Time Bomb(31)

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.





12:30 p.m.





Z





— Chapter 28 —


COME ON. COME ON.

Z ducked low to get under a fallen beam and hurried down the hall, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the homecoming queen was following. Of all the people he could have found, it just figured it was her. People like Homecoming Girl, who thought they were better than he was, were the reason he had come to school today.

“Kaitlin, I found help!” he called, hurrying toward the caved-in section of the room where she’d been standing when the first bomb went off. Now her legs were pinned under a gray-and-black steel air-conditioning unit that had fallen through the ceiling.

Because of him.

He shook off the churning panic as he knelt down next to Kaitlin and took her hand in his. It was small. Cold. Weak. So like his mother’s.

“Kaitlin, I brought help. We’re going to get you free and out of this place. Right?”

“I told you to leave,” Kaitlin said tightly. “You have to get out.”

“You told me to find help.” Z looked back at Diana with a look that he hoped would make her understand that she might think it was okay to kick him around, but she couldn’t do that to Kaitlin. She needed help.

Homecoming Princess stepped forward. The floor creaked beneath her feet, and she came to a dead stop.

“The floor held my weight. You’ll be fine.” If not, he didn’t care. The only person who mattered was Kaitlin.

To prove his point, he stood up and walked toward the side of the air conditioner that had smashed onto a desk. The broken wood beneath held that side a foot or two off the ground. The floor around it was cracked—but it still held his weight. “See. It’s fine. I’m going to wedge a board under here and lift the air conditioner enough for you to pull Kaitlin out.”

Homecoming Girl didn’t move.

“Don’t be stupid, Z,” Kaitlin said quietly. “It’s not going to work. You need to get out of here.”

Her eyes were glassy. The freckles on her face looked darker than ever against her pale skin. For someone so small, she had a huge voice and a stubborn streak a mile wide. She believed anything was possible. For her to say this wasn’t . . .