31. Pandora
PANDORA
My ears are ringing.
It’s the only sound I hear at first, the world strangely muted except for that strange, high pitched whine.
That’s not my usual auditory hallucination.
The next thing I notice is how hard it is to breathe. There’s something on my chest, something warm and heavy.
I push against it: it’s soft, somewhat pliable.
When I look down, I see buzzed blond hair. It takes me a second to place it.
George Bouchard’s bodyguard.
He inadvertently shielded me from the blast. He’d been behind us, right? Or was he in front? I don’t remember.
I grunt and try to push him away, but it doesn’t work. He’s too heavy.
Why the fuck can’t I move?
“Ares? Kratos?” I say, hoping one of them can hear me through the mic.
But there’s no response. The explosion must have taken out the whole Wi-Fi setup.
I hope they got out. I hope they got Mel out.
Papa’s going to be so fucking mad at me.
Blaze and River have to be around here somewhere.
I turn my head. It’s dark in here.
It’s really dark, actually, and everything smells of blood. Like somebody got disemboweled.
Not me, I hope.
I lift my hand. I’m still wearing the gloves I’d been using, but they’ve been shredded in places. Blood everywhere, and I don’t know if it's Allers’ blood or mine.
I blink, wetness hitting my cheeks.
Was it enough? Did I make him suffer ten times as much as Rachel suffered?
“Pandora?”
I turn my head in the direction of the sound. There’s a beam of some sort in the way, but through the cracks, I see a small light. Somebody’s cellphone.
“River?” I respond.
“Thank fuck,” he replies, exhaling slowly. His steps aren’t smooth. It sounds like he’s walking on something, but I’m not sure what. Debris? Shrapnel? “We need to get you out of here. The building is barely holding on.”
I’m the one barely holding on.
I reach down with my bloodied gloves and try to get to my phone. I have to snake my hand between me and the bodyguard, and it takes way too much effort for that simple movement.
I can’t manage it with the gloves on, so I shed them, my hands feeling damp from sweat as I toss them aside.
I manage to get the flashlight of my phone on.
Yeah, that’s the bodyguard on top of me. I look in River’s direction. I don’t think I’m getting past all the debris there.
I look to my other side.
Blaze is lying there, eyes closed. Blood seeps from a wound on his forehead.
“Blaze?” I whisper. “Blaze. Blaze, get up.” My voice gets louder with each call, until I’m screaming. “Blaze!”
“Pandora! Pandora, are you okay?” River’s voice is high with panic. “Don’t worry about Blaze right now. Are you okay?”
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him like this before.
I let out a small laugh. “I’m alive. I can’t move though. The bodyguard is on top of me.” I remember what Blaze had said, about the guy being impenetrable.
I guess he was wrong after all. The explosion penetrated him deep.
“Blaze,” I say again. I reach out and push at his face.
A small puff of air warms my hand.
He’s alive.
My eyes get wetter.
“He’s alive,” I say. “Blaze. Wake the fuck up.” I scratch his nose, and when that doesn’t get me anything, I stick my fingers into his mouth.
He moans.
“Is he there with you?” River demands. “Tell him to get his ass up and help me with this fucking beam. I can’t get to you.”
“He’s here. Blaze! Blaze!” I scratch his cheek with the spit-soaked fingers, and that finally makes Blaze’s eyes flutter.
He moans and reaches up for his head. “Fuck. Fuck. What…”
“Pandora?” River asks, his voice still urgent. “Is he okay? I can’t see anything. I can’t—” He makes a frustrated sound. “I’m going to try to find help. Okay?”
He’s going to leave us here?
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
I ignore the strange noise and force myself to say, “Okay. Please come back fast.”
“I will,” he promises. “I will. As soon as I can.”
I hear his footsteps retreating, and I turn back to Blaze.
Blaze manages to sit up, so points for him. He glances at me with a dazed expression. “Pandora?”
I smile. “Yeah. I think it’s me. I can’t be sure.”
He reaches out and touches my forehead. “You’re bleeding.”
“So are you,” I point out. “Do you think you could move this guy off me? He’s heavy. Like, two hundred pounds at least. I don’t even lift a hundred pounds.”
Blaze stares at me stupidly, until he finally notices the bodyguard on top of me. He hisses. “Isaac. So where’s…” He shakes his head, then crawls closer to roll Isaac off me. He has to remove a slab of something first.
It’s a lot easier to breathe without him weighing me down.
I sit up, and I’m secretly relieved that it really was Isaac and the concrete slab on top of him that kept me from moving. I had visions of being completely paralyzed.
I’m sure I could have rocked a wheelchair, but it would have made getting out of here a lot harder.
As soon as I’m free, Blaze pulls me into his arms. “Fuck, Pandora. I’m so glad you’re all right.”
I return the embrace. I don’t mention the stench of smoke and blood or how I’m pretty sure I’m touching an oozing wound.
Blaze sits back and pulls his own phone out. “Okay. Okay, um. No signal. Of course there’s no signal. We picked this place because of how shit the signal was. Anastasia would turn off the jammers though, right?”
“I don’t know.” I rest my head against Blaze’s shoulder. “Maybe she got caught up in all of this too.”
She’d been saying something in our ears, but I hadn’t bothered to pay attention. The operating room was buzzing with flies, the walls undulating, and the blood drip drip dripping all over.
I think I preferred that view over the current concrete prison we’re in.
“Fuck. The Voronkovs will never forgive us.” Blaze pauses. “Your parents will never forgive me. Shit. We’ll need to go into hiding after this.”
“You won’t,” I insist. “I’ll tell them it was my fault.”
Because it is, isn’t it?
All of this was for me.
My revenge, my insanity.
Blaze was indulging me. River was lifting me up. Asch was protecting me.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
What an annoying sound.
Blaze looks around us. I don’t know what he’s looking for until he draws in a sharp hiss.
“Dad.”
I follow his gaze.
I don’t notice it at first, the messy, red-and-brown mess that’s only a few inches from where I’d found Blaze. Most of the body is covered in concrete and other debris, but Blaze goes to it and turns the head.
George Bouchard.
Dead.
Blaze makes a strange noise. “Fuck. Fuck. I remember. He pushed me. He saved me.”
Oh.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly, because I have no idea what else to say.
George Bouchard had threatened Blaze with a gun, but in the end, he’d protected him too.
Can people do that? Be kind and terrible, all in one?
I guess I’m like that.
We’re all like that.
“Fuck,” Blaze whispers again. “Sorry about… everything, Dad. I didn’t want it to be like this.”
He brushes his eyes against the palm of his hand. It’s too dark for me to see if he’s crying or not. I don’t know what to do if he is.
Blaze takes a deep breath, though, and stands up. He has to hunch or else knock his head against the angled debris. He extends his hand to me. “Come on. We can’t stay here.”
I take his hand, and after three tries I manage to stand. “You come here often?” I joke.
What a stupid joke.
None of this is funny. George Bouchard is dead, and instead of sympathizing, I’m making light of the situation.
Blaze looks at me, then chuckles. “I sure fucking hope not. One collapsed building is enough.”
I lean against him as I laugh, relieved that he didn’t blow up at me like a concrete building. “This is why I like you. You understand my jokes.”
Blaze and I take a few tentative steps forward, like we even know where forward is. “No, you like me because I like to choke you while we fuck.”
“Okay, that too,” I say. “And you’re really hot with Asch.”
He’s quiet for a few seconds. “I kissed him. We were going to have sex on the couch.” Blaze’s hand tightens around mine. “Is that okay?”
Am I all right with Blaze and Asch fooling around without me?
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
“Yeah,” I say softly. “I gave you permission, didn’t I? I always knew that you were a package deal.” I pause. “But next time, I want to watch.”
Blaze lets out a relieved sigh. “Deal.”
Imagining Blaze with Asch is better than thinking about dark concrete and smoke on my breath. They’ll be smoking hot together. Maybe I can convince River to fuck one of them too. He and Asch can wrestle for dominance.
Yeah, that would get my pussy real wet.
I reach into my pocket.
I freeze when I come up empty.
“Wait,” I say, my voice high. “I lost it.”
“I know that already,” Blaze says.
That joke isn’t funny at all. I slap his arm. “River’s finger, I mean. It’s not with me.”
I swing my phone’s light toward the ground. Surely a string of bones would be easy to find.
The ground is a mess of concrete and steel and so much dirt.
I don’t see anything.
My face gets wetter. “No! He gave that to me. I need it!”
I take a step back, but Blaze pulls hard on my arm. “No!” he hisses. “Pandora, I know it means a lot to you, but it’s not worth it. We need to get out of here.”
I shake my head. “I can’t, Blaze. I need it. It’s part of me. It’s River! He wants his finger back. You know he does.”
It’s the one thing that brought him back to me.
Without that finger, he would have left.
Without that finger, I would have lost him.
“He doesn’t care!” Blaze yells. “The only parts of River you need are all attached to him, okay? The finger doesn’t matter!”
“It does!” I pull on my arm. “Let go, Blaze. I have to find it.”
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
What the fuck is that sound? Why is it so loud?
“Pandora!” Blaze pulls so hard that I crash into his chest. “Calm the fuck down. We need to get out of here. River wants you to survive. Asch wants you to survive. I want you to survive. And, y’know what, I’d like to survive too.
Dad sacrificed himself to save me, so I kind of want to make sure I actually do live! ”
I sob, and I hate that sound so fucking much. “I’m not me, Blaze.”
“You are.” He keeps pushing forward, and I don’t have a choice but to follow.