Page 64 of Second Go-Round

“If you weren’t in pain and trapped beneath whatever the fuck is on top of your leg, I’d find a way inside your pants right now.” His voice teased, but I expected he really would have if given the chance.

Warmth spread through me, and even though our situation sucked donkey ass, I knew I would have let him. Begged for it even. I floated in the comfort of his nearness, the contentment of darkness. Carefree. No thoughts.

A poke jabbed in my side. “Christine?”

“Hmm?” My hum echoed in my ears.

“Stay with me, sweet girl.”

“M’kay.”

The clicking sounded and ended as the blackness took me completely.

Chapter 27

Jarod

We’d been buried for six hours according to Christine’s cell phone. I’d tried to use the light sparingly, only swiping it to life if she whimpered or I felt compelled to check her wounds. Both her head and thigh had stopped bleeding, but I couldn’t keep her conscious for very long periods of time.

At least she sounded decently coherent when awake, answering me with full sentences.

I wasted a few minutes of her cell’s battery using the lit screen to fully check out our tomb. I’d been lucky to not have any parts of my body crushed beneath the wood, metal, and crumbling sheetrock piled around us, but I definitely hadn’t escaped unscathed. My shoulder was dislocated, my index finger definitely cracked, and my knee throbbed. Nothing felt broken around my kneecap, but I must have twisted my leg while going down. Once on my feet—when we got out of there—I’d be better able to assess that situation.

There was no hint of light through the rubble, nothing to give me hope I could somehow crawl out and drag her along with me though. We lay at the mercy of the crews sure to sift through the mess around us.

At least our table had been against an exterior wall, as had the hallway I’d headed toward when I realized what had been about to happen. With two floors overhead, I expected we still had plenty of rubble atop us, but better our location there than in the thick of the bar’s middle though.

Christine’s leg lay crushed by a beam, one I wouldn’t be able to budge even if I wanted to attempt digging us free—which I didn’t. The last fucking thing I needed was for the pressure to release from whatever injury lay beneath.

I expected our air to run out, but with every passing hour, that fear lessened. As long as the bomb’s debris overhead didn’t shift and completely bury us, we could live a couple of days without water. I’d heard of countless people being pulled from the wreckage of fallen buildings long after they shouldn’t have.

What choice did I have but to hold onto the hope the click of my watch on the metal above my head would eventually be heard?

Initially, Christine had winced every time I tapped, but she’d fallen past the point of being annoyed by the only noise inside our claustrophobic pocket of space. She might not be bothered by small enclosures, but I sure as fuck was.

Once back in grade school, our class had taken a trip to some underground caverns. The stalactites had been cool as shit, but the cold darkness that had pressed against me on all sides when they’d turned out the lights to let us experience the feeling of being buried alive?

Fucking hell.

I’d almost peed my damn pants. More than one kid had cried, but I’d managed to swipe my tears away without making a sound.

Catching hints of honeysuckle helped keep my brain focused on what mattered most. The softness of Christine’s limp hand in mine with the occasional gentle squeeze of her fingers gave me something else to keep my brain from flipping the fuck out throughout the night. Eventually, I grew accustomed to the stifling atmosphere around us, or perhaps exhaustion had finally won me over.

I startled awake, blinking in the pitch black.

We were still buried.

“Fuck.” I rubbed a hand over my face and realized I’d dropped the cell phone. Feeling around in the darkness, I located it on the other side of Christine where I’d had my arm draped.

A swipe lit the sad truth of our situation.

“Christine?” I murmured, shifting onto my elbow so I could see her face better. “Hey.” I released her hand and gently prodded her side like I’d done countless times in the first couple of hours.

She didn’t respond. Didn’t move.

“Christine,” I stated louder, shaking her enough to rouse any slumbering person. Still, she didn’t react. “Fuck.” I checked her pulse—steady although weaker than I’d have liked.

Scrambling onto my knees, I gently lifted one of her eyelids.

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