Deep breath. Count to three.
Kara put her hands into the opening and pushed.
They were stuck. She wedged her shoulder in and used all her strength to split the doors open...
The elevator fell.
She screamed and jumped back barely in time to avoid having her arm severed as the hall floor came rapidly up toward her. As it was, she hit the elevator floor so hard, her breath was knocked out of her. Fortunately, the floor stopped moving. She was wedged to one side because there was a tilt that hadn’t been there before. The hall floor was now above her. Barely enough room to crawl out... though the door had fully opened.
But she couldn’t move. Had she broken her back? The fall wasn’t that far.
She took small, slow breaths and slowly tested her limbs. Then her head, body. Nothing broken, but she felt like she’d been used as a punching bag.
“Kara!”
Matt? Sounded like Matt, but so far away and the ringing in her ears from the rickety elevator told her she must be hallucinating.
She looked at the opening. A cable had broken. How many held her up? Two? One? Could she move? Or was she just delaying the inevitable fall to her death?
The elevator was still stuck between floors, but now she would have to pull herself up and out. If it fell again, she’d be dead.
At peak health, she could do a couple pull-ups, but right now she had little strength.
“Kara!”
“Matt?” Her voice was hoarse. She coughed, cleared her throat. “Matt! I’m in the elevator!”
She heard him now, running down the hall.
“Stop!” she shouted. “Be careful.”
“Kara?” He was above her. He knelt and she saw his face in the near dark.
She was relieved she wasn’t alone, grateful that Matt was alive.
“I got the doors open, then the elevator fell six feet. Don’t touch them.”
“We have to get you out of there.”
“Give me one sec.”
“Take my hand.”
“Stop!” she said. “Just wait. I think—I need to pull myself up without touching the sides of the elevator.”
“Why?”
“It might be booby trapped.” The more she’d thought about how the elevator fell when she was trying to get out, the more she thought she heard a pop, like something gave way. As if her actions had disengaged something that caused the elevator to fall. Maybe not a booby trap, but considering she had no idea why they were here or who brought them here or where they evenwere, she didn’t want to take any chances.
“Tell me what you want me to do,” Matt said.
“I need to pull myself up, but I don’t know if I have the strength,” she admitted.
“I’m going to lie down, I’ll reach in and—”
“No. If the elevator falls, you’ll be killed.”
“What choice do we have?”
