31. Pandora #2
I don’t have a choice but to leave River’s finger behind.
It isn’t right. After everything he went through, I need to treasure it.
I need to treasure every part of them.
We don’t know where Asch was during the explosion. He could be lying in hundreds of pieces all around us.
I focus on the caved-in walls. The phone flashlight barely illuminates them, but I see how they pulse in time with the horrible thumping in my ears.
Never mind what I said earlier. I want the concrete prison back.
“Shit,” Blaze mutters after another two steps. “This way is blocked too.”
“It’s devouring us,” I whisper, even though I know those words don’t make sense. “Fuck. Blaze. I didn’t want to eat us.”
Blaze turns around and pulls me into an embrace again. “Nobody is eating us. You didn’t want to eat anyone, Pandora.”
“Of course I do,” I mutter. “I’m the devourer of worlds. This world.”
Blaze shakes his head. “Nope. The devourer of worlds was the Ouroboros, and that’s Norse mythology, not Greek. Pandora opened a box, that’s all. Blame the fucking Greek gods for giving her a box with all the evils in it in the first place.”
I think the story is supposed to be about resisting temptation, but I appreciate that he’s trying to cheer me up. I press my head against his shoulder.
Blaze pets the back of my head. “This was my plan, anyway. I’m the one who fucked up. I didn’t take Ezio into account. Or how many fucking people would show.” He laughs. “My powers of persuasion are just that good, I guess.”
I laugh, too, and cling harder to him. “You’re so full of yourself, Blabe. This is why everyone hates you Kappa Asshole Douchebags.”
“Kappa Alpha Omega Sigma,” Blaze corrects, but there’s only amusement in his voice. “We fucked up hard, huh.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “If I got my sister and brothers killed, my parents aren’t going to forgive me.”
I don’t want to think about them potentially being dead.
Everybody else was closer to the exit. Anastasia gave everybody else warnings, and they were all smarter than me.
I don’t know what I was thinking.
Why was hurting Allers so important?
Rachel isn’t coming back to life just because I pulled out his organs.
Rachel would hate me if she knew I’d done that at all.
We sit together, the air ashy and suffocating.
“So much for the Bouchard Syndicate,” Blaze says. “I ruined it all.”
I shake my head. “Your… your dad ruined it. He could have… he could have helped you.”
Blaze’s grip on my arm tightens. “Maybe. But I could have obeyed him. I could have been what he wanted. Instead, I pull together this fucking haphazard plan, and it blows up in our faces. Literally.”
I wish I could be closer to him than I already am. “But you would have been out of the building, or at least farther away, if I… If I hadn’t been…” I let out a strange sound. “If I hadn’t been me. If I’d been willing to let go. If for once in my life, I put anyone but me first.”
That’s what it all comes down to.
Pandora is unhinged and crazy, and she gets everybody around her hurt or killed.
“Yeah. You probably should have listened to us,” Blaze agrees.
I’m not even mad at him for agreeing with me. “I need so much help, Blaze,” I whisper. “The… the visions, the hallucinations, they’re getting worse. It’s almost all the time now. I thought I could kill my way through it, but it’s not helping.”
He strokes the back of my hair, even though it must be a mess by now.
“I’m not surprised. But we learn from our actions, right?
That’s what makes us human.” He kisses the top of my head.
“And I’m learning that I… I think… I didn’t want my dad to die?
What the fuck? I hated him. I was so mad at him for being such a dick. ”
“I hated you and Asch and River, too,” I whisper. “But I forgave you, because…” I curl my fingers in his shirt. “I didn’t deserve it. I know I didn’t. But I’ve done so many things that are pretty bad too. Starting with Zayden.”
“Fuck Zayden,” Blaze mutters. “I’m not mad about him.”
I laugh. “Neither am I. Seeing him suffer made me feel a bit better.”
“You made us suffer too. And I don’t know how to express how fucking sorry I am,” Blaze says. “It’s never going to happen again. I’m standing with you. Forever. You know that, right?”
I nod. “Yeah. That’s why I can forgive you. I trust you. You put together a murder party for me. An explosive murder party.”
We both chuckle at my stupid, awful joke, then fall silent.
I wish I could say it was a comfortable silence, but there’s nothing comfortable or even silent about anything. The bones of the building creak, the thumping continues, and somewhere, something cracks.
“Pandora! Blaze!” my hallucinations shout.
Blaze tenses, then sits up. “Asch? River? We’re over here!” He calls out, before devolving into a coughing fit. “Shit.”
Oh, it wasn’t a hallucination. I sit up too, and I hear the distinct sound of concrete-on-concrete scraping.
“Blaze! Are you all right?” Asch shouts.
I see how it is. Blaze gets first billing for him. I don’t care though, because I scramble upright and claw at the wall.
“River!” I cry out. “We’re here! Please!” I pound on the wall. Somehow, I have to be able to get through this.
“Pandora, wait.” Blaze pulls on my shoulder. “We need to be careful with this.”
“They’re right there!” I say, pounding on the wall again. I move a few feet to the right and find a spot that’s more fragile. I pound on it, and some of the outer layer crumbles. “Asch! River!”
There’s a responding thump on the other side.
“Blaze! They’re almost there,” River answers. “The firefighters are here. They’re almost through to you.”
Blaze follows me and puts his shoulder against the wall. “Maybe if we push…”
“You need to stay back,” a voice I don’t recognize says. “Let us know when you’re clear.”
Blaze and I both scramble away from the wall. Blaze stares at the wall.
“Reminds me of being trapped in a fire,” he mutters.
Thumpthumpthump.
“We’re clear,” Blaze answers. “Just give a warning when—”
Only there is no warning.
The sound of some sort of saw starts up, louder than even the thumping. It rumbles through the entire skeleton, and the ground we’re on shifts.
I scream as the floor collapses beneath me.
Blaze grabs me and pulls me up, my breath catching in my lungs, in my chest, in the thumpthumpthump.
That was close. I don’t dare look at the collapsed floor.
Something above us rumbles.
“Thank—” I say, just as that something collides with Blaze’s face.
Blood gushes out, splattering all over my face.
Blaze screams.
“Blaze!” I grab his shoulders to keep him from falling backwards. The sawing sound stops, and the area is flooded with light.
“Pandora? And—Fuck, Blaze!” River rushes over to both of us.
Blaze heaves, then he blinks at me, but it’s only the one eye blinking because the other one has a large piece of shrapnel in it.
His beautiful blue eyes.
Blue eye, singular, now.
I sob, and the thumping gets louder, and I suddenly realize that the thumping is a heart, it’s my heart, and it’s been going overtime and just as I found it, it might be breaking all over again.