AN: Thanks for all the reviews, guys! I feel so loved…anyway, on with chapter three!
Oh, and we add a new viewpoint in this chapter…we get to find out what happened to Mush…
Kid Blink
"Wait! Where are you goin', Blink?" Jack asked as I began to stumble away.
"I gotta find Mush…"
"You mean he wasn't with you? He's always with you! Where is he?"
I shoved him out of my path angrily. "He's mad at me, okay! He stormed off! I don't have a damn clue where he is!"
Jack was unperturbed by my fit of anger. "Alright, just calm down. We'll find him. Where'd you last see him?"
"Lunch. Outside of Tibby's."
"Shit…he coulda gone anywhere from there."
"Exactly!"
"Stay calm, okay? Getting' mad ain't gonna help us find him."
A woman stumbled up to us, her dress ripped and muddy. "Have you boys seen my child…my little girl…" she coughed out, blood mixing with the tears dripping down the side of her face. I took one look at Jack and he understood.
"I'll help ya find her, miss." Jack said, leading her gently away by the elbow. I turned my attention back toward trying to walk, but I wasn't doing all that great. I had a feeling that I was more hurt than I'd originally thought, but I kept going.
"Blink…Blink! Help me out heah!"
I turned toward the sound of the voice to find Snitch half buried under a huge piece of twisted metal. I rushed over, telling him to get out on the count of three.
"1…2…3!"
I lifted it as high as I could and he scrambled out. He then tested his legs, relieved to find them uninjured. "Thanks! I thought I'd be under dere forever!"
"No problem. Have you seen Mush?"
"Um…I saw him about an hour ago. He said he was gonna try selling in Little Italy until dinner."
Great. Not only was I a long way away from there, but if Mush was hurt, there weren't a lot of people who could speak his language and help him! "Thanks Snitch. I gotta go."
"I wouldn't recommend it."
"Why da hell not?!"
He looked nervous, and I knew something was wrong.
"I overheard a couple of bulls sayin dat Little Italy got hit pretty hard, along with Bottle Alley. They're ropin' 'em off. Even if ya got dere through all dis, dey wouldn't let ya in."
"Ovah my dead body!" I hissed, turning and starting to leave. Snitch caught up to me and took my pace, and I gave him a double take. "What are ya doin', Snitch?"
"I'm gonna help ya look. He's my friend, too."
Mush
As I tried to bandage his arm, the man let out a string of what I assumed were Italian curses, trying to yank his arm away from me.
"Hold still! You ain't gonna stop bleedin' unless I bandage dis!" I insisted, and his wife hastily translated for me. I tied off the wrap and stood up, hoping it would stay on at least until he got proper medical treatment.
Speaking of medical treatment…I wiped the blood off my forehead where it had almost been dripping into my eyes. The cut on my head had bled through three bandages, and I was getting quite dizzy. I walked a ways away from the family I had been helping, sitting down on some steps.
God, what I would give for Blink to be here right now. I should've remembered that he was already in a bad mood and that this was not the day to tease him…it was partly my fault that he blew up like that. And now I had no idea where he was, or if he was even alive.
No. Don't think that way. He's alive. He's gotta be.
"Sir? Sir?" I looked up, meeting eyes with a boy that looked pretty young, around 8 or so. "Would you please come make better my mother and sisters? I think they be hurting." he asked in broken and heavily accented English.
"Sure. Where is she?"
He took my hand and led me down two alleys to the remains of a small house. And what I saw next made me wish that I had the guts to say no.
I stepped to the first body in the wreckage. It was barely recognizable as even being human. Her eyes were wide open, her face frozen in the same expression of horror that she had dies with, and her torso looked like it had been put through a meat grinder. I reached down and found her wrist, checking for a pulse even though I already knew the outcome. She was dead.
I looked up at the boy and shook my head, and though tears began to fall, he led me to another spot in the charred wreckage.
This girl was in practically the same condition. I could barely keep from vomiting as I found out that her right arm was no longer attached to her body. I didn't even check for a pulse before shaking my head.
He led me on, and I envied him for the strength to even come back here, to even contain any hope at all that they might live.
Blink might be like this. He might be…NO!
I choked back a sob, and then kneeled down next to the third body. But this time, hope was shining down on us. She was badly wounded, but she was alive.
"Miss? Miss? Can you hear me? Do you speak English?" I asked gently. Her eyes searched for a moment, and then focused on me. She nodded.
"My…my daughters…" she asked.
"They didn't make it." I said. Probably the hardest thing I'd ever had to say.
"My…son?"
"He's here. He's right here."
The mother and son had a short, difficult conversation in Italian. Then the mother put her eyes back on me.
"I am going to die. Here."
It wasn't a question. It was an observation. I knew she was right, and I wasn't going to lie and try to cheer her up in her last moments of life.
"Do you…have a family?"
"No, ma'am."
"Where do you stay, child?"
"I'm a newsie. I live in a lodgin' house in Manhattan with the other newsies."
She spoke briefly in Italian with her son. Then she said to me, "Will you take Antonio…to this place…and watch over him for me?"
Every sentence was getting harder and harder for her. "Yes, ma'am, if that's what you want."
She slid her hand across the charred wood and gently took my hand in hers. "God bless you, boy."
With one more phrase in Italian to her son, her eyes closed and her hand lost its grip on mine.
Racetrack
"You know, Race, maybe this is God trying to tell you that gambling is unhealthy for a kid your age."
"Would ya shut your trap and get dis thing offa me?! I'd like ta be able ta breath heah!"
"Okay, okay. Hold on. We're thinkin' as fast as we can!"
"Yeah, you nevah was good at fast thinkin', were ya?"
I stopped talking, mainly afraid that I would use up all the oxygen under this thing. It was hard enough to breathe as it was without snapping at the people who were trying to save me.
Suddenly I heard a snap, and I let out a strangled cry as the weight on me seemed to triple.
"RACE! Are you okay?" A voice yelled from outside the rubble. I tried to respond, but found that I couldn't get enough air in my lungs to speak without some serious pain.
"Hurry…" I managed to squeak out.
"He's still alive! We gotta get in there, boys! As in, NOW!"
"If we move the thing, it could totally collapse. He'd never survive that."
"Can we break it apart somehow?"
"That's solid iron, you dope!"
I suddenly came up with an idea, and I banged on the iron with my free hand to get their attention.
"You alright, Race?"
I took as deep a breath as I could manage. "The…horses…carriage harnesses…"
"What?...Oh! That's perfect! Race, you's a genius!"
Not for long, I thought as a black fog began to set in at the corners of my vision. I was suffocating. It was like breathing through a straw.
"Race, we're gonna try it, Okay?............Race? Race! He's not talkin', guys! Let's do this!"
"Where is he?"
I immediately recognized that voice- I'd recognize the voice of David Jacobs any day. What was he doing at the track?!
"Race, it's me, David. Hang in there. We're gonna get you out, okay?"
As if I haven't heard that before, I thought as the whole world fell into darkness.
Dutchy
It took me longer than usual to get to where I thought Specs would be, and I saw Boots and Snipeshooter along the way, both of them shaken up but not too badly injured. They told me they'd seen both Specs and Skittery down by the general store right before the quake.
"Dutchy! Dutchy!"
I found Specs working with three other men, digging into a pile of what I thought used to be a building. As soon as I saw Specs's face, I knew something had gone horribly wrong. It wasn't often that he cried.
Come to think of it, hadn't Boots said that Skittery was with Specs? I did a double take, and realized just what Specs was doing.
Oh, God, no!
"Dutchy, ya gotta help. Skittery pushed me outta da alley, and then…and then the buildings…" he broke down into sobs, and I climbed up the pile to him, beginning to dig beside him.
"We're gonna find him, okay?" I insisted, noticing the puppy laboriously making its way up to me and starting to dig beside us. Smart dog, I thought to myself.
And a moment later, he went from just 'smart dog' to 'angel dog'. He started barking, and then I noticed that he was tugging on a piece of fabric. A piece of fabric with a hand sticking out of it.
"We found him!" I yelled, and the men came over and began digging frantically to free Skittery.
Two of the men pulled Skittery out of the rubble, and I immediately thought the worst. He was completely limp, and there was blood leaving a trail on the ground as they carried him back to solid ground.
Specs and I rushed down just as the man was feeling for a pulse. He checked Skittery's wrist, looked a bit worried, and then reached up and pressed his fingers to Skittery's neck.
"He's alive." He announced, and before I could even respond myself Specs had let out a sob of relief and was hugging me so tight I couldn't breath.
"I think he's gonna be okay. We'll get him bandaged up and then we'll leave him with you. We've got other people to help now." One of the men said, and we nodded in agreement.
"What are we gonna do when he wakes up?" Specs asked.
"Well, we need to go check on Kloppman. See if the lodging house survived this."
"Sounds good ta me. And what's with da dog, Dutchy? I could kiss dat thing right now!" Specs asked, referring to the little furry creature now sitting right beside me and wagging its tail once again.
"I don't know…it's been following me ever since the earthquake."
Specs picked up the dog, and then made true on his words- he kissed it on the nose and held it tightly to his chest. "I don't care about the 'no animals' rule. We're keepin' dis one. It's a bonafide angel."
"I'll agree with ya there."
AN: Um…nothing to write here…just review!
Next chapter…aftershocks…
