He might as well have hit her. She stared up at him.

She remembered that photo from her dining room wall, the way she’d looked up at him in admiration.

She’d been so stupid.

Hannah turned on her heel and started walking. She waited for him to call her back, but she wasn’t five steps away when he was speaking into his radio.

And then her phone chimed.

A text from Michael.

Her heart cheered. It was almost enough to send her running into the wreckage, and procedure be damned. But no message appeared. Just a picture.

At first she didn’t understand. It was dark, and the image was gruesome. A limb—and she couldn’t even identify whether it was an upper arm or a lower leg—with a piece of rebar impaling it. Torn denim. Blood everywhere, speckled with dirt.

Then a line of text appeared.

Not me. Tell me what to do.

CHAPTER 13

When the text finally sent, Michael almost fainted from relief. He had about fifteen texts with a little red exclamation point beside them, showing that they hadn’t gone through. Calls wouldn’t connect at all, and he watched his battery percentage drop with each attempt. Water sprayed from exposed pipes overhead, creating puddles everywhere and misting his skin.

He was twenty feet below the surface, in a ravine of his own making.

Along with almost everyone else from inside the bar. Debris had fallen among them. And through them. Michael had turned on the flashlight feature of his phone and shined it around until he’d found familiar eyes staring back at him.

“Did it go through yet?” said Tyler. His voice was wispy. From what Michael could tell, they were the only two people conscious.

Michael was terrified that they were the only two people alive.

Tyler’s leg was impaled on a steel bar—which was attached to a slab of concrete.

Hannah sent back a text.

DON’T MOVE BAR. Could bleed out. Conscious?

Yes.

Keep him talking. What else you got?

“She says we have to leave it,” said Michael.

“Fuck that!” Sweat bloomed on Tyler’s forehead despite the chill in the air. “Get it out!”

“She said you could bleed to death. Your call.”

Tyler inhaled a long breath. It mixed with a sob. “Damn you, Merrick.” He coughed and cried out. His fingers dug into the dirt surrounding him. “I need a fire. Sunlight. Anything.”

“I know. I know.” Michael slid his fingers along the face of the phone.

I smell gas. Open line maybe?

They’re getting BG&E to kill the line. Anyone else hurt?

Everyone.

Michael held up his phone and took a picture. In the flash, he saw movement, but he couldn’t identify the source. Had something fallen into the ravine? Or was that another survivor? He sent the picture, then turned on the flashlight again.

No motion. “Are you okay?” he called out to whatever he’d seen. “Move again. I’ll try to get to you.”

Nothing.

Dirt shifted and skittered from above, and Michael put a hand out, sliding his fingers along the wall. He sent power into the earth, begging for stability. This ravine might have saved his life, but it could just as easily end it for everyone else if it collapsed.

The sliding dirt stopped.

He took a long breath. His head pounded, and he wondered if he’d been hit by something in the fall.

Another text from Hannah.

Can you send me more injury pics?

I’ll try.

We want to prep for rescue. Waiting on bomb squad. Need clearance before we can enter.

“Don’t move,” he said to Tyler.

The response was slow, but it came. “You’re funny, dickhead.”

Michael crawled through the dirt to the next body he could find. An older man, his legs bent at unnatural angles. Unconscious, but he was breathing, though it was shallow. He had a pulse. No bleeding that Michael could see.

Michael took a picture and sent it.

Another man in a T-shirt and jeans, crumpled just beside the first. The light reflected off his eyes, and Michael jumped.

Then he recognized the unnatural angle of his neck. Specks of dirt clung to the eyeballs. No breathing at all.

He took another picture and added text.

No pulse, no breathing. I think his neck is broken.

Another man, bleeding from the head. Unconscious, but breathing steadily. Good pulse. Michael took another picture, sent another message.

Water was running across the face of the next man, and Michael’s flashlight app revealed a lot of blood. At first he couldn’t find a source of the bleeding, and he used slippery fingers to send a pic with a message.

Blood everywhere. Breathing. Pulse. Help?

Head wound? Sit him up if you can.

He kept going, moving debris as he went. Some pieces were large, and it took him a while to get past them. Three more dead bodies, but then three who seemed alive. Two were moaning. Michael sent pictures with as much description as he could.

Another man was ashen in the light from the app. Something large had sliced across his thigh just above the knee.

Hannah’s response was quick.

Rip a shirt. Tie a tourniquet HERE. Elevate if you can.

She sent a picture of someone else’s leg, with a hand pointing.

He ripped a T-shirt off one of the dead bodies and tied as fast as he could.

“Tyler?” he called. “How you doing?”

No response. “Tyler!”

Nothing. Michael shined his flashlight in that direction. Tyler was still, his eyes closed. The metal bar still impaled his thigh.