Ryan heard something—words. Stop it. Alone.
Nathan.
Desperately, he scrabbled under bent beams, dodging dislodged brick and stone. It was hard to make sense of what he was seeing, everything upside-down, walls collapsed, ceiling and floor mixed in rubble and dust. There was no visible sign of Nathan, and he had almost lost all hope, standing in silence, trying to hear something—anything. There was a sound, a movement, and finally he could track it to a large steel beam that pinned Nathan down to the hard floor.
“Oh God, oh God, no,” he stammered, falling to his knees next to the mess of twisted metal.
It was difficult to make out Nathan’s features with his eyes closed and covered in gray dust. Ryan stared, shocked, for a few moments, then reality kicked back in, and shaking, he reached for Nathan’s neck, locating a fluttering pulse. Still alive. He let out the breath that he didn’t even realize he’d been holding—a sigh of relief. He dropped his head nearer to Nathan’s face, feeling his breath and touching a shaking hand to his forehead. He was unconscious but alive. As Ryan considered what to do, where to start, Nathan’s eyes opened suddenly, an intense green against his gray, dusty face. Ryan rocked back on his heels in sudden surprise.
“Nathan, oh my God, what hurts? Where are you hurt?”
Nathan didn’t say anything in return. His unfocused eyes looked directly at Ryan, then blinked. He frowned, then it seemed to make sense, and his eyes widened as he coughed, starting to bring his head up to Ryan.
“Adam,” he rasped, lifting his hand as much as he could. Ryan saw the imprint of the cellphone keys in his flesh. His voice was so quiet, but Ryan understood what he meant—tell his family that he was with Nathan, that Nathan wasn’t alone.
There was a signal but the battery was low, and he tried not to focus on the fact that probably hundreds, even thousands, of people were trying to get through to loved ones and the network would be overloaded. He thumbed through the contacts, located Adam, and keyed the name, holding it to his ear, his palm resting flat on Nathan’s head as he lowered it back to the cold stone floor. He was examining the area around the trapped man while the cell tried to connect. It took five tries, and Ryan sent his thanks skyward when it finally did. He knew what he needed to ask. He needed to know what the situation was with emergency services, what was happening in LA.
“Nathan?”
“No. It’s Ryan, I’m here with Nathan. Battery’s low.”
“What are you—”
“I was outside when it hit. Tell me what’s going on, Adam.”
“Fire in the hills, spreading towards LA. You need to get away from the apartment, Ryan. I’m serious.”
“What about emergency services?”
“Running evac. CNN is showing massive damage downtown. They’re worried about aftershocks, but the fire in the hills, Ryan, the fire is the worst. It’s spreading downwind to LA, right where you are.”
“We’re going now, trust me.” Then, saying no more, he closed the cell, not wanting to waste the battery. What was the point in explaining in detail that it seemed that Nathan was trapped for the duration? No point at all.
He pocketed the cell, then started to feel around Nathan’s trapped limbs. One beam had landed and pinned him from right thigh to his left ankle with no room to move. The beam was twisted and buried deep in a mountain of rubble and debris, and for the life of him, Ryan couldn’t see how he was going to move the damn thing. He tried putting two hundred twenty pounds of gym-honed muscle into pushing it off, but that only elicited a groaning from the structure and a frightened demand to stop from Nathan, who was clearly in pain.
“Nathan, tell me where it hurts,” Ryan said softly, kneeling at Nathan’s side, cradling a hand into his dark hair.
“Pushing on…chest, ribs, now…it hurt my legs…but no more… I can’t feel my legs.” Nathan’s barely there voice rose on a panicked note, and Ryan had to think on his feet.
“They’re just numb, Nathan. The beam is resting on you; it’s just cutting off the circulation.”
“Swear to me, Ry.”
“I swear.” Ryan hoped he came across as firm and convincing. He didn’t know for one minute why Nathan couldn’t feel his legs, but he hoped to God he was right and that it was just pressure on them. “We need to get this off you. I need to make a…” He couldn’t think of the word—something to pivot, to push off the steel. He realized Nathan had said nothing else, and that the man’s eyes had closed again. Damn it, he needed to stay conscious. “Nathan, talk to me. Nathan, I love you. Don’t start checking out on me.”
“’M really tired.” Nathan’s voice was slurring, a combination of exhaustion and shock, and his limbs and torso were trembling visibly.
“Stay with me, Nathan. When I get this off you need to slide out. You need to brace yourself. Can you do that? Nathan… Nathan?” He watched as Nathan pushed with his hands, but it was no use whatsoever. He didn’t have the upper body strength to push himself out, not with possibly cracked ribs and all sorts of other hidden injuries. Ryan certainly wasn’t going to dissuade the positive attempt though. “That’s good, Nathan, just stay still for me. We’ll get you out.”
Again Ryan pushed, but nothing was happening. He forced his entire strength against the steel, hoping for a break, hoping the thing would move enough to drag Nathan free. Almost sobbing with the exertion and frustration of it not moving and completely defeated, he slumped down, touching Nathan’s forehead, listening as Nathan mumbled something incoherent. He lowered his ear to Nathan’s mouth. His eyes caught the water bottle that he imagined Nathan had been holding. Somehow it was still intact and a quarter full, and he dribbled some water into Nathan’s mouth. Water was good. He’d read that somewhere; water is always good.
Nathan coughed then spoke, forcing out words, staccato and urgent.
“Ground…not right…can feel…” The ground?
Ryan understood even as the ground started to move again, subtly rolling under them. It was another shake, and Ryan immediately thought of aftershocks as the entire apartment structure shifted again. Still it was enough to crack supports, and part of the ceiling started to fall. Ryan didn’t think. He threw himself on top of Nathan, protecting his head and praying this wasn’t the end. The ground shifting grew in intensity, shaking loose any item that had gotten wedged in the main quake, and dropping it onto the two men.
“Don’t,” Nathan tried to say over the noise of the falling debris. “You gotta leave, Ry, this is stupid. One of us…”
Ryan tensed as rocks and pieces of rubble crashed down on them, onto his back. He didn’t hear Nathan cry out at all, and Ryan waited until blessed peace came at last following a few groans in the structure and settling debris. Ryan lifted his head, not even thinking of the injuries that had just cut into him, more focused on how the new tremor may have affected Nathan’s position.
“Nathan, I think I can… I can see space here.”
Space where there was none before. There was a clear gap now between the steel and Nathan’s legs. He crouched low and tensed his leg muscles to give him solid purchase, and immediately tried to pull Nathan, but nothing happened.
“Nathan, I need you to help me. Can you help me? Relax, let me pull you out.” He got a good grip under Nathan’s arms, his own hands wet with blood, and pulled, heaving, digging his heels in, and finally, slowly, Nathan moved from under the twisted steel. There was no time for self-congratulation, no time to stop and rest. They needed to get out of here before the next aftershock. The structure about them was precarious at best, hanging on by a few beams and little else.
With the impetus of fear and the adrenaline of action, Ryan lifted Nathan as best he could. Ryan might be built and he might work out every day, but shit, Nathan was no lightweight. A lifeless man in shock was not an easy burden to carry.
“Help me, Nathan, help me—come on—we need to get out of here—daylight—we need some air—come on.” Each word was punctuated with another step towards the hill outside what was left of the apartment complex. Exhausted and drained, Ryan finally slumped to the brown summer grass, sliding Nathan gently to the ground.
“Nathan.” Ryan leaned over him, anxiously poking at his leg and seeing it twitch. He had never felt so relieved. They were outside, they were both alive, and everything was okay. The pain in his back was now a dull ache, but he needed to see what was there, needed Nathan’s help to see if anything was open and needed attention. Thing was, Nathan was lying on the ground, gasping for air, moving his legs, reaching down to touch his chest.
“Ribs?” Ryan asked gently. Nathan opened his eyes and nodded, his eyes glazed and his face creased in a frown.
“Yeah, can’t breathe so well,” he said simply, “but that is nothing compared to the whole leg…shit, my wrist, I…” He subsided into silence.
“Can you stand, Nathan? We need to move.”
“I need some time, just need to catch a fucking breath.”
“We can’t stay.”
“I can’t go anywhere. Shit, Ry, we need to stay and wait for help.”
“Adam said there are fires up on the ridge behind us, so we need to move. Move down, ’cause they’re coming this way.” Ryan swore as Nathan visibly paled, fully aware of what he had just revealed, that Nathan had been trapped in the path of a forest fire above LA.
“Fuck.” Nathan struggled to stand, his legs not really letting him stand on his own. Ryan was up in an instant, helping him, linking his hands around Nathan’s back, Nathan swayed for a moment, his hands coming to rest on Ryan’s lower back, slipping and sliding against wet material. He finally grabbed a handful of material that gave him purchase with his good hand. His other refused to obey what he wanted it to do. Ryan tried not to grimace, urging Nathan to lean against the twisted gate to the park area.
“Turn the fuck round,” Nathan bit out. He held out his hand in front of him and it was coated with fresh blood.
Ryan winced at the harshness in Nathan’s words but turned nonetheless. “Ryan, fuck—your back is shredded.”
“Is it bad?”
“Aren’t you in pain?”
“Just tell me, Nathan, is it bad, bleeding badly?”
“More of an ooze than a gush,” Nathan finally said.
Ryan sighed in relief. “Then it’ll be fine. We will be fine.”
“Shit, Ryan, it’s… You need to get to a—”
“Nathan, shut the fuck up. If it’s not bleeding badly then we don’t have to do anything with it. We walk.”
Walk? Easy for him to say, but Nathan did try, the numbness and aches in his legs causing him to limp badly. He had to stop frequently and retch into the grass.
Ryan stopped each time to help Nathan, but the need to move allowed no patience for Nathan being sick. He resorted to taking Nathan’s weight against him and slowly they made their way farther from the complex. Nathan suddenly stopped, turning back to look at the devastation.
“Angie… She was…we need to find her…this morning, she waved at me.”
“Young girl, brunette?” Ryan swallowed as he realized he had already found the girl.
“Yeah, pretty, actress.”
“Sorry, man, she’s gone.” There was no other way to say it.
“Gone.”
“Yeah. Is there anyone else here?” Ryan asked. But inside he knew they had to go, and if it came to a choice of rescuing others or getting Nathan down off of this damn mountain of destruction, then there really was no question as to what he would do.
“We should go and…” Nathan was rambling, pain bracketing his mouth as he attempted to turn back to look at the crushed apartment block. “We should get Angie to…her body…just away from the fire.”
“She’s gone, man. I checked her myself. There is nothing else we can do. Was there anyone else there?”
Nathan shook his head as if he could clear his head of the horror. “No, just the two apartments out of the four, just me and Angie and Oscar.”
“Oscar?” Shit. There was someone else? Ryan glanced at the destruction that had once been a beautifully styled complex. Surely no one else could have survived that.
“Dog, stray, kinda hangs out round the area.”
Ryan breathed a sigh of relief. “He’ll have been long gone, man. Dogs sense these things.”
“Yeah…the birds.” Nathan looked a bit spaced out, and Ryan snapped his fingers in front of Nathan’s face, trying to bring him back to the present. “We need to leave Angie? Are you sure?” Nathan finally stuttered.
“I’m sorry, but please, we need to get away from here and down the side. We need to get to safety.” He didn’t realize just how much he was begging for them to just get a move on.
Nathan didn’t say anything else, just leaned into Ryan’s supporting hold and together they started to move downhill.
There was a steady noise in the distance coming closer, a thwump thwump, and four black-as-night helicopters flew overhead, down the hill towards downtown LA. Neither man said a word, and neither acknowledged that the Army was now clearly involved in whatever had happened below.
“I think I saw LA,” Ryan finally murmured, more to hear noise than to actually speak. “I saw it when I got here. It was burning, there were…fires…and clouds of dust, debris—buildings at crazy angles.”
“Jason is down there. He was on his way to Starbucks, I’d only just gotten off the phone talking to him,” Nathan said softly. “That was why your phone call went to voicemail…”
“Your friend from the show?” Ryan asked without his customary jealousy at any other man in Nathan’s life. He needed to get his head around not doing that. “I’m sure he’ll be okay. I mean the whole thing happened really early. He’ll have been in the open; he’ll be fine.”
Ryan wasn’t convinced about what he was saying. After all, he’d seen the proud skyline broken and drunken in destruction. He didn’t vocalize his fears and doubts—it was hard enough to walk, let alone worry about a situation in the city below that was way beyond his help.