Time Bomb(42)

“Yeah, Frankie. It’s me. Guess this is life’s way of telling me I should have gone to the team party after all. Right?”

Frankie’s heart leaped, even as he tensed. Whatever had been between them for those few weeks was over. Done. It should never even have started—whatever it was. And what was happening now didn’t change any of that.

He looked back at Z holding Kaitlin. Diana and Cas were not far behind them. They were ready to climb down to the floor below.

“We’re all going to work together to get out of this,” he called, deliberately keeping his tone businesslike and hoping Tad would pick up the cue. “But first we have to get down by you.”

“There’s a lot of smoke down here, the stairways are blocked, and the east side of the school is on fire. Maybe we should try to come up and get to the roof. I could swear I heard helicopters.”

“The third floor is in bad shape. Part of the roof is caved in. There’s no way we can get to the door for the roof.” Or through it. The door was steel and they kept it locked, for obvious reasons. “Things might suck down there, but at least you’re closer to the ground. That has to give us more options.”

“Are we going down there, or are we going to talk until the building collapses around us?” Z asked.

Frankie shot Z an annoyed look, then turned and stared down into the destruction that was the room below them. From here it was impossible to see the door, which didn’t bode well. “We’re coming down now,” he called to Tad.

“The door has broken desks and shelves and other stuff wedged into it. I could try to clear some of the stuff from the entryway, but anything I move could make other wreckage inside the room shift. That could make things worse.”

Frankie took a look back at Kaitlin, who was whimpering in pain. “We’re going to have to risk it. Just let me know when you’re doing something that could send things flying. Okay?”

“Sure thing.”

“Okay,” he said, grabbing on to a metal bar hanging near the doorway he was standing in. “I’ll go first and spot you guys on the way down.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Diana said, locking eyes with him. “You should focus on people who need your help.”

He saw anger flash across Diana’s face for just a second before it vanished into an expression of concern. “Kaitlin and Cas need you, and I’ve already climbed this one. I know what I’m doing.”

“Be careful,” Cas said as she appeared behind Z.

“I’ll do my best,” Frankie promised, scoping out what looked like the best path for all of them and starting downward.

“There’s no moving this desk that’s wedged into the doorway,” Tad called from below. “I think I can move stuff underneath it without causing anything else to fall, but there’s a hell of a lot of smoke and a big-ass fire heading this way. So whatever you want to do to get down here, you’re going to want to do it quick, or you might get singed.”

I might get singed no matter how fast I climb, Frankie thought as he worked his way downward, trying not to grab on to anything that would injure his hands.

“Z,” Frankie called when he reached a fairly stable desktop about a third of the way down, “pass Kaitlin to me. Then you can climb down here and we can work on getting her the rest of the way.”

He’d been amazed that Kaitlin hadn’t been gushing blood when Diana pulled her free from the air conditioner. But he still had no idea if they could get her down the wreckage to the next floor without hurting her worse. The splints were holding, and with Diana’s help, Z had managed to keep her legs mostly steady and elevated on the trip down the hall. But this was going to be a hell of a lot harder.

They’d move the ball down the field step by step until they got to the end zone. If nothing else, they had to try.

It was touch-and-go. Kaitlin could barely keep her arms around Z’s neck, which meant the guy had no hands to grab anything to help him make the climb down. Not with one hand under Kaitlin’s knees and the other keeping her tight against his chest. Every time she whimpered, Z looked as if he wanted to punch out a window.

The smoke was getting thicker as Frankie helped Cas make the descent. He heard Diana start down after them, but he kept his eyes firmly on Cas as she bit her lip and tried not to show how scared she was that she was going to lose her grip and fall.

“You okay?” he asked when Cas was about halfway to the floor.

“In my next life, I’m coming back as a mountain goat.”

He’d heard worse ideas.

Frankie caught a glimpse of Tad talking to someone on the other side of the debris that jammed the doorway as he helped Cas reach the bottom. Z worked on sliding Kaitlin through the space under one of the wedged desks into the hall.

Kaitlin moaned, and Z frowned as he shouted to Tad, “Do you have her? You have to be careful of her legs.”

“Yeah. She’s through. We’re going to take her into one of the classrooms where there’s less smoke. We’ll be back in a minute.”

Good, Frankie thought, but they weren’t going to wait.

Frankie turned to Z. “One of us should go first and the other one last so we have someone on either side to help Cas and Diana through. Do you want to flip a coin?”

He could tell Z wanted to get to the other side to where Kaitlin was. He expected him to insist on going first, which was fine with Frankie. The more buffer he had between him and Tad when they finally were face-to-face, the better.