Time Bomb(33)

“Let me get that,” he said, picking it up before she had the chance. “I can carry it for you.”

“I’ll carry it,” Cas snapped as she grabbed the bag and tugged. She almost stumbled as he let go. For a flash of a second, Frankie wondered what was in it and why Cas didn’t want him to carry it. Then Cas started coughing from the smoke, and he went back to the most important thing on the agenda.

Run.

“Let’s go.”

He put his left hand behind her back to help guide her out of the room. She flinched when he touched her and tried to pull away, but Frankie held tight. The far wall looked almost ghostly through the haze of smoke. The heat was stronger still. And in the missing corner of the room, there were licks of red amid the swirling puffs of gray and black.

He and Cas stumbled around the broken desks and shelves and other crap. The girl choked back whimpers of pain, but she never complained. Although she probably wanted to when they reached the doorway and he all but shoved her through.

Frankie slammed the door of the art-room-from-hell shut behind them. The hall that led to the front of the school had collapsed. The hall going to the back of the school where he had originally come from had gotten hit in the second explosion—not to mention it was the same direction the smoke was coming from. It looked like the path was clearer that way, but . . .

“This way,” Cas said, pushing away from the lockers with her good arm and taking a step in the direction that led to the front of the school and the biggest of their roadblocks. “The art office has a door—”

“That leads to the storage room,” he finished the sentence for her, understanding exactly what she was going for. “If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to go around the cave-in through the office and the storage room and come back into the hallway on the other side.”

“How do you know about the storage room and the art office?”

“I take it you don’t think a football player can like art?” he asked, shoving a piece of metal to the side before turning back to see if Cas needed help.

She was holding her bag tight against her with her good arm and looking down at the ground, ignoring his hand as he reached out to help steady her.

“Remember last year’s homecoming?” he asked, putting his hand under her arm as she slipped and almost crashed into a locker.

“I’m not really into homecoming,” she said, tensing under his touch.

Of course she wasn’t, he thought, making sure she stayed steady as their feet crunched the debris. “Well, you might remember last year coming to school and finding all the homecoming posters had been replaced by ones that didn’t take themselves quite so seriously.”

They were also not all that attractive, since the four linemen he’d roped into helping with the project had painted about as well as a couple of monkeys. But he thought the posters he’d created with the paints he’d swiped out of the art department storage room urging people to vote for NONE OF THE ABOVE for Homecoming King and Queen showed a certain level of talent.

“You painted those?”

“And you thought I didn’t know anything about art,” he said, trying the doorknob. Ha! The art office door wasn’t locked. Bonus.

He made a beeline for the storage room to the left. The door was locked, but the metal bar and a lot of grunting fixed that problem.

Inside, the small room was dark as a tomb. He stubbed his toe and swore as he held his hands in front of him, trying to find the other door. Then it took a dozen tries to snap that lock, which he blamed solely on the lack of light and not on his limited breaking-and-entering skills. Once the lock gave way, he said, “If you believe in praying, Cas, this might be the time to send one up.” Then he gave the door a shove. It started to open, then stopped.

Damn it.

“We’re stuck?” she asked.

Frankie shook his head. “Not yet. Give me some room.” He took three steps back, squared himself like he would do in a drill, and bolted forward, angling his shoulder toward the door.

Oof. That was going to leave a mark.

His shoulder sang, and he bit back a yelp as the door flew open. He sailed through, stumbled, and went crashing to the ground on top of a bunch of broken boards and beams and water. Ow.

“You did it. That was amazing!” Cas yelled before asking, “Are you okay?”

“Too much power,” he said, pushing off the wet ground, refusing to admit that it hurt like hell. “I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding.”

He looked down to where she pointed. A streak of red trickled down his calf from his knee. “Not enough blood for the vampires to notice,” he assured her. But the way Cas was swaying and holding on to the wall for dear life made him pretty sure she couldn’t say the same. How the girl was still upright and not complaining was beyond him. He wished the guys on his team had half as much grit.

“Take a seat for a second and let me rewrap your arm.” When she shook her head and started to say they should just keep going, he said, “Please, Cas. Let me help.”

She stared at him, then slowly sank into a chair. With both doors open, he had enough light to work with.

“Sparkly,” he said as he slowly unwrapped the slick fabric she was using as a bandage.

“Yeah. And?”

“And you don’t strike me as the sparkly-clothes type. No offense.” He finished removing the bandage and was glad the light was dim. He’d been prepared for bad, but the gaping, jagged cut in her arm was worse than he’d imagined.