Page 14 of What We Become

She’s not breathing. Not a twitch, not a gasp, not even the little animal snore I’m used to when she passes out on the couch. Just blank, pale skin and a glued mouth. I pry her lips open, find nothing blocking her airway, then clutch her jaw in my palm and tilt her head back. Then I angle myself into the tiny gap and seal my mouth over hers.

I blow.

Nothing.

Shit. Fuck!

“Micah!” I jerk my head—he’s closest, smaller than me. “Keep breathing for her.”

He’s shaking, but he does it—slides in next to me, pinches her nose, seals his mouth over hers, and breathes. Once, twice. He listens. Breathes again.

“Come on, baby girl. Come back,” he whispers, maybe not even realizing he’s saying it out loud.

I dig through the sticky foam. She’s in a fucking chair—chest to knees entombed, wrists lashed behind the backrest, feet zip-tied to the legs. The chair is bolted through the subfloor into a joist. My first yank does nothing.

“Keep going,” I order.

I tear at the foam at her chest. It’s hot, elastic, fighting me. Holden’s at my shoulder, muttering a loop of fuck, fuck, fuck while he pries more bricks out with his bare hands, blood running from a ripped knuckle.

“Can you get her?”

“She’s stuck.” I rake the packed crust away from her collar and arms until I can reach the chair. “Hold her steady.”

I brace my boot against the subfloor and wrench the side rail until it snaps. The metal tears my palm, but the break gives me enough room to reach behind her. I wedge my knife beneath the ties at her wrists and cut them. Her hands spill forward, skin raw and bloody.

I shove the knife between my teeth and dig both hands beneath her armpits. Holden grips the chair. Micah braces the legs. I wrench Fury up and forward. The foam tears loose with a sucking pop, and she’s mostly free—head slumping, hair matted to her face.

Holden takes her weight while I go for her ankles—two ties, both ratcheted so tight I have to saw at the bands to get them off. My blade slips, catches my thumb. I don’t feel it.

“Get her on the ground,” I command, pocketing the knife and scrambling to where Micah and Holden are easing her down like she’s a fucking bomb.

Her chest doesn’t move. Micah presses two fingers to her neck.

“Nothing.”

He plants the heel of his hand over her sternum and starts compressions—hard, fast, and precise, even as his breath breaks apart.

“Come on, baby girl. Breathe for us,” he pants. “Breathe.”

Kneeling next to her head, I tear my shirt over my head and use the back of it to wipe her mouth, her nose, her chin. Check her passages again. Tilt her head back.

She’s still not breathing.

I pinch her nose and wait for Micah’s signal. At thirty, his hands lift. I seal my mouth over hers and breathe twice, watching her chest rise. The taste of chemicals and bile and underneath it, underneath everything, her.

Then Micah starts again.

Thirty compressions. Two breaths.

Again.

Again. Again.

My world narrows to the count and the sound of Micah’s wrecked shouts. To the anger and the fear crushing my bones to powder.

Holden’s hands are clamped on her shoulders, holding her steady.

Micah’s hands tremble but never hesitate, keeping time on her ribcage like he can will it to rise. Something gives under his palms with a sound I feel in my own chest. He doesn’t stop. Good.