Page 35 of Rescuing Sadie

Both women turned and saw Emily limping toward them. “Do you have Annie?”

Sadie was somewhat shocked at how well both women were handling the fact that it sounded, and looked, like a bomb had just rocked the house.

“No,” Rayne said.

As if on cue, all three women turned to look at Annie’s bedroom door—the one closest to the stairs. The doorframe was crooked, the door itself hanging off center. They all raced toward it at the same time.

Sadie helped the others tug at the debris blocking the bedroom door.

“Annie?” Emily yelled.

“Mommy?” the little girl shouted.

Sadie pulled more desperately at the chunks of drywall and wood that were keeping them from Annie. She sounded scared, and it reminded Sadie too much of how the little girls had to have felt at Bexar.

“It’s me, baby. Hang on, I’m coming!” Emily told her daughter, obviously trying very hard to keep her composure.

They cleared enough to reveal a small hole in the wall, but no matter what they did, they couldn’t remove any more of the debris. Emily carefully lay on the ground and peered through the hole. “Annie? Can you come here?”

“I can’t, Mommy,” Annie whined. “My leg’s stuck under something.”

“Shit, why can’t Kassie be here?” Rayne muttered. “Or better yet, Bryn…Fish’s woman. They’re both smaller than we are.”

“I can fit,” Sadie said with no hesitation. She began to slither through the small hole. The only thought in her head was getting to the little girl, making sure she was safe. To reassure her.

She had the awful suspicion that whatever had happened to the house was undoubtedly Jonathan’s doing.

The hole was a tight fit. Sadie felt something dig into the skin on her back as she pressed her way into Annie’s room, but she ignored it. A couple scrapes and bruises would go away.

Finally, just when she thought maybe she wouldn’t fit after all, her hips popped through the hole and she was in Annie’s bedroom.

Crawling on her hands and knees, Sadie made her way over to the bed, the mattress askew.

The little girl wasn’t on it.

“Annie?”

“Here!”

Turning, Sadie saw Annie on the other side of the room. Whatever caused the explosion had thrown the child ten feet away from the bed.

Sadie crawled over to the little girl and put her hand on her forehead. Her hair was a tangled mess and her GI Joe pajamas were dirty and torn in places, but Sadie didn’t see any major wounds, at least nothing that was bleeding.

“Where do you hurt?” Sadie asked.

“My leg.”

Sadie saw that one of the wall studs was lying across the little girl’s lower legs, held in place by her dresser.

“How is she?” Emily called from the hole near the door. “Can you get her loose?”

“She’s good,” Sadie yelled back. “I’m gonna move the piece of furniture off her legs, then use the fire ladder and get her out through the window. It’s mostly broken and it’ll be easier to get her out that way.”

“We’ll go back down the hall when you’re clear and see if we can’t get out the window in the guest room,” Rayne said. “We’ll meet you at the back of the house. Okay?”

Sadie worked on clearing Annie’s legs, and at the same time shouted back, “Okay! Have you heard from the guys?”

There was a long pause before Emily responded. “No. I sent Rayne to yell for them down the stairs. But so far they haven’t answered.”