Chapter 76
Nick
Everyone! If you can move, please make your way very carefully to the emergency exit!” Captain Hyun shouts through the office.
“My name is Captain Elizabeth Hyun. I am with the San Francisco Fire Department. We are going to get you out of here!”
The Avant & Co offices are absolutely destroyed.
Chunks of floor are missing, walls are cracked, windows are shattered, and furniture is everywhere. The sprinklers have turned off, and everything is covered in a mess of sticky water and thick plaster dust.
People stagger past Captain Hyun and me as we hold the doors for the emergency exit. Their eyes are wide, their faces pale and, in many cases, bloody. Some of them move with limps, or gingerly cradle one of their arms.
“This is fucking bad,” I whisper to Captain Hyun. My voice is hoarse—I wonder if, in the chaos of the initial quake, I was screaming. My eyes still itch and burn from the dust that got in them, but at least I can see again.
“It is,” Hyun says. She assists an elderly secretary over a pile of rubble and into the stairwell.
“Hurry!” she calls after the secretary.
“We have to help people,” I say.
Captain Hyun’s face is grim. “What we need is to get to our truck. We don’t have our PPE, we don’t have any of our tools or equipment. Right now, we’re not much use to anyone here.”
I nod. She’s right. “I think everyone has made it down the stairs. Should we do a sweep?”
“Quickly. Carefully. Stay together.”
We move with practiced care through the office. It is almost unrecognizable from a few moments ago. Walls have caved in, pipes have burst, and large sections of the ceiling and floor are just gone.
“Anyone here?!” we shout as we carefully and quickly check each room. We don’t see anyone until we get to the bullpen of cubicles, and someone groans loudly.
“Shit,” I whisper, carefully picking over collapsed cubicles and office furniture. “Who’s there?!”
“Help!” someone cries.
“Nick!” Captain Hyun shouts. “Here!”
She struggles with a section of ceiling that collapsed, pinning several wrecked cubicles beneath it.
I wade through the wreckage to her, add my strength to hers, and we shove the ceiling tiles and scaffolding off the cubicles. Beneath the collapsed cubicles and dust, someone groans and moves.
“Careful,” I say, dropping to my knees. “Don’t move, yet. I need to make sure you’re okay.”
The dust clears, and I see now that the person trapped is Callum, the intern who was helping Mr. Boucher when we arrived. His legs are pinned beneath his broken desk.
“Callum, right?” I say. “You were helping Mr. Boucher when I got there.”
His eyes widen as he realizes that we’re SSFD.
“Oh, fuck,” he gasps. “Thank fucking god.”
“Are you hurt?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Just can’t get out from under here.”
“Cap, I need something for leverage.”
“I see a coat rack in this office,” Hyun says. “Give me one second.”
She carefully crosses to an open doorway of a destroyed corner office, watching her step and scanning the floor beneath her as she inches forward.
“Was it an earthquake?” Callum asks, his voice trembling. I glance down at him. He can’t be more than twenty or twenty-one.
“Yep,” I say. “Unfortunately. Looks like it was a pretty big one, so we want to get you outta here before the aftershocks.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Got it!” Captain Hyun shouts.
I glance over at her. She holds the coat rack in one hand, steadying herself as she picks her way out of the office with its shattered glass walls, aiming for us.
“Good,” I say. “We can use that to….”
A rumble shakes the building. The floors rattle beneath us, the walls crack and splinter, more ceiling tiles drop, and dust fills the air.
Callum screams in pain as the desk bounces on his legs, and I collapse beside him. There’s nothing I can do right now but hold on.
“Captain!” I scream.
“I’m here!”
Through the shaking and the dust, I see Captain Hyun, clinging to the doorframe. There is another awful cracking sound from right beneath us.
My blood running cold, I look down and see cracks spiderwebbing through the floor.
“Nick, I—” Captain Hyun starts to shout over the roar of the aftershock, but then a deafening sound of tearing metal, breaking glass, and splitting stones.
The floor jolts to the side, like we’re on a moving train. Through the thick, dusty air, I see a deep, jagged crack form in the walls. Bright light lances through the dust, and then cold wind follows. Wind—up here?
“Captain!” I scream, but I can’t hear my voice over the sound of the building tearing in half.
I try to stand, fighting the floor’s movement. My eyes lock with Hyun’s, and I reach for her, though she’s a dozen feet away from me.
“Elizabeth!”
Her lips move, saying my name, but I don’t hear her. I want to run, to grab her, to pull her to safety—
The ceiling thunders down on top of her, and I don’t have time to scream before the floor itself rips away and an entire half of the building collapses just in front of me.
And then everything is still.