stairs.
He looked through the dust and yelled “No!” just as the stairs he’d almost fled down and the area around it collapsed.
Cas
— Chapter 22 —
“HELLO? IS SOMEONE THERE?” a guy called from somewhere beyond the door. The shaking had stopped—again.
“Hello?” the voice shouted. This time louder. “Hey. Anyone there? Are you okay?”
“I’m in here.” She spun toward the guy’s voice and yelled back, “I’m in here and there’s something blocking the door! I’m trying to move it and need some help!” She waited for him to respond. When he didn’t, she shouted, “Hey! Are you still out there?”
“Yeah. Sorry. There are a bunch of things I have to get around to get to you. This might take a couple minutes. Hang tight and relax.”
Not in this lifetime. The smell of smoke was getting stronger. She might have come to the school to die, but she hadn’t wanted it to happen like this. That made no sense, even to her, but it’s the way things were. At least for now.
Cas turned from the door and plowed through the rubble to the only window she could see. The room used to have two, but the one near the front of the room was buried behind . . . God only knew what.
“You okay in there?” the guy yelled as something thudded on the other side of the door.
“I’m still here.” Which was far from okay. “I’m going to the window. Maybe I can see what’s happening.” Or find a way out. When she’d picked this room today, she hadn’t considered ever needing to leave it. For some reason, that struck her as horrifically amusing.
“Keep me posted. I’m Frankie Ochoa, by the way.”
Cas froze. Sirens from outside grew louder. The firefighters had arrived. And so had Frankie.
She thought about earlier in the practice room. The way the words they exchanged almost made her cha
nge her mind. How if he had returned then, she might not be here now. “I’m Cassandra Armon.”
“Cassandra,” he called over something scraping, “it’s nice to meet you.” He grunted, and she heard something hit the floor on his side. “I should have that door open in no time. Just hang in there.”
“Okay.” Telling herself it was stupid to be disappointed that he didn’t automatically recognize her full name, she pushed a chair out of the way and pulled herself up onto an overturned cabinet.
The smoke was getting thicker. She squinted toward the front of the room. It was coming in through the vent near the ceiling, not far from where a clock used to be.
Waking up in what looked like a war zone was scary. The idea of being burned to a crisp was paralyzing.
As quickly as she could, Cas lowered herself down from the cabinet, limped around a broken desk, and got close enough to see out the window. The view looked nothing like it had when she’d stood here earlier, gathering her courage.
The sun was still shining through the cracked glass. The sky was still blue. But now, instead of seeing the white brick and windows across the way and to her left, there were gaping holes where classrooms should be. And a body . . . Oh, God, there was a crumpled body down below, sprawled on top of a picnic table. A woman? Cas thought so, but she couldn’t see who, and whoever it was wasn’t moving. Not at all.
Cas jerked her attention back up to the third floor and saw flames. Fire licked the bricks and roof above one of the windows of a room facing the back of the courtyard, scorching the walls black.
How long until it spread? She could see water gushing from the hole in the side of the building to her left, which would help keep the fire contained on that side, but if it came this way, where the sprinklers weren’t working . . .
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