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“Sunny.” I pushed myself away from the wall, dodging people as they ran for the exits. At the main doors, the crush to get out was so much that people had begun stacking on top of each other, clambering over one another in an attempt to be the first ones out. Any attempts at human decency were abandoned and replaced with a far more primal need to survive.
Ignoring the possibility that there might be a third explosion, I made my way through the devastation that had once been the media area. A CNN reporter whose face I recognized was sitting on the floor crying, holding a bloody shoe in her hand.
I had no idea who it had belonged to. She was wearing both of hers.
From here I had a better look at what remained of the seating rows. I could see the place where I’d been sitting during the speech, and the chairs were long gone. The floor was smeared with dust and burned streaks from the heat of the explosion.
There was no sign of Prescott, Leo, or Cade, and I had to believe that meant they had been blown free of the worst of it, like I had. A pang gnawed at my heart. I wanted to look for Cade. I desperately needed to see his face, and hear him tell me he was all right.
But Cade hadn’t been standing right beside the blast.
I ducked underneath the ropes that had been in place to hold the media and civilians away from the clerics. The floor was uneven beneath me, with chunks of rock and debris creating a minefield I had to step through carefully or risk breaking my ankle. The entire lobby seemed to be leaning towards the gaping hole.
Now that I was close enough I could see the hole extended right through to the basement level below. More rocks and bodies littered the area beneath where the stage had been.
I sucked in a breath between clenched teeth. Everything tasted like chalk and ash.
“Sunny.”
I couldn’t hear anything. It was hard to know if I was screaming or whispering. The word made my throat feel raw, but I doubted anyone could hear me no matter how loud I screamed.
The light that had been coming from the glass front doors was totally blotted out by bodies now. Someone had grabbed a metal chair from the Starbucks patio and was using it to try smashing open one of the windows.
The air had become heavy and hot. I realized something near me was on fire. Blinking through the smoke, I saw one of the banners that had been hanging from the upper balconies was smoldering, little licks of flame creeping their way up.
Papers and chunks of rock and personal belongings continued to fall from above me. This was a rain unlike any I’d ever controlled. It was steady and malicious, each new drop a reminder of what had happened.
My heart was in my throat. Nerves were chewing my stomach to pieces. Something deep down was saying Prepare yourself, but I wasn’t ready to listen to reason. They had to be okay. Everyone had to be okay.
I stepped over a body and gave a little sob. Dark hair. Female.
Not them, not them, not them.
“Sunny,” I whispered. Breathing was getting harder now. Both because of my rising terror and how much thicker the smoke and dust was this close to the stage. I could barely see anything.
I tripped over something, fell to my knees, and slid a few inches towards the open mouth of the hole before kicking myself backwards onto more even ground.
My hand was holding something soft and warm.
Don’t look, the logical voice in my head commanded.
I had to though, didn’t I? I had to.
A big chunk of cement was blocking me from seeing what I had touched. I shoved it aside, and a pair of blue eyes stared back at me.
The irises were constricted, unseeing. A film of dust coated her open, unblinking eyes. It wasn’t bothering her.
Nothing would bother her again.
My chest seized, and I touched Sawyer’s face. The side of her head was caked in blood. Her skull no longer had a round shape. The way her body was resting was awkward and impossible.
She was dead.
A sob ripped from my lungs as I shook her. “Wake up. You have to get up.” Her head wobbled unsteadily, but she showed no sign of hearing me. This wasn’t a miracle moment in the making. This was final. I couldn’t undo this.
“Lula?” I don’t know how I heard her. My head was filled with an angry swarm of wasps, everything buzz buzz buzz. Yet I heard my name as if she’d spoken it inside my head, and not through words. I tore my gaze off Sawyer’s lifeless body to where Sunny lay, just a few feet back.
She was pinned under one of the fallen scaffolds. A widening pool of black-red blood spread out under her, a film of dust congealing on the surface. Bones were sticking through the side of her dress.
