Chapter 91
Tristan
Pain. That’s all I feel, all I know: pain. For the third time today, I wake up in subterranean darkness, my entire body protesting in agony.
I rub my head, and my hand comes away warm and wet with fresh blood.
“Mathilde?” I croak.
We had been hobbling together to the mound of rubble that blocked our exit when the aftershock hit.
Concrete rained down around us.
Mathilde shoved me forward.
Out of the path of a crashing slab.
The last thing I saw before I hit my head was the car-sized piece of concrete crushing her.
She saved my life by sacrificing herself.
I feel like I’m going to be sick again, both from the pain and from the grief.
“Mathilde!” I repeat, trying to shout, but my throat is raw from dust and dehydration.
My heart races, my breathing is rapid and uneven. I’m on the edge of a panic attack.
No, Tristan. Breathe. Breathe.
I squeeze my eyes shut, grabbing fistfuls of dirt and concrete shards, the rough edges cutting my already wrecked palms.
“Keep it together,” I say out loud. “You can’t give up. You can’t give up.”
After a few minutes, my breathing slows, my heartbeat calms, and I feel a little less like I’m trapped underground beneath thousands of tons of concrete and dirt and metal.
I can’t find my flashlight, but my eyes adjust slowly to the darkness. The flashlight is definitely buried under some of the new rubble. There’s no getting to it.
A small white hand sticks out from beneath a slab of rubble, stained with dirt and blood. I swallow bile as my gorge rises, and crawl forward until I can feel the delicate wrist. No pulse flickers beneath Mathilde’s cold skin.
She’s dead.
I lower my forehead to the ground.
“I’m so sorry,” I sob. “I never wanted to break my promise.”