Oh, it wasn’t a hallucination. I sit up too, and I hear the distinct sound of concrete-on-concrete scraping.
“Blaze! Are you all right?” Asch shouts.
I see how it is. Blaze gets first billing for him. I don’t care though, because I scramble upright and claw at the wall.
“River!” I cry out. “We’re here! Please!” I pound on the wall. Somehow, I have to be able to get through this.
“Pandora, wait.” Blaze pulls on my shoulder. “We need to be careful with this.”
“They’re right there!” I say, pounding on the wall again. I move a few feet to the right and find a spot that’s more fragile. I pound on it, and some of the outer layer crumbles. “Asch! River!”
There’s a responding thump on the other side.
“Blaze! They’re almost there,” River answers. “The firefighters are here. They’realmost through to you.”
Blaze follows me and puts his shoulder against the wall. “Maybe if we push…”
“You need to stay back,” a voice I don’t recognize says. “Let us know when you’re clear.”
Blaze and I both scramble away from the wall. Blaze stares at the wall.
“Reminds me of being trapped in a fire,” he mutters.
Thumpthumpthump.
“We’re clear,” Blaze answers. “Just give a warning when?—”
Only there is no warning.
The sound of some sort of saw starts up, louder than even the thumping. It rumbles through the entire skeleton, and the ground we’re on shifts.
I scream as the floor collapses beneath me.
Blaze grabs me and pulls me up, my breath catching in my lungs, in my chest, in thethumpthumpthump.
That was close. I don’t dare look at the collapsed floor.
Something above us rumbles.
“Thank—” I say, just as that something collides with Blaze’s face.
Blood gushes out, splattering all over my face.
Blaze screams.
“Blaze!” I grab his shoulders to keep him from falling backwards. The sawing sound stops, and the area is flooded with light.
“Pandora? And—Fuck, Blaze!” River rushes over to both of us.
Blaze heaves, then he blinks at me, but it’s only the one eye blinking because the other one has a large piece of shrapnel in it.
His beautiful blue eyes.
Blue eye, singular, now.
I sob, and the thumping gets louder, and I suddenly realize that the thumping is a heart, it’smy heart, and it’s been going overtime and just as I found it, it might be breaking all over again.
32
