of the largest room on the second floor. As welcome as a beam of light would be, whenever the sun
pressed through a crack, it only drew her attention to how putrid this place really was.
Something shattered beneath the weight of her rubber-soled shoe, small and narrow like a crack
pipe. Steady footsteps sounded behind her, echoing with heavy breath. She rushed around the pile of
nails, wood, and wire, in search of Pearl or Lucian.
The low baritone of male voices drew her attention. Lucian’s broad shoulders filled the doorway of
what was likely once a bedroom.
“Jesus, don’t let that be her . . .” he whispered.
“I’ll go check,” Parker said and Lucian stilled him before he entered the room to inspect whatever
they were staring at.
“She’s looking at us.”
Evelyn stilled. There was something so wrong with that statement. Her blood ran cold and her limbs
trembled. Her sense of speech disappeared as she watched Lucian’s expression. Her mother was dead.
She had to be dead. Why did he look like that?
Halting footsteps echoed behind her, then someone grabbed her arm and she screamed. Dugan held
her with unbreakable strength.
Lucian pivoted and his face contorted with outrage. “Get her out of here!”
Words she couldn’t decipher were said and voices rose. Parker stepped out of sight and that’s when
everything stopped moving in slow motion and picked up double time.
There was a horrible creak and Lucian turned. He shouted and Dugan ran, albeit with a hunching
gait, after Lucian. Evelyn chased after Dugan, who blocked her way. She wedged her body into the
room just as Parker’s body lost balance. The house moaned like a burg slamming into the earth from a
thousand miles away. Lucian threw out his arms and Parker skidded across the floor. The noise
became deafening and suddenly the floor collapsed, a cloud of dust and rotted wood particles rising in
its place.
As the gaping hole came into view, every nerve ending tensed and she screamed at the top of her
lungs. He was gone.
“Lucian!”
Dugan restrained her as she kicked and screamed, fully prepared to fall into hell after him. As the
dust settled, her frantic eyes landed on her mother’s face. She wasn’t blinking. With all this dust, she wasn’t moving, and a trail of dried blood trailing from her discolored mouth matted with the dirt
falling through the air.
It was too much. With superhuman strength, she threw Dugan off of her and rushed down the stairs,
twisting her ankle on the broken step along the way.
She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead.
Limping, she gripped the doorjamb. There was an enormous pile of scrap. “Lucian! Answer me!”
The dust was still settling. The leather sole of his shoe peeked out beneath a board hammered with
rusty nails. “Jesus Christ!”
Like claws, her hands reached into the debris, careless of scrapes and cuts, her flesh tearing as she
sifted the larger pieces out of the way. “Baby, say something. Please.” Where was his face?
Hurling a large piece of wood out of the way, she finally found him. His eyes were closed and his
skin was covered with fallen clay and dirt. She carefully climbed over the debris and touched his face, leaning close to hear him breathing. “Lucian, Lucian, baby, open your eyes. Please open your eyes.”
Her face burned as tears smudged past her lashes. The grit was blinding. “He’s not waking up!
Somebody help me!”
There was movement above her, but she couldn’t take her gaze off of Lucian. It wasn’t right for him
to lay there so unconscious and vulnerable. She pressed her lips to his and whispered, begging for him
to please open his eyes. He groaned and she jerked back.
“Shh, it’s okay. You’re okay. Just relax. We’ll get you out of here.”
A crude curse rasped softly over her whimpered cries.
She started as Dugan was suddenly behind her. He lifted away the boards she couldn’t move and did
a quick check of his body. He cursed. “I’m going to have to call an ambulance. I don’t know if
anything’s broken and I don’t want to shift him and make it worse.”
Dugan made the call and she continued to comfort Lucian any way she could. Within minutes the
whine of sirens in the distance could be heard. Her body wouldn’t stop shaking.
She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead.
Her hands gripped her hair and pulled hard.
He’s gonna be okay. He’s gonna be okay. He’s gonna be okay.
When the EMTs arrived, she slid into the corner, feeling more at home in the shadows of a crack
house than in their presence. Silently, she rocked as a brace was clamped around Lucian’s neck and a
plank was slid beneath his body. Her mind was going a mile a minute.
Straps wrapped around him as he was lifted up, and then he was on a gurney. As they wheeled him
away, the gaping void was too far to cross, too real, too painful, too terrifying. He was leaving her.