Aftershock

But this woman in front of him, the one he couldn’t see, could only feel, was an enigma to him.

Again, she pushed away.

He heard her struggle to her feet. “Hey, careful,” he urged.

“I’m not going to faint.”

The disdain in her voice told him what she thought of that particular weakness.

“I’m not,” she added to his silence. “I had a flashlight. I want it now.”

At that queen-to-peasant voice, he had to laugh. “Well, then. By all means, let me help you find it.” Stretching out, he felt his way along the floor, painstakingly searching for the light with his fingers. “You’re a hell of a cool cucumber, you know.”

“It was just an earthquake.”

“Yeah well, that was one hell of an earthquake.”

“Do you always swear?”

“Yes, but I’ll try to control myself.” His back to her, he closed his fingers over the flashlight. Though the bulb flickered and was nearly dead, it came on.

Looking at the situation before him, he let out a slow breath and swore again.

Coming up behind him, she made a sound of impatience. “I thought you were going to control yourself’ Oh. ” She paused. “This isn’t good.”

“No.” Grim reality settled on his shoulders like a solid weight as he surveyed the situation in the faint light before him. “Not good at all.”

The stairway was completely destroyed, lying in useless piles around them. There was no other entry into the basement where they stood, except the hole far above them. On the ground, directly beneath that opening, was a huge mountain of fallen brick and steel.

The pile previously known as the staircase.

There was no way out. They were literally buried alive.

“The entire building…it’s gone, isn’t it?” she asked softly, still behind him.

Dax thought about lying. It would protect her and his first instinct was always to protect and shelter, at any cost. But he already knew she wasn’t a woman to be coddled. “Looks that way.”

“We’re going to die.”

So calm, so matter-of-fact, even when he knew she had to be terrified. “We still have oxygen,” he said positively. “And the flashlight.”

That was when the damn light died.

In stunned silence, she drew an audible deep breath.

Reaching behind him, he groped for her hand. Surprisingly, she took it and held on.

“If the quake hadn’t slid us across the floor, away from the opening,” she said, her voice very sober, very small, “We’d be toast right now.”

Burnt toast, Dax thought, gently squeezing her fingers.

“Well, we’re not dead yet.”

Maybe not, but they would be soon enough. Tons of brick lay on top of the thin ceiling of the basement above their heads. They’d been saved only by the dubious strength of that protection. Dax had no idea how long the floor would hold. He didn’t imagine it could withstand the inevitable aftershock.

“Does someone know where you are?” he asked, carefully keeping his growing shock and dismay to himself.

“No.” Through their joined hands, he felt her shiver again.

He’d been in some hairy situations before, it was the nature of his job. He was good at saving his own behind, even better at saving others, but he thought maybe his luck had just run out.

Regret and rage threatened to consume him, but he wasn’t ready to give up yet. He drew in a ragged breath and nearly gagged on the lingering dust. “Come on, this is the hallway, there must be more rooms. They’ll be far cleaner than this, it’ll be easier to breathe.” And maybe there would be some sort of steel-lined safe they could crowd into for protection when the ceiling over their head collapsed, assuming they had enough oxygen to wait for rescue.

“There’s two offices, a bathroom and a small kitchenette,” she intoned. “Furnished.” She shrugged, her shoulder bumping against his. “I have the listing in my pocket.”

Dax wished the flashlight hadn’t gone out, wished that he’d gotten a look at the woman next to him before it had, wished that he’d eaten more for breakfast that morning than a bowl of Double Chocolate Sugary O’s.

“We’ll be fine.” She sounded secure, confident, despite her constant shivers. “We’ll just wait to be rescued. Right?”

Dax decided to let her have that little fantasy since he wasn’t ready to face the alternative, though he held no illusions’when the weight of the crumbled two stories above them came through the ceiling, they were as good as dead.

Feeling their way through the inky darkness, climbing and struggling, they left the hallway. It wasn’t fast or easy, and Dax kept waiting for the woman to falter or complain, or fall apart.

But to his amazement, she never did.

They decided they were in one of the offices, which after a bit of fumbling around, they discovered had a couch, a desk, two chairs and some other unidentifiable equipment. The second office was smaller, and from what they could tell, void of furniture. The kitchenette seemed dangerous, the floor was littered with fallen appliances and a tipped-over refrigerator.

There was no safe place to hide except back in the first office. Like a trooper, the woman stoically kept up with him as they made their way. He couldn’t help but wonder at her incredible control, and what had made her that way.

A DISTANT rumbling was their only warning, but it was enough for Amber, who reacted without thinking by throwing herself at the stranger who’d become her entire world. Later she’d be mortified by her lack of control, but at the moment control was the last thing on her mind.

As the earth once again pitched and rolled beneath their feet, the man snatched her closer and sank with her to the floor.

“Hurry,” he demanded, pushing her under what felt like a huge, wooden desk. He crawled in after her.

She had time to think the earth’s movement was slight compared to the other quake before he hauled her beneath him, sprawling his big and’ oh my ’very tough body over hers, protecting her head by crushing it to his chest.

Time once again ceased to exist as she closed her eyes and lived through the aftershock. Huddled in the pitch dark, Amber knew what the man holding her so tightly feared’as she feared’death. It could easily happen, right this second, and she waited breathlessly for the ceiling above them to give and crush them.

Unwilling to die, she held on, reacting instinctively by burrowing closer to the stranger’s warmth, his strength. He had both in spades and shared it freely.

After what seemed like years’she’d lost all sense of time’the rocking stopped.

She became aware of how close they were. How big a man he was, how every inch of her was plastered to every inch of him. A stranger.

She’d thrown herself at a stranger.

Mortified, she pushed at him. Immediately, he rolled off her and they lay there beneath the desk, separated by inches. Holding their breath.