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I awoke face down. The plushly carpeted floor of the luxury suite now was full of sand. When I moved my head, the sand pricked the skin of my face, as if I was already scratched.
I tried to move my whole body, but something heavy was on top of me. Or was I paralyzed and merely imagining that heavy weight? I tried to lift the top half of my body, to turn enough to see what was on top of me, but I couldn’t. It hurt. Too heavy. All right. Start with checking myself out. My right arm moved okay, but was trapped in position. My left arm moved, too, but also was pinned by debris. My head hurt and my right cheek burned, but I didn’t feel any blood oozing or dripping. I wasn’t in pain exactly, but it was hard to take a deep breath. The weight on top of me kept me immobile. For some reason it felt soft.
Scarier to try to get a sensation from my toes. Could I feel them? Could I flex them? Yes, but most of my torso and thighs were stuck under some object I couldn’t see. Part of a wall? Seats? Maybe seats, which would explain the softness touching my body, yet also why I couldn’t escape. They had saved my life, but the cushions didn’t have enough give to allow me to wiggle out from under.
I couldn’t use my signal watch. It took two hands. Although I could move my arms, I couldn’t move them enough. My right arm was caught under the heavy thing, too. The Dimensional Diamond couldn’t help, because I had to rub it to make it work. Anyway, I couldn’t move either hand to my neck to touch the jewel. I was pinned.
The crowd noise had abated only a little. On a good day, a ballpark took at least a half an hour to empty. This wasn’t a good day. I hadn’t been out for long, then. Unless the destruction had become so intense that people couldn’t leave?
I shouted for help. No one came. Of course not. The occupants of luxury suites were all about themselves first. Unlike the other thirty-nine thousand people attending, the A-listers could leave the stadium within a minute or two, either by elevator or by running down the dedicated stairs next to the elevator. They were gone, to their limos.
I thought bitterly of how much I had enjoyed many limo rides with Eric over the past year. They made our life more relaxing.
I shouted for help again, at intervals, until my voice couldn’t shout anymore. I had to stop. I couldn’t expand my lungs enough to make a loud noise for long.
I worked to remove the glove from my hand, to try to make the watch signal again. Impossible. Either the watch itself was dead, or I’d lost or crushed the phone it talked to. It wasn’t optimized for voice command input, more’s the pity. I couldn’t remember if this smart watch was a wholly independent device, but since I couldn’t activate it, that hardly mattered. If there even was a signal in this bunker. It did feel like a bunker, until I started to notice creaking noises.
A piece of concrete fell on the rug in front of me, along with a stream of powdery debris. Then I heard another cracking noise. The ceiling must be caving in. I shouted again, desperation in my voice. “Help! Help! I’m trapped!”
Nobody came. The crowd noise dimmed even further. No more explosions happened. In another room in this vast building, Roland and Sarah were standing guard over the self-declared nobody who nevertheless had the smarts to arrange a very lengthy and complex series of attacks on the comicon. And the money to pay henchmen. All because he’d been laid off. If every American who lost a job did that, our society would break down into chaos.
Comicon’s resentment-fueled secret enemy had been right about one thing. No one paid any attention to his behind-the-scenes work. He’d been all over this case from the beginning and no one had noticed.
I hoped Sarah and Roland would start to miss me and come looking for me, before the ceiling caved in.
Another piece fell.
I shouted again. I screamed and tried to raise myself off the floor and throw off the heavy piece that trapped me, but to no avail. Even desperation wasn’t enough to make me super strong. How ironic that with all the superpowers I had used through the Dimensional Diamond, and all the powers I’d used last year, I had nothing now to save myself. Brilliant. If I ever got out of this jam, I should remember not to trust in comic book objects with weird mystical powers.
More bits of concrete rained down, some pinging onto whatever held me captive, others hitting my head. Sand? Sand was part of a concrete mix.
I shouted again.
I tried to move more of either arm from underneath what pinned me. It hurt, and I got nowhere. If there hadn’t been the Great Wall of Wherever two inches from my head, I’d have tried getting my hands together, but there was no way.
Was that a noise in the hall? “I’m in here! Help!” I cried, and kept it up as loud and long as I could. My throat was dry from the sand and dust. It hurt to yell.
The door opened. “I’m here,” I said. “Help me.”
Somebody cursed.
“I’m over here,” I called, trying to make my voice sound strong, but coughing on the last word.
“My god,” said Eric. There was something rough in his voice.
“I’m okay,” I said, “but I’m pinned under something and can’t move it.”
His large hand touched my cheek. “I’ll get you out.”
He shoved at what pinned me. It barely moved. He shoved again, and it moved again but then settled down on me, harder. I couldn’t stifle a groan.
“Sorry,” he said. “That won’t work.” He moved away.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for something I can use as a lever,” he said. He moved farther away. Another little shower of concrete fell on my head.
“The ceiling is crumbling,” I said.
Silence. Then his steps moved further away. “Where are you going?” I cried.
“To get help. You’re under an entire row of seats, plus the concrete that once anchored them.”
“Don’t leave.” I couldn’t stop the sob in my voice. “Don’t leave me.”
He returned to me briefly and placed a couple of seat cushions—thick, heavy leather cushions from the fancy club seats—over my head. Before he did, he touched my cheek again. “These should protect you a little. I’ll be back soon.”
“There’s no time,” I said, whispering as I heard his footsteps retreat, and proceed into the corridor.
“Oh, god.” I breathed out, my fear level suddenly causing my heart to pound heavily. I wanted to scream for him to come back, not leave me here alone and trapped again. I wanted to snivel, to get hysterical and scream and cry. Yet how could he save me by himself? He was strong, but he wasn’t a superhero. Even if he found a lever, how could it be enough, when the object crushing me wouldn’t move? The lever would crush me first. If the ceiling didn’t before he returned.
Was his touch on my cheek the last human touch I would ever know?
Breathe.
More concrete rattled down, sliding off the cushions protecting my head. If the ceiling fell, they wouldn’t save me. The ceilings in the ballpark were all concrete, not the pressed sawdust and cardboard in a home or the plastic from an office ceiling.
A larger piece of ceiling hit the cushion. I suppressed a moan. It had been cowardly of me to beg Eric to stay. I wouldn’t wail and cry now. I’d known the risks when I interfered with Nameless Guy’s efforts to destroy the comicon. I’d been in danger before when I’d taken on the role of Temporary Superheroine. Even full-time superheroes had trouble doing the job right, so why should I expect to ace it with only one weapon in my arsenal?
The Dimensional Diamond. Crap. I should have told Eric to pull the Dimensional Diamond off my neck and put it in my hand. Then I could have saved myself. Why hadn’t I thought of the diamond? I was going to die here because I never did think when Eric was around. I waited to see what he would say or do. I got all girly and let him, the big, strong, take-charge type, take care of me. Or betray me. Now I would die because I’d forgotten I had the power to save myself.
If I could have moved my hands to touch my face, I would have slapped myself silly. Then I would have grabbed the damn diamond and shored up the ceiling with an application of fourth dimensional power, and waited patiently until the Jaws of Life could come extricate me—or whatever Eric brought to get me out.
It wasn’t the jaws, but close enough.
I couldn’t see what Eric and the men he’d rounded up did at first. All I heard was his terse, “I’ve brought help.”
Then, “Chloe? Answer me.”
“I’m okay,” I said. With an effort that hurt my chest, I said it louder. “I’m okay.”
Someone pushed the piece of concrete off the cushion. Indistinct mutterings were followed by “Stand there.” “Put the stretcher there.” “Grab hold.” “Okay, on the count of three.”
“One, two, three.”
A great groaning of metal, and suddenly the pressure was off me. The cushions were pulled away from my head, and Eric bent down and picked me up in his arms. He strode from the suite. I counted four other men who quickly followed, two of them hefting a metal ambulance stretcher that must have been the lever they used to free me. “Leave it,” he said over his shoulder.
We passed through the suite doorway as a thunderous sound of falling concrete came from behind us. The men ran for the stairwell, Eric still carrying me as if I weighed nothing. I wanted to say I could walk, to insist I was fine. I didn’t feel fine. I was alive, though, thanks to him.
The men all ran down the stairs. Even Eric, carrying me. At the ground floor, we exited the stadium itself past a lineup of police. An ambulance was waiting for us.
They had another stretcher inside their vehicle, but I refused to let them drag me inside. I made Eric put me down. “I’m fine. I’m too young to have a heart attack from delayed shock.”
“Your hand is burned,” one of them noted.
The jewel’s work. “That happened yesterday,” I said in an offhand manner.” I deliberately didn’t meet Eric’s eyes. I felt around my neck. It was bare. “My crystal’s gone.”
Knowing how powerful it was, Eric still said, “Probably crushed when the ceiling fell into the suite. Does it matter?”
“No, I guess not. It was only a crystal.”
We walked toward his limo, but I kept stumbling.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked.
“Don’t let them drag me to the hospital. I’ll be all right in a minute or two.” I was shaky, that was all. Very shaky.
Then I blacked out.