Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 57866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
As I stumbled over the debris, I took my cell phone from my pocket. I was a dipshit—a call to 911 should have been my first move.
I couldn’t see it through the haze in the air, but I felt the smashed remnants of my phone, and my panic skyrocketed. I had to get the hell out of hereI’d crawl if I had to.
Slowly and steadily, I made my way through the rubble, yelling every fifteen seconds or so in case anyone else was in my path. A weak cry for help made me stop cold.
“Hello?” I yelled. “It’s Beau Fox. I can hear you, but I need you to keep making noise so I can get to you.”
“Help me.” The voice sounded choked.
I got down on my hands and knees, which was painful but allowed me to move faster.
“Help me! I’m bleeding,” the voice called out.
It was a woman, and she sounded like she hardly had the energy to speak. Finally, I reached her, my hands moving all over the blocks of concrete on the ground until they found something warm.
“What’s your name?” I asked, knowing I needed to keep her with me.
“Andie. I’m an usher.”
“Andie, I’m Beau.” I found what felt like her arm and moved down along the length of it until I got to her hand.
“Don’t leave me here,” she begged, coughing through the words. “I don’t want to die.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I said, picking up a chunk of concrete and throwing it aside. “We’re going to get out of here together. Stay with me.”
One broken block at a time, I moved the pieces of concrete pinning her in place.
“Tell me what hurts the most,” I said as I worked, breathing hard.
“My…” She stopped to cough. “Foot and ankle. And my chest.”
Instinct had kicked in; I was focused entirely on getting this woman out of here safely.
“I want you to try to move parts of your body as I uncover them,” I said, wiping sweat from my brow with the back of my hand. “Tell me if you can’t move anything.”
“Okay…my right arm is okay. My neck is okay.” I felt her squirming. “I’m close to getting my left arm out. I can…” She stopped and coughed, long and hard. “…almost sit up. I just coughed up something…tastes like blood.”
Shit. I doubled down, determined to get her unburied, and she howled with pain when I uncovered her left foot.
The dust was finally settling, and from what I could see of her left foot and ankle, she was definitely not walking out of here. There was a lot of blood. I blew out a breath and found one of her hands, holding onto it as I spoke.
“I’m going to level with you. Your left foot and ankle are completely crushed. The damage is really bad.”
She started crying. “Don’t leave me here. Please.”
The weight of whatever had happened to the arena settled in my chest like a lead ball. Were my teammates buried in what was left of this building, too? Or worse? I had to focus on what I could control in this moment, which was getting Andie out of here.
“I won’t leave you. I promise. But we’ve got a situation here. I can’t carry you because there are piles of concrete all over the place and I don’t want to slip and drop you. I’m going to try putting you on my back and crawling until we find a place I can pick you up safely, and it’s going to hurt like hell having your foot flopping around.”
“Do it,” she said.
She shouted out in pain as I tried to move her onto my back, and she held on around my neck but kept sliding off of me, inadvertently choking me.
“Sorry,” she said, her tone panicked.
“It’s okay. We’ll get there.”
We were trying to get her onto my back once more when a massive boom sounded and the ground beneath us started shaking.
“Oh shit,” Andie wailed. “Is it an earthquake?”
Whatever it was, I was pretty sure it had damaged the arena further. With every passing second, I realized we might not make it out of here alive.
“New plan,” I said. “Let go of my neck. I’m just going to carry you.”
“Okay.”
She screamed as she hit the ground, her foot hurting more than I could even imagine. I gritted my teeth and stood, scooping her into my arms and holding her against me as I picked my way over the debris on the ground, slipping and stumbling, but somehow keeping my balance.
“I know where we are,” she said suddenly. “There’s a D on the wall there. That means there’s an exit ahead.”
Every muscle in my body ached and it was hard to breathe. One foot at a time, I moved forward.
“Hey!” a male voice called to us. “Hey, who’s there?”