Chapter Six
Laura
In the lobby of the American Embassy, it wasn't difficult for Jack to stumble upon his wife and Janet, who were talking in low voices in the corner. The lobby was slowly growing more and more crowded with every second as rescue workers filed in awaiting their orders and concerned family members waited for news on their loved ones who might have been trapped in the earthquake.
Lucy turned around when Jack approached, seeing the look of concern on her husband's voice. "Jack, what's the matter?" She knew right away it had something to do with Sam.
"Sam's gone." Jack answered breathlessly, leaning against his crutches and attempting not to fall to the ground.
"Gone?" Lucy repeated and Janet looked on with silent concern. "What do you mean gone? Where did he go?" She didn't even have to ask, she knew all too well where her son had gone to.
Jack stumbled, balancing on one foot, sighing when he righted himself. "He must have just climbed out the window." He told his wife. "I can't believe he would be that stupid." Jack was more worried about his son then mad at him, knowing that the parental lecture could wait until Sam was safely back at the Embassy.
"What are we going to do?" Lucy questioned, wringing her fingers, something she did whether she was too worried to do anything else. "He shouldn't even be out of bed. What is he thinking?" She looked at Jack with large eyes filled with worry. "What are we going to do? He could get hurt even more...or...worse." Lucy wouldn't allow herself to think of just what 'or worse' really meant.
Jack wrapped his fingers tightly around the crutches. "I know, Lucy." He mumbled, sighing deeply and closing his eyes. His head was swimming, it was nearly impossible to think. "I'll go after him, stop him from going into that building."
"With a broken leg?" Janet piped in, skeptically. "Jack, I don't even think you'd be able to make it out the door."
Jack turned to look at her. "I can't just stand here and wait to see if he's all right. I have to-" He paused, realizing that his son had said the very same things to him earlier about Laura. He closed his eyes again; he knew what was driving Sam to do what he was doing, it was an act of love, pure and simple. Jack might not agree with what his injured was doing, and he wasn't going to let him go alone, but he understood his actions completely.
"I'll get in touch with one of the rescue workers." Jack mumbled, opening his eyes again and looking up at his wife. "I'll make sure Sam doesn't get hurt."
Lucy did nothing but nod, but there was so much more she wanted to say; she wasn't going to leave the safety of her baby, her only son, in the hands of someone she didn't know. But she understood where Jack was coming from, there was nothing more he could do. But that wasn't true for her.
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Laura sniffed, trying to blink her tears away, remaining as motionless as she possibly could; out of the corner of her eye, she saw Elsa and the doctor, Kate, tearing several shirts into thin, jagged, strips. She dreaded having the makeshift bandages wrapped around her, dreaded the movement that would come with that; all she wanted to do was go back to sleep, dream away the pain and imagine a better time with Sam.
At that moment, Laura wanted nothing more then to be with Sam, safely wrapped in his arms. It scared her to think that she might never see him again, that she could die here without being able to tell him that she loved him more then she had ever loved anyone in her entire life. Laura just hoped that he already knew, just in case she didn't get the chance to tell him, hoped that he knew how much she loved him.
Don't think like that, Laura's mind instructed, of course you're going to get to see him again.
Laura shut her eyes and pictured Sam's face behind her eye lids, his soft, gentle, smiling face. She pictured the way he looked at her, eyes shining with his love for her. She hoped that her eyes looked the same way, that Sam could tell just how much she loved him every time she smiled, every time they kissed.
Tears pricked her eyes once again. Sam, please hurry.
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The glass revolving door that was once the entrance to the mall had been shattered and bent, twisted and frozen forever, buckling beneath the weight of the building falling upon it. Brian studied the door with a raised eyebrow and a worried expression; his heart was hopping around in his chest, telling him that going into that building was as sure as suicide. "Sam, are you really sure about this? Because this place really doesn't look safe." He said, turning to look at his friend. Sam was leaning against a chipped and cracked planting bed, eyes squeezed shut tightly, his head buried in his hands. "Sam? Are you all right?"
Sam didn't respond, holding onto his head tightly, using the planting bed for support; his entire world was spinning, head pounding, sending flashes of pain throughout his entire body. He just wanted to lay in a dark room and never get up again, not until all of the pain was gone without a chance of returning. Sam groaned, trying to block out the pain, trying to push away all thoughts of returning to the Embassy and waiting like his parents had suggested. But what would happen to Laura if he gave up? He didn't think he could live with himself if he didn't at least try and save her, if he never knew if she was all right or not.
"Sam?" Repeated Brian, stepping closer to his friend. "Sam, are you okay?" There was still no answer.
With another groan, Sam lifted his head, his hands falling limply to his sides; he looked over at Brian, noting his friend's concern and wished he could offer him even the smallest of smiles. But he had never felt less like smiling before in his entire life. "I'm fine." Sam mumbled, knowing that he was telling a lie that Brian could see right through.
"We should go back." Brian said, though there wasn't enough force in his words to make them a command. "Let someone else find Laura."
Sam thought about shaking his head, a flash of pain making him decide against it. "No." He said instead, his words carrying the force that Brian's lacked. "You don't have to come Brian, I'll go on my own, but there is no way that I'm just going to wait and see what happens."
Brian sighed, knowing as he had all along that there was no way he was going to be able to talk Sam out of his rescue. "Did I let you go alone when you went to that ship to get Laura's medicine? Hell no." He said, trying to put a strength in his voice that he didn't feel. "And there were wolves then, there aren't any wolves now. This is nothing." He tried to smile but there was no truth behind the gesture.
Sam looked at Brian, wanting to say something to the friend that he had known for most of his life but the right words wouldn't come. But he knew Brian understood, knew the words of true friendship that could never be spoken. "Let's go." Sam said instead, turning toward the bent entrance that Brian had been surveying earlier.
The time for doubts had passed and Brian followed Sam dutifully into the building, bowing his head to keep from knocking it against the jagged golden metal above him. And then they were inside.
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Laura cried out when Elsa attempted to lift her head, tears slipping from her cheeks freely, unnoticed; she bit down upon her tongue to keep from crying out again, since that only made the pain in the back of her head worse. Elsa held her head as gently as she could, whispering soothing words to her friend that feel on deaf ears as Kate prepared to press one of the makeshift bandages against the wound on the back of Laura's head.
Tears continued to fall from Laura's tightly shut eyes as she bit her tongue, so hard now that she could taste her own blood, trying to suppress any further cries. She was shaking from a mixture of fear and pain, anticipating the pain that would follow when Kate put pressure on the injury on the back of her head. She wished that Sam was here now, holding her and telling her that everything was going to be all right, that she was going to be all right. She had never wanted him more in her entire life.
Kate pressed the wadded piece of blue sweatshirt fabric against the bleeding fracture at the base of Laura's neck and the girl screamed, unable to stop herself, her entire body feeling on fire with pain. She could feel the pressure of Kate's hands against the tear in her bones, pushing against the jagged injury and further cracking them. Laura continued to cry even after Kate had released her and Elsa had gently rested her head back on the blood soaked tee-shirt that served as a pillow. It took Laura a while to realize that she was no longer crying for herself, but for Sam as well.
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Sam could feel his eyes growing wider with every second as he stared at the building before him, fixated on the complete destruction that had taken place. The lobby where he and Brian were standing was covered with rubble of all kinds, the benches and potted plants that had stood in the middle of the long aisles were buried beneath the debris. The second and third floors were snapped and broken, hanging down toward the lobby, merchandise strung everywhere, tangled among the twisted metal and plaster. The pipes had been wrenched apart, and water was streaming down from somewhere above, the drips echoing throughout the eerie silent building.
The building looked as though a bomb had gone off inside of it; everything that Sam could see was twisted and broken. Glass littered the floor from the display windows and the light fixtures and the building was almost completely dark, as though the midday sun outside had no affect on the world inside. The building creaked and groaned, the occasional sound of twisting metal breaking the silence as what was left of the mall continued to give way.
Brian let out a low whistle, his eyes continuing to scan the disaster before him. He didn't think he'd ever seen anything like it, not even in all the movies he had seen; those images hadn't even gotten close.
"Laura's on the eighth floor." Sam said suddenly, breaking the silence. It would do no more good to stand here and stare at what had already taken place. He could tell that the building wasn't going to remain standing for much longer, the sooner he got to Laura the better.
Brian peeled his eyes away from the wreckage and focused on Sam. "So, I guess the elevator's out then." He said, trying to lighten the atmosphere even the slightest bit, though he knew it was impossible.
Sam didn't even smile, just looked at him with a pained expression on his face; Brian knew that it wasn't just the pain from his head injury that caused his friend's eyes to look so sorrowful. It was nearly impossible to hold onto hope that Laura was all right after having seen the destruction that she would have had to live through.
"Come on." Sam said, starting toward one of the low hanging, broken levels. "Let's go."
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Elsa was leaning against the counter Laura was resting on when the building groaned and the floor beneath them shivered slightly. Laura opened her eyes and quickly scanned the area around her, looking for her friend. "What was that?" She questioned, her voice hushed and low.
A tremor, not quite as strong as the actual earthquake, shook the floor, knocking over what hadn't been knocked lose during the first quake; the building groaned, metal squealed as it was further twisted apart. The already cracked floor beneath them stretched further, the ground beneath the counter dropping a few inches before coming to rest against another jagged piece of the floor. Laura cried out as the counter dropped, resting at an incline and nearly causing her to slip off; she wrapped her fingers around the edge of the counter to keep from falling.
The shaking ended nearly as abruptly as it had started, the ground still once again. "Aftershock." Elsa breathed, releasing her own hold on the counter and stepping back. The floor beneath the counter looked unstable, another shake would end it falling into the floors below. She could see the bottom levels through the cracks around the counter and swallowed, taking a deep breath. "Maybe," Elsa started, looking over at Kate who was trying to calm her children. "We should move Laura."
Kate looked in their direction. "No, moving her would only make it worse." She said, holding her boys close to her.
Elsa looked back at Laura, who was taking slow, deliberate breathes, trying to calm her racing heart. She sighed as she watched her friend, trying to slow her own heart rate; she hoped that Sam got here soon.
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When the ground began to shake again, Sam and Brian were halfway up the sloping piece of floor that had once belonged on the third level; Sam reached out and grabbed onto a twisted piece of rebar, holding on tightly as the piece of ground shook, threatening to send them back to the lobby. Brian reached up, trying to grab onto something solid and only managed to wrap his finger's around Sam's ankle.
The shaking ended quickly but Sam remained holding onto the rebar long after the ground had become still again. The mall was filled with the sounds of groaning and twisting metal and he feared that the floors above them would come crashing down.
There was a loud groaning sound and the screech of metal as one of the higher floors was wrenched free and crashed down onto the floor below it. Sam prayed that it wasn't the floor that Laura was on.
When the mall had become silent once again, Sam continued maneuvering up the slab toward the next semi-solid level. Once they were off the sloping floor, Brian turned to look at his friend. "How are we going to know which level Laura's on?"
Sam sighed. "Keep looking until we find her." His head was pounding, his eyesight blurry and he squinted in order to focus. He looked at Brian, wincing in spite of the dim light, waiting for the world to stop spinning.
Brian nodded. "Okay." He sighed. "Let's keep looking then."
The floor they were on now yielded nothing but a pair of broken, dead bodies buried beneath ruble. Sam averted his eyes as soon as he was sure that neither of the corpses were Laura, his heart hammering in his chest even after he knew it wasn't the girl that he loved; his mouth went dry at the thought of stumbling upon her body, of being too late.
The sixth level was nothing but a pile of debris and ruble, with twisted metal jutting out through the rock and plaster. Sam and Brian easily, but slowly, climbed the pile as though they were rock climbing, something Sam had only done once in his life.
A mangled staircase dangled down from the level above, providing a treacherous way to reach the floor where Laura was, if Sam's count was correct. Brian followed slowly behind his friend, placing his feet wherever Sam placed his, holding tightly to the twisted railing that was still somehow attached to the staircase. Most of the stairs dangled above the pile of debris, providing a long drop should either of them slip or loose their footing.
Sam reached the top of the staircase, helping Brian onto the nearly solid looking level they had come to; the ground was jagged with cracks dicing it up, and he knew that if they took too long or stepped in the wrong spot that the whole thing would collapse beneath them.
Brian sat on the ground beside his friend, sighing and letting his heart stop pounding; Sam shut his eyes, willing the pain out of his head, praying that he would be able to keep it together a while longer, long enough to find Laura and get the hell out of here. The pain passed but the dizziness didn't and Brian had to help him to his feet.
When the ground seemed more solid then it had seconds ago, Sam opened his eyes again and looked at his friend. "Okay, Laura should be somewhere on this level."
"How do you know?" Brian questioned. All of the levels seemed blended into one as far as he was concerned.
"I've been keeping track." Sam answered. "At least, I'm pretty sure this is the eighth floor."
Brian couldn't argue with such logic; Sam seemed so certain that it seemed impossible to argue, even if he was wrong. Sam took a minute, trying to get his bearings, attempting to remember which direction the clothes shop was; he finally decided that right was the best way to go, since the left looked a little less safe.
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Laura opened her eyes, feeling more heavy and groggy then she had when she had last closed them, shortly after the first aftershock. She wondered what that meant, feeling like she weighed a hundred more pounds then she really did, her head feeling like it was made of metal. It means you're dying, whispered the voice in the back of her head that always made her assume the worst of things. It was the same voice that told her she was going to die without ever seeing Sam again. Soon you won't be able to open your eyes, then- Laura attempted to shut the voice out, concentrating instead on the reason she had opened her eyes in the first place.
Voices, she had heard voices coming from somewhere; they sounded far away but Laura wondered if that was just because she was groggy, unsure of anything anymore. Had she even heard the voices? She was certain she had because she could hear them now and they sounded closer.
Elsa, who had been sitting cross-legged on the floor close to the counter with her head buried in her hands, opened her eyes slowly as well. She lifted her head, looking in the direction that she had imagined she had heard voices. It could only be her imagination, she reasoned, because no one would be stupid enough to come into a building that was falling apart with every second. Unless that person was-
"Sam?" Laura's voice, quiet and hoarse, caused Elsa to look away from the door blocked by the metal wire and over at her friend. Laura was looking through the wire as well, squinting her eyes and looking as though she was trying to pull herself into a sitting position. "Sam." She repeated, voice louder but sounding more stressed now.
Elsa got to her feet and gingerly walked closer to the counter; the floor beneath her groaned, feeling unstable and she remained where she was, unwilling to take another step. "Laura, what's the matter?" She questioned, unwilling to get her hopes up because the person dying of a head injury heard voices as well.
Laura's eyes found Elsa. "I heard someone." She answered, voice quiet again as though it hurt just to speak. "It could be Sam."
Elsa could see just how badly Laura wanted to believe that she had heard the voice of the boy she loved and she wanted just as badly to have it be true. "Laura, I didn't-" She stopped herself from finishing her sentence because she had, she had heard voices.
Laura's gaze returned to the metal gate, the door to their prison. "Sam!" She shouted, tears springing unbidden in her eyes, head wound screaming in pain. A single sob escaped her lips and she shut her eyes again, laying her head against the damp tee-shirt.
For a moment, the building was completely silent and Elsa couldn't help but hold her breath, hoping for an answer. Laura knew that she would be hoping as well if she wasn't utterly exhausted by the pain coursing through her body. You are dying, the voice, the Enemy Voice, reminded her and Laura didn't have the energy to tell it otherwise.
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Sam's heart skipped a beat when he heard someone call his name through the silence, her delicate and pain-filled voice echoing off the walls and rubble. He would recognize that voice anywhere and he found himself unable to speak, his mouth suddenly dry, heart beginning to hammer in his chest. It was Laura; Laura had called his name, his Laura was still alive.
Brian looked over at him, as though attempting to read his reaction, unwilling to speak in case Laura would call out something else. Sam's eyes scanned the crumbling stores, trying to figure out just where Laura's voice had come from. The echo had made it nearly impossible to figure the exact location and he felt lost for a moment, knowing he was close to something he might never have.
The building began to groan again, more floors falling, collapsing upon each other, and Sam shouted Laura's name as loudly as he could, hoping he was heard above the crumbling floors.
The building fell silent once more and Sam waited for Laura to answer, heart hammering wildly, waiting to hear her voice once more.
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Even over the twisting and crumbling of the building, Laura heard Sam's voice and her eyes snapped open, quickly trying to find him even though she knew he wasn't near enough to see. Elsa's head turned in the direction that Sam had shouted from and attempted to peer through the unsettled dust created by the drywall and thought she could just barely make out the forms of two people.
"Sam." Laura called out but her voice was no longer loud enough to be heard. It was Sam, her Sam, he had come for her. She tried to sit up, tried to see him but the sharp pain in the back of her head kept her from even moving.
Elsa got to her feet and carefully navigated across the floor toward the twisted metal gate blocking their exit. "Sam!" She shouted, pressing her face against the bent mesh, eyes straining. She could see Sam but just barely, standing beside his friend Brian, both of them trying to figure out where the shouts were coming from. Elsa began banging on the wire with her palms with as much force as she could, ignoring the jagged metal that cut into her palms.
Sam looked in the direction of the rattling metal, squinting his eyes to better see through the dim corridor; he saw someone standing several yards away, banging on a metal gate of some kind. Without a word to Brian, he hurried down the broken tile floor, ignoring the pain in his head, until he reached the twisted mesh gate.
It was Elsa banging on the metal and Sam's eyes instantly gazed past her, searching the darkness for Laura, unable to find her through the shadows. He felt his heart skip and he looked back at Elsa. "Where's Laura?" He asked, studying her dust and sweat streaked face through the metal. "Is she all right?"
At the sound of his voice, Laura felt warm tears fill her eyes once again; Sam was here, and if she died, at least she wouldn't die alone. You are not going to die, she told herself as forcefully as she could manage. Sam is here now, everything is going to be all right. "Sam." Laura whispered, her voice thin and scratchy. "Sam, I'm here."
Sam's eyes left Elsa's face once again, easily finding Laura now; she was laying upon what he guessed was a checkout counter, her fingers wrapped weakly around the edge to keep herself from slipping since the counter was sloping now, the ground beneath it at an incline. Even from where he stood, Sam could see that she was hurting, too weak to lift her head, to even move, her skin pale and waxy. "Laura," Sam wished that he could be with her now, to hold her against him. "Baby, are you all right?"
Laura wasn't sure how to answer his question; no, she was very far from all right but she didn't want to worry Sam. She remained silent for a moment, trying to figure out the best way to answer, what to say. She just wanted to get the hell out of this building and that was what she told him.
Sam looked back at Elsa. "How does this thing open?" He questioned, wrapping his fingers around the twisted metal. He gave an experimental push but the gate only groaned and his head began to pound once again.
"It only opens from the outside." Elsa answered. "But I don't know where the key is." She sighed, feeling utterly hopeless for a moment; she shut her eyes and thought, trying to figure out how to open this metal gate. Her eyes snapped open suddenly and she turned around, eyes finding Kate through the darkness. "Kate, I need your help." She stated, walking over to where the woman was sitting with her two boys and the teenage girls. Elsa looked at the girl, the one that hadn't been injured in the earthquake. "You too, what's your name?"
"Sydney." The girl supplied, looking at Elsa as though she couldn't figure out what was going on. "How can I help?" Her voice was shaky, as though she dreaded the answer.
"We're going to lift that shelf again." Elsa answered, looking over at the heavy wooden shelf that had used to force the door to the storeroom open. "And we're going to try and break the gate open."
Kate got to her feet and Sydney did as well, leaving her friend behind, following the older women toward the shelf, which still lay abandoned in the doorway of the storeroom. Sam watched them for a moment before settling on Laura once again; she was staring straight up at the ceiling, as though shifting her gaze took too much energy.
Laura seemed to sense that he was staring at her, just as she always seemed to do, and her gaze traveled toward him. It felt so good to Sam standing there, it made everything seem almost all right again. "Sam, I'm so glad you came." Laura told him, feeling like she was going to cry again. "I love you."
Sam pressed his face against the metal gate, her whispered words tugging on his heart. "I love you too." He said. "It's going to be all right, Laura, you'll be all right."
Laura knew it was easy for him to say that, he didn't know how badly she was injured; Elsa hadn't told her what Kate had said about her injuries, and that was how she knew they were bad. She wanted to say something more to Sam but she knew that would only worry him, causing him to do something stupid and rash that could get him hurt.
Elsa, Kate and Sydney managed to lift the shelf, straining to keep it off the ground; Elsa's fingers started to ache again where the shelf had been dropped upon them earlier and she realized that she had no idea how long ago that had been, how much time had passed since the earthquake. Kate had taken the rear of the shelf and Elsa and Sydney balanced out the sides, leaving the front free for slamming against the gate.
Brian tugged on Sam's arm, forcing him to move away from the gate, even though that meant losing sight of Laura. Sam's head was pounding, the floor was beginning to spin again and he shut his eyes, willing himself to hold on long enough to get to Laura and get the hell out of here.
The heavy shelf knocked into the gate, causing the metal to twist and rattle, but it didn't give way; Laura watched them out of the corner of her eye, hoping that Elsa's idea would work. Elsa ordered them to back up and hit the door again, harder this time and they did was she said, the metal beginning to bend beneath the weight of the shelf.
As they prepared to hit the gate again, Laura heard the floor beneath them begin to groan again, the split pieces of ground beginning to grind against each other. Her heart began to speed up, her palms beginning to sweat as she prayed that the floor wasn't about to collapse beneath them.
Elsa heard the building begin to groan again but she tried to ignore it as the shelf slammed as the metal gate once again. The metal squealed as it twisted apart, the shelf going through the hole they had created and dropping to the ground. When the shelf landed on the unstable ground, the building groaned and the ground began to shiver and she knew there was another aftershock on the way.
Laura felt the ground beneath the heavy counter start to give way, the counter slipping farther and farther downward; she could see the floors beneath her and held onto the counter, hoping that the aftershock would end before the counter fell.
"Sam!" She cried and Sam's eyes opened instantly. "Sam!" Laura's voice was more panicked then it had been before and he hurried toward the broken gate, holding onto the wall to keep from being knocked off his feet by the shaking ground.
Laura was still holding onto the counter but she knew that she was going to fall, knew that the entire floor beneath her was going to collapse and she was going to go with it. Her wide, panicked eyes lifted from the holes in the ground and found Sam; he was struggling to climb over the shelf, pushing aside the jagged metal, trying to get to her.
Sam ignored the flashes of pain filling his head as he stumbled over the shelf and into the clothing store where Laura had worked only hours ago. The ground toward the side of the store, which held the checkout counter and the storeroom, crumbled, collapsing onto the floors below. Sam's heart froze in his chest as Laura disappeared from view, falling to the floors below.