Chapter 96
Nick
Nick! Oh, my god, Nick!” Charlie’s voice rings out through the distant sounds of sirens, the murmur of triage doctors, and the eerie groaning of unstable buildings.
“Nicolas Gutierrez-Pena, get your motherfucking ass over here!” Charlie shouts.
Charlie leans out of our truck, waving frantically. I stand slowly on aching legs. I’ve been carefully digging through rubble for what truly feels like an eternity. Now, I limp over to the truck.
“What—”
“Get in here,” Charlie says, dragging me the last few steps to the truck and thrusting a headset into my hands.
“Our transmitter is broken,” he says, “so we can’t send messages, but we can receive them.”
My eyes widen. “What do you—”
“Shut the fuck up and listen.”
I strap the headset over my ears and, almost immediately, let out a choked sob. Tristan’s voice, staticky and clearly pained, is in my ears.
“I repeat,” he says, “this is Firefighter Tristan Cavanagh with the 27th. Is there anyone there?”
Yes! I want to shout. Yes! I’m here! Where are you?
But I know he won’t be able to hear me.
There’s a rush of static—a sigh—through the radio.
“It’s very dark down here,” Tristan says, “and I’m hurt pretty bad.
I was trying to save someone, but she didn’t make it.
The last aftershock… she pushed me out of the way of some falling rubble.
It should’ve been me who got crushed, but she sacrificed herself for me.
I don’t know why she did it. I didn’t even know her…
. Her name was Mathilde. I don’t want to forget her.
If anyone can hear me, please find her mom.
Mathilde wanted her mom to know that she loved her.
She… she wishes that she’d visited her mom more.
It would be nice if we could let her mom know.
Well, I don’t think I’ll be able to let her know.
I don’t think I’m getting out of here. But if someone could let her know, that would be nice. ”
Another sigh from Tristan. This one sounds pained.
My hands shake in my lap. “Tell us where you are,” I beg in a tight whisper. “Please, tell us where we can find you.”
“Before she died,” Tristan continues, “Mathilde said something to me about hope. She said hope would get me through this. I’ll be honest, I don’t have a lot of hope right now. But I realized that I finally have a reason to hope. His name is Nick.”