Typos fixed and thanks to alix33! 8/27
Chapter Two
10:03 pm-Somewhere dark.
I woke up half curled on my side, and every part of me hurt like a bitch!
I drew in a startled breath and then wheezed it out a moment later when the sharp inhale tore at something piercing into my side. I couldn't see anything, all around me was darkness, not like the late at night in your room darkness where you're in danger of stubbing your toe on the corner leg of the dresser. I'm talking total oblivion darkness—not even outlines to help me. It was like being suspended in nothing, emptiness clung all around me—pressed against me like a physical weight. It was making it hard to breathe suddenly. It was like being buried alive by Stiva all over again, and I sucked in a panicked breath and felt tears slide down my cheeks fighting a wave of intense terror.
Think, Stephanie, Think! I told myself fighting sheer terror. Stiva is dead! You're not in a coffin! But where was I? The last thing I'd remembered was chasing a medium-bond skip through an abandoned building in Newark with Cal, Les and Tank…then…nothing.
I was coming up blank. And that was concerning me, quite a bit. And why did my side hurt so bad? I reached out tentative fingers grateful that I wasn't tied up—that meant I hadn't been kidnaped right? Kidnappers always tied me up, first thing. It must have been in those kidnappers rule books they hand out at meetings for crazy people. I shuddered.
And then I nearly screamed. There was a sharp piece of metal poking out of the skin just under the edge of my Kevlar vest. I froze feeling my heart pound in my chest and tried to tell myself this wasn't real. It couldn't be. Wouldn't I be in more pain if this was really happening? I mean I hurt, I hurt quite a lot—everywhere in fact. My right forearm hurt pretty badly when I thought about it and my shoulders both ached, my lower back as on fire and the sharp piece of metal poking through my side? Ah, no big deal.
Shock. Some frantic part of my brain told me. You're in shock. And that sounded pretty reasonable actually—a perfectly logical explanation. But it still didn't explain where I was, or how I'd ended up in here.
I shifted my neck very carefully trying to look around in the darkness hoping for some form of light to see by grateful that my neck didn't feel broken. There was something glowing very faintly off to my left side, it was hard to tell in the darkness but it seemed the light was partially obscured by something—it was a reflection coming up from behind something, but I couldn't make out what. Just the faint blue-green glow.
Flashlight. Where was my flashlight? I'd taken Lester's Mag light right before I crawled into that hole.
The hole. Tank, I raised my aching right hand keeping my left still—afraid to jar the rebar sticking out of my side. And felt around near my right ear searching for the ear piece that should have allowed me to hear Tank and the guys if they were still up there.
Of course they're up there! My brain shrieked, Where the hell else would they be? Like they'd let you crawl in a hole and end up…wherever the hell this is and then what? Just leave to go grab a beer?
So where were they? More importantly where the Hell was I? I was obviously alone, and I had no idea how long I'd been gone. Maybe it had only been a few minutes, maybe they didn't know there was a problem yet. They'd be here any minute, and they'd know what to do. They'd call Bobby, and the EMT's and we'd go to the hospital—and then everything would be fine. It had to be.
I figured out where the ear piece had gone when I found the wire dangling near the back of my neck and carefully lifted it up, turning it with my fingers in the dark and placed it back in my ear and immediately felt my eyes well up with fresh tears.
"-abe, God. Please Babe, if you can hear me say something…babe, please God answer me."
Ranger.wow, it must be bad if they'd called Ranger.
"Do you want the good news," I rasped because my throat was raw and scratchy like I'd inhaled half a soccer field of gravel and dust. I coughed weakly and groaned because the jerking movement shot fire down my side and that hurt like hell too. "or the bad news." I finished weakly when I stopped hacking up half a lung.
"Babe," Ranger breathed, and he sounded strangely desperate.
"How long was I out?" I wondered.
"…about an hour, we're trying to get to you now, but we had to call in some experts the building is old—and a lot of it is unstable."
"No shit." I wheezed.
"Where are you Babe? Can you see anything that might help?"
Right, I didn't have my trackers on me, since I didn't have my purse…or my POS car. And while my cell phone was on my hip, in theory it wouldn't give them much more than a general GPS location—and they already knew I was in the building. I cast my eyes around the pressing darkness once more, the room could be the size of a football field, or the ceiling could be a few inches above my head—I really hoped it wasn't the later of the two. Ever since Stiva and the cupboard I've had a pretty rough time with enclosed spaces. "I can't see shit." I told him finally.
Someone in the background said something, and Ranger snapped "What?" and then his voice softened and I realized he was talking to me once more. "Babe, do you still have Lester's Mag light?"
Right, the flashlight. I'd tucked it under my arm. I started scraping my fingers around my sides against the dirt and sucked in a painful breath when it moved my side jarring the metal that was definitely poking through my skin about an inch from the edge of my waist and sticking several inches up in the air. And whatever it was didn't move with me, I seemed to be fixed on the floor.
Ranger was saying something again, "-abe, are you hurt?"
I felt the sharp metal edge, and the slick wetness coating it and was infinitely glad I couldn't see it in the dark. I'm pretty sure not seeing it was keeping me calm. "You didn't ask me for the good news Ranger,"
He was quiet for a moment, then he decided to play along obviously because he said, "What's the good news?"
"I'm alive, and I can hear you." Ranger sucked in a breath.
"Do I want to know the bad news?" he said.
"No," I told him shaking my own head slowly in the darkness. "You really don't, tell Les next time there's a hole in the wall; He can go first."
"Already taken care of Babe," Ranger breathed in my ear.
"Did you shoot him?" I asked, a hint of fear creeping into my voice. Ranger didn't need two dead team members, that was going to be hell on paperwork and HR. Then I realized the direction my own thoughts had been in and felt a tight lump well up in my throat, I swallowed trying to push it down again. I didn't think I was going to die, not really; did I? I thought of the metal I couldn't see and realized I didn't know—and that possibility terrified me.
"No, I didn't shoot him." Ranger said, but he didn't sound like he'd completely ruled it out as a possibility.
"Did you find that Mag Light yet, babe?" Right the flashlight. I started searching again with my fingers reaching my arms out around me wondering just how far the thing could have rolled or bounced when I felt it, just it's very edge with the tip of my index finger. I could reach it if I moved—course moving would risk tearing my side.
"I have a problem." I said, trying to keep the hysteria out of my voice.
"I'm experiencing some of that myself," Ranger informed me and I couldn't help the small smile that tugged at my lips, Ranger humor.
"I found the Flashlight," I said.
"And?"
"Can't reach it."
"You can't move?" and Ranger's tone was something I couldn't name—I didn't know what to make of it.
"Not easily," I returned.
"Can you move your feet? Your legs?" Ranger asked voice oddly tight.
I was reasonably certain I could. I wiggled my toes and then my feet and even pulled my knees up a bit before the action shifted my spine—which turned me just enough that the thing poking through my back started to burn all over again and I sucked in a shuddering breath and cursed and clamped my eyes shut while bells clanged in my head and I wondered for a moment if I puked when I could turn completely on my side if I'd choke to death—and also I really, really didn't want to puke and then have to lay in it waiting to be rescued. That would be just plain embarrassing.
"I can move my legs," I said, "Sorta,"
"Explain," Ranger growled and the tightness to his voice grew worse, it made my eyes burn with tears but I couldn't name why.
"Remember the bad news?" I gasped.
"Babe,"
"Let's talk about something else," I said. Because I had no idea how to word it. And if I did I knew standing outside the building somewhere waiting for some excavation crew and feeling helpless Ranger would start going Apeshit. 'I've sorta beenimpaled,' tended to have that effect on people.
Ranger sucked in a sharp breath in my ear and I squeezed my eyes shut again and said. "Fuck."
Ranger said nothing, but there was a lot of heavy breathing on his end that didn't sound so good.
"I said that out loud didn't I?" I asked.
"Impaled how?" Ranger finally managed to say. And yes, I guess I did.
"Nothing major," I said, and then immediately felt guilty because I was pretty sure I was lying to Ranger—and I never lie to Ranger…okay maybe I fib to Ranger on occasion, or don't tell him the whole truth when said truth will result in him trying to lock me up or haul me away to a safe house somewhere where I absolutely couldn't do my job…
"I need to get in there," Ranger snarled, and I'm pretty sure he was talking to someone else because it sounded like an argument started up on his end of the conversation. Obviously whoever his conversation was happening with out there held some kind of authority in my current situation and wasn't giving Ranger an answer he agreed with.
There was a lot more cursing and it sounded like maybe Lester or Cal or Tank had gotten involved in the fight. Ranger came back on the line, breathing faster and his tone was clipped when he told me. "Babe, I need some idea of where you are! Can you reach the light without injuring yourself further?"
I bit my lip and told him yes, and then stretched my hand out to feel the edge of the flashlight's end. I finally managed to twist a bit, biting my lower lip against the agonizing pain of shifting my shoulders both one way, and my hips the other rotating like a bug stuck on a display pin just enough that I could roll the Mag Light towards me over the ground. My finger's closed over the end and I dragged it back to me.
"Got it." I said clutching it to my chest like it was made of diamonds and breathing a little too fast, sweat dampening my hair line and temple.
Then I flicked on the light and sucked in a startled breath—and then I may have sorta screamed.
"Babe!? Stephanie!?" Ranger's voice in my ear helped me focus, so did closing my eyes tight so I couldn't see what I'd just seen—course I couldn't really un-see what I'd just seen, and I was having a hell of a hard time forgetting it.
"I'm okay, I'm okay," I repeated a few times—more to myself then to Ranger's frantic question in my ear. "Just, didn't realize the ceiling was going to be right there."
"Babe?"
"I'm in some kind of…space. Uh, It's concrete, there's beams, big square concrete beams but the part I'm in is maybe two feet tall, except for the hole above me—some kind of pipe it looks like, I think it was connected to the one in the wall I went through. I don't remember what happened, but I must have fallen down it after I crawled into the wall. The rest of the room might be higher I can't…" and then I stopped talking to suck in a breath.
I'd been swinging the Mag light's beam around the space trying to find a floor number, and office plaque, Hell a big helpful red dot on a map that said 'you are here!' but what I'd found was a dead body.
I hate when I do that. Between you and me it seems to happen a lot. And worse—I knew this dead body, and that wasn't all.
"I've got some bad news." I said again because Ranger wasn't sounding really happy in my ear—not that this was likely to improve his mood any.
"You already gave me the bad news." Ranger said, and then he blew out a breath that told me he was hoping I had a head injury maybe and that I was just talking in circles because I didn't remember we'd already discussed my…plight…but nope.
"I have worse news." I said and when Ranger didn't ask me what it was I decided to just come out with it. "I found our FTA, and he's dead."
"That's not so bad, I can live with that." Ranger said.
"That wasn't the news." I told him poking the edge of Lester's Mag Light against the guys leather jacket and discovering where the pale blue-green light was coming from all along—turned out in the dark it wasn't as far away as I thought it was. Ranger was saying something in my ear but I was having trouble focusing on his words or even hearing him over the buzzing sound in my ears.
I licked dusty dry lips and tried to swallow and said in the strongest voice I could manage. "Ranger, what does a bomb look like?"
Seriously, I'm not talking to my muse for a week. She gives me this with all the other stuff already on my plate...ugh. ~*~*~*~
