Chapter 101
Tristan
I figured that the devastation from the earthquake would be bad, but actually seeing it now is horrifying. Buildings reduced to rubble. Torn up pavement. Crushed cars. Injured people. Dead bodies.
So many dead.
Including, I just learned, Captain Hyun. The news barely registers in my numb mind. Elizabeth Hyun, who always seemed so constant to me, is dead.
Nick walks over from where he has been talking to some civilian volunteers. He has a paper cup of coffee in his hands.
“Need a drink?” he asks, sitting beside me.
I take the offered coffee. “Have anything stronger?”
“Sadly, no,” he says.
I lean my head against his shoulder. “There’s still so much to do. I didn’t find anyone else underground, but I’m sure there are more people trapped in there. We have to go looking.”
Nick carefully pulls me closer, his strong arm a comfortable cage around me. “I think you need to go to a hospital,” he says.
“I want to help.”
“You look like you were run over by a truck.”
“Actually, I had a parking garage dropped on my head. Get your facts straight.”
Neither of us laughs. It doesn’t feel like the time for humor.
“You know,” Nick says quietly, “your radio was working when you were underground.”
I almost drop my coffee. “Really?”
“Really. That’s how we knew you were alive. I would’ve never given up looking for you, but there were many other people we had to find, and only so many resources. I was trying to hold onto hope, but after we found Captain Hyun, it was hard. But then you radioed.”
I look up at him, at his soft smile, at his dirt-streaked face, at his eyes glimmering with tears. “You heard what I said?”
“Almost every word,” he whispers.
If I had more tears to cry, I would.
But I have no more tears, and hardly any words, so I say the only words that seem to matter right now: “I love you, Nick.”
He leans down and kisses me.
“I love you, too, Tristan.”