Chapter 100
Nick
The rescue isn’t quick, and it takes a whole team. Charlie, Vinnie, Mila, and I dig as much as we can with our hands and our tools. Elena helps us, and then radios for USAR to “get their asses over here, we have a firefighter trapped.”
Once USAR arrives, the progress isn’t any faster, but it is steady. Working with them, we carve out a gap in the rubble, using makeshift braces and jacks to shore up the opening.
After we get past the largest pieces of rubble, we see the top of the ambulance, crushed by pieces of concrete.
I thank any god out there, or the Universe itself, that Tristan somehow survived that fall.
And I fiercely hope that he continues to fight to live.
The problem is that we don’t know where, exactly, he is beneath all the rubble.
The experts from USAR are wary of using power tools to cut through some of the bigger pieces of rubble, because they don’t want to hurt him accidentally, and they’re also wary of moving some of the smaller pieces of debris to make a tunnel of sorts, because the debris might be load-bearing.
USAR has let me stand by as a spotter, while Charlie, Vinnie, and Mila have gone back to helping others. The USAR rescuers set up floodlights so that we can see as they work, and I keep my eyes fixed on the growing hole in the ground.
Two of the guys from USAR have their Jaws of Life and are debating the best access point, when I see it:
Movement in the debris.
Immediately, I rush forward, slipping and sliding into the hole, ignoring the USAR guys who tell me to stand back, that it isn’t safe.
“Someone’s down there!” I shout, pushing past them and falling to my knees on the rubble.
A patch of pulverized concrete, dirt, and dust has shifted, sinking, as if something is moving beneath it.
“Tristan!” I shout, digging barehanded through the debris, not caring about the dozens of cuts and scrapes I get as I tear through the dirt and concrete.
“Tristan! Can you hear me?”
The debris shifts again, and then—
A hand.
A slender, bloody, dirty hand shoves through a gap between two jagged slabs of concrete and grabs my wrist.
I would know that hand anywhere.
“Tristan!”
He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive.
His hand squeezes my wrist, and somewhere from within the rubble, I hear my name: “Nick…”
“We’re going to get you out,” I say through my sobs. “I promise.”
As the USAR guys gently pry me away from him, as they discuss how they’re going to use their tools to get him out, I swear I hear him say it again: I love you.
Using the Jaws of Life, they pry open a larger hole in the rubble, and then they’re reaching inside and pulling someone out.
Then Tristan is kneeling on the ground, covered in dirt and sweat and blood, and he looks up and sees me, and I run to him, I take him in my arms, and I swear that I’m never going to let go.