Chapter 79
Tristan
Help! Somebody, help!”
I hear the shouting when I’m well into the crevice, crawling on my stomach, the ragged concrete scraping my body with each painful inch.
The voice comes from in front of me and a little below. It sounds like a woman, or possibly a young boy.
“Hello?!” I shout as loud as I can, which is difficult because I can’t really take a deep breath right now, squeezing through concrete slabs. Jesus, if there’s another aftershock, I’m going to get crushed.
“Help!” the voice repeats. “I’m down here!”
“Down here” isn’t very helpful, but I do recognize the voice.
“Mathilde?!” I cry.
“Yes! Who’s there?”
“Tristan! I’m the paramedic who got Boucher. Did you also fall through the street? Where are you?”
“I don’t know where I am! It’s dark, and I can’t see anything!”
Her voice is muffled, but it gets clearer with each inch I progress through my rough, cramped tunnel.
The tunnel is widening, giving me more breathing room. I click my flashlight back on—I’ve been saving its battery—and see that, in just a few feet, the crevice I’ve been crawling through opens up into a much larger space.
With a grunt, I drag myself to that space and wiggle out of the crevice.
I shine my light in a slow circle. As I expected, I’m inside an underground parking garage.
Car alarms wail in the distance, but the corner of the garage I’ve found myself in is relatively empty, just a few cars crushed by huge slabs of concrete. There is rubble all around me.
“Mathilde!” I shout, my voice hoarse. “Do you see my flashlight?”
I wave it around like a signal.
“No! I can’t see anything! It’s dark!”
There.
She might not be able to see me, but I can tell that her voice is coming from a mound of rubble to my left. A large mound of rubble.
“Okay! I think I’ve found you, Mathilde. Do you have your phone on you, or anything else that has a light?”
“No, I lost my phone!”
“That’s okay. I’ve got my flashlight, and I’m going to see if I can dig you out. Are you hurt?”
“I—I think my leg is broken.”
Shit.
Getting out of here with the two of us was already going to be a challenge. Add to that a broken leg? Nearly impossible. Even if I wasn’t hurt, it would be a challenge.
“Try to stay still,” I say in as calm a voice as I can muster. “I’ll get you out of there. I promise.”
I’m well aware that making a promise like that in a crisis isn’t always the best idea. After all, I don’t know if it’s a promise I can actually keep.
But I can damn well give it a try.
There’s a slight tremor, and Mathilde screams. I brace myself against a slab of concrete. The tremor passes quickly—just a small aftershock, but I know there will be other big ones.
“You okay?” I call.
It sounds like she’s crying. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Just hang tight. I’m gonna start digging.”