Page 6 of Torn In Two

Boards beneath my feet cracked.

I stared up at the others.

I didn’t need to voice what we’d all heard. We were nearly there.

I tore into the remaining dirt, my nails catching on the cheap wood, splinters spearing through my fingertips as I tried to get a hold. “Give me the shovel!” I shouted at Ice, who obediently handed it in.

I fit the shovel head to the corner of the box and stamped down hard.

A satisfying crack came back to me. There was no room in the hole to get decent leverage to pry the nailed-down box open, but fucked if I was going to let that stop me. I stomped on the shovel again, deepening the crack.

The attempt split the lid enough that I could fit the shovel head in and pry up one side of the lid. Dirt slid back down the sides of the hole and into the box I’d made.

“The sides are going to collapse!” Chaos shouted. “Get back!” He shoved Riot and Ice away from the edge. “Hawk! Get her out!

If the side collapsed and filled in the hole again, there was no way we were getting Kara out in time.

Hayley Jade would be without her mother.

I wasn’t going to be the one to break that kid’s heart again. Or my own.

I fit my fingers into the thick crack I made, flinching when they touched her skin.

A knot formed in my throat, but I forced it down, wrenching the wood with everything I had.

It splintered. Came away in my hands. I fell back against the edge of the hole, pain shooting through my back at the force of the impact, but none of that mattered.

She had air.

“She’s not breathing!” Hayden shouted, the flashlight on his phone bouncing off Kara’s face.

I scrambled onto my knees, her body yielding beneath my weight. I hated that I was crushing her, but bruises wouldn’t matter if she was dead.

Her face was covered in dirt. I picked her up by her shoulders, shaking her hard and removing the soil from her face at the same time.

Her head flopped around like a rag doll.

Hayden reached for her, but there was no time to get her out. I laid her back down, ignoring his shouts and the reaching hands of Ice and Riot and the other members who crowded around, watching on, trying to help.

The entire world boiled down to her and me.

The weight of her life in my hands.

The only woman I’d ever fallen for, lifeless unless I could get her back.

I didn’t give myself time to think or feel. On autopilot, I turned her head. Cleared her mouth.

The faint thump of her heartbeat met my fingers. “She has a pulse!”

But that didn’t mean she was breathing. Hayden had been right.

I tilted her head, pinched her nose, and breathed for her, forcing my air into her lungs until they expanded.

Above me, Riot shouted for someone to get an ambulance, but we were way out in the woods. It would take any ambulance twenty minutes to get out here. Twenty minutes Kara didn’t have.

“Come on, Little Mouse,” I whispered, releasing my hold on her nose to see if she’d breathe again by herself. “You aren’t fucking dying in this goddamn hole with Josiah’s bullshit in your head. I won’t fucking let you. Breathe.”

Her chest didn’t lift.

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