DIANA KNELT UNDER the tall chemistry tables and tried to get her bearings. Fear. She could still taste it. Still feel it pulsing inside her.
Don’t panic. As long as she didn’t panic, everything would turn out okay. Her father always said that true leaders kept their cool in situations in which everyone else would lose their heads. She and Tim had talked about that a lot during the last few months. Success required the ability to do what had to be done without letting anything—like fear—get in the way. Her father and Tim never panicked. She wouldn’t do it now.
She took out her phone and dialed Tim, while everything around her creaked and wires hung from the ceiling like a scene out of a bad movie.
No answer.
She frowned and crawled out from under the table with her cell phone in hand, then surveyed everything around her. Where was the backpack? She’d had it when she’d been dangling from the desk leg, hanging on for dear life. Then she’d let go, with nothing beneath her, and had hit the floor below feet first, sending a jolt of pain up her legs and spine. More pain when she’d crashed forward to her knees, almost smashing her face into one of the desks.
She had to find that bag.
She had to get out of this room.
Her thoughts tumbled over one another. She couldn’t see the doorway to the hall. But there was another door on the side of the room that led to a pass-through closet, which opened to the hallway. The chemistry teachers used it for storage and as a break room, equipped with a coffeepot, a microwave, and enough microwave popcorn to feed the entire school.
Diana glanced at her phone, then back at the door. Could she get to the closet? If she did reach it, would she be able to get the door open? Maybe she’d find the bag on the way. If so, she’d—
“Hello?” a voice called.
Diana looked up, trying to decide where the sound was coming from. Must be from the part of the third floor that hadn’t relocated to this level.
“Help!” The voice was closer. And it belonged to a boy. “Hello? Please? Is there anyone there?”
Diana checked the time, then slid the phone back in her pocket as the voice yelled again from above. “We need help!”
She looked around and spotted a couple of desks that looked like they were wedged firmly in place enough to climb.
“Hey!” she yelled as she squeezed sideways though a narrow gap in the broken chemistry tables and reached the desks. “Hello? Are you there? I’m on the second floor. Are you guys okay?”
“Do you think anyone in this place is okay?” the boy yelled. The voice was vaguely familiar. “Kaitlin is trapped and hurt, and I can’t get her out on my own. She needs help.”
Diana could use that too.
No, she told herself. She wasn’t the one who needed help, because she was the one in control. But if she wanted to help someone else, she needed to get back up to the third floor. Diana studied the pile of desks, looking for something stable to climb.
She reached up for a board and tugged on it to make sure it would hold her weight. Then she put a foot on a chunk of ceiling and began to climb. “I’m coming.”
She had to try several times before she found a secure place to put her foot, then pulled herself up.
Ouch. A splinter dug deep into her finger, and she gulped back tears. Compared to the cuts and scrapes on the rest of her, it wasn’t a big deal. She grabbed the beam tight and kept climbing, looking for the next desk leg or metal beam or cabinet that didn’t shift when she took hold.
Looking up, she saw patches of blue. The sky and the sunshine and the bird that flew by seemed unreal. She could also hear the boy’s voice from above floating down. It sounded fainter than before. He must have moved down the hall—Great. Thanks for the support and help.
Diana started climbing again, this time faster as she focused on the sound of the sirens that grew louder the higher she climbed through the gaping hole in the ceiling. More first responders must be coming—probably from other towns.
Diana shoved aside a chunk of ceiling tile and sent it thudding below. She was almost to the top of the chemistry room’s ceiling when she spotted her red backpack in the wreckage beneath her.
“Hey!”
She jolted at the loud voice and pitched forward. She grabbed tightly on to a metal bar and yelped as it cut into the palm of her hand.
“You okay?”
“Not really.” She automatically checked the angry words she wanted to hurl at him. Not ladylike. Not acceptable. Still they churned and pounded inside her head, fighting to break free. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath—two—three, then said, “But I’ll live, as long as you don’t scare the hell out of me again.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I thought you could see me, since I can see you.”
He could?
Diana glanced around as much as she dared. She was high enough to see the third floor, or the part of it that hadn’t collapsed to the classroom below. But what caught her attention was the smoke beyond the windows and the licks of fire.
She yanked her eyes away from the flames and craned her neck to look behind her at where the exit had to be. A shadow shifted beyond the doorway.
“Do you need help?” he yelled.
“Give me a minute.” She looked down one more time, then stepped onto a metal beam that at one point must have been a part of the second-floor ceiling, gasping when it shimmied under her feet. Her stomach dropped, but the beam held. Most of the floor between here and the door was cracked or had crashed down into the classroom below.
“I can see the doorway,” she called. “But most of the floor is missing. I am going to try to walk along this beam, only it doesn’t go all the way to the door. I might need a little help when I get closer.”
Diana inched forward on the beam, using another piece of metal dangling from the ceiling to help her keep her balance. She held her breath and judged the distance between the doorway and where she stood. More than two feet. Probably less than three.
If she could get a running jump, she’d be able to get a whole lot farther than that. But on this beam, she doubted she could get much power behind a leap. If she didn’t make it or the floor didn’t hold, she would be in trouble. But as her father said, sometimes you had to take a calculated risk in order to earn the payoff. And she was going to need someone to grab her in case she totally screwed this up.
“Are you ready?”
Diana saw long, dark hair appear in the doorway. The guy stumbled and grabbed the door frame tightly as the floor beneath his feet began to give way. He jumped back just before a small chunk fell below, leaving Diana with several additional inches to jump. But now she could see the guy’s face.
Z.
She stared at him, trying to decide why he was here. In school. Today.
She’d never talked to him, but she knew the kind of trouble people said he was always getting into. He was the last person who should have been in this building the week before the semester started, and certainly not the person she wanted to count on for help. All the piercings and tattoos didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
“I need you to catch me on the other side, since the floor is falling apart.” As he had just demonstrated. Oh, God.
Z looked down the hallway, then back at Diana. “Just tell me what you need me to do.”
“Stand back one step,” she directed. “I’m going to jump as far as I can. If the floor gives way beneath me, I’m going to need to grab on to you, and you can’t let go.” Please don’t let go. “Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Z said as he took a step back and transferred his weight to the front of his feet like athletes did when they needed to be ready to move fast. Good. If his reflexes were faster than his intellect, she might have a chance. He glanced down the hall, then back at Diana. “I’m ready when you are.”
“Great. Give me a second.” She could do this. She wasn’t the type to fail. It wasn’t allowed.
Taking a deep breath, she slowly inched back so she would have a little room to get some momentum before jumping. Then, before she could think too hard about how stupid this was or why she was doing it at all, she looked down at the beam to make sure she was putting her feet in the right place, then hurled herself forward.
She locked eyes with the angry but solid-looking Z. Everything inside her tensed as she flew over the space between the beam and the doorway. She let out a whoosh of air as her right foot hit the floor on the other side just as her left shoulder collided with the door frame.
“No. Oh, God.” Diana stumbled. The floor cracked beneath her feet. Frantic, she reached out for the door frame and screamed as she pitched backwards. A hand clamped around her wrist like a vise and yanked her through the doorway with such force that she lost her balance. She collided with Z, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Z on the floor. Diana sprawled on top of him—all the air knocked out of her.
Diana wheezed in a painful breath, trying not to panic at how hard it was to fill her lungs.
“Can you get off of me?” he groaned. “You’re heavy.”
Heavy? She’d just risked her life because the idiot asked her to, and he was calling her heavy? Seriously?
Taking in a slightly less strained breath, Diana put her hands on Z’s black T-shirt. He grunted as she pushed hard against him and climbed to her feet. While he struggled to get upright, Diana checked the urge to kick him and instead felt her side pocket for her phone. There was no service. She had no way to reach beyond the walls for advice on what to do next.
“What are you doing?” Z asked, leaning over to look at the display.
She shut the screen down and said, “I want to call for help, but there’s no signal.”
“There might be one down here. Come on.” He grabbed her arm and yanked her down the hall, almost pulling her off her feet.