Page 18 of Knox
“Tori?”
A hiccup of breath in answer, then a moan that turned into sobbing.
“Hang on. I’m coming, Tori.” He hated the blackness. He put his hand toward the sound, but it hit something solid and metal.
Think, Knox. You’re out on the range, in a blizzard, alone, with a truck that won’t start. What do you do?
His father, showing up now to lecture him.
Except—yes. His phone still sat in his back pocket, and he wrestled it out in the darkness, pressed it on, and found his flashlight.
The app lit up their cave like the dawn of heaven illuminating the chaos of earth.
Thank You, God.He wasn’t blind, even with his eyes open.
From what he could make out, the entire room had collapsed onto the floor below, one side falling farther than the other. The walls, too, caved in, detaching from their metal supports, and around them lay the debris of the room—broken mirror glass, light fixtures, the dismantled counter, and dissecting it all, one of the supporting ceiling beams that angled into the pit from its moorings above.
He aimed his phone to reveal where the joint met the wall and saw that the beam was cracked, the seam fractured. It could fall, crushing them at any moment.
“Help— please—”
Tori, and he wanted to weep with the pain in her voice. “Hang on, honey. I’m coming.” He flashed the light on Kelsey.
She covered her face with her hands, her body trembling, and he made out a brutal scrape on her chin. She’d fallen away from him, her legs curled into her body. He pushed the hair back from her face, then checked her head for injury.
Nothing. “Kelsey?” He put his hand on her back, leaning over her in the small pocket of debris. “Kelsey?”
She wouldn’t remove her hands, so he reached down and pulled one away.
Her eyes were closed.
“Hey,” he said. “Are you hurt?”
No answer, as if she hadn’t heard him. “Kelsey!”
She stuttered in a breath, then, in a moment, opened her eyes.
But they didn’t land on him, didn’t recognize him.
As if—of course she was having a panic attack, or something close to it. “Kelsey, I have to get Tori.”
Nothing.
“Help—”
He winced, but he had no choice but to turn the light toward the voice.
Tori lay under the remains of the makeup counter, trapped behind the ceiling joist. He climbed over Kelsey and shimmied under the joist, working his way down the space under the counter. It had fallen like a wedge over the top of Tori, and at first he let out a shudder of relief that she hadn’t been seriously hurt.
Except, as he came closer, he saw how she gripped her leg, her whimpers turning to moans, then all-out tears as he moved the light over her.
Oh…no.
Her hand curled around a thin metal pipe, its jagged end embedded into her leg, in her lower thigh, right above her knee. Blood pooled around it, but it acted like a plug, keeping the leg from bleeding out.
“Hey, Tori,” he said, fighting his voice. “I know you’re hurt, but you can’t pull that out, okay?”
Dust covered her hair and grimed her wet face, her eyes betraying terror, but she nodded.