No.4 Running Out Of Time
Prompts: #4 buried alive, #5 rescue, #18 panic attacks
Fandom: Cormoran Strike
The phone had died hours ago, but Robin kept it clutched to her chest as she fought down another panic attack. Her shirt was sticking to her back, her heart was racing in her chest, and her diaphragm was rock hard and squeezing all air out of her lungs, making the tight space she was locked in feel even smaller. The phone was smeared with blood; she'd torn several fingernails from scrabbling at the wooden planks above her, her knuckles split open from beating against the coffin lid - in vain. All she'd managed was to make earth rain down on her through the cracks, it's moldy cemetery smell triggering a crying fit. And she'd used up precious air when she'd started screaming.
Breathe.
That was what she told herself, what Strike had told her, calm and reassuring, when the phone was still working and he'd kept her on the line while he, Wardle, Vanessa, Andy, Barclay - a whole search and rescue team, in fact - had been trying to find her location.
Her grave.
They'd all underestimated Redshirt, their unassuming, nondescript looking client who'd turned out to be a ruthless killer with a penchant for strawberry blonde women. Even Strike hadn't seen it coming. Not until Redshirt had dragged her off, blind-folded, to only-god-knew-where and buried her alive, leaving her with an untraceable phone and five minutes of battery left to say her goodbyes.
"AAAAHHHHH!"
Robin screamed again and kicked against the confines of the wooden box. More dirt rained down, and a few pill bugs who scurried off into the dark corners.
At least she still had light. The torch was sturdy, equipped with three large batteries, and Robin knew its yellow pool was the one thing left tethering her to sanity. She hoped she'd run out of air before she ran out of light. Being plunged into pitch-black, below-ground darkness - it would push her over the edge.
"I will find you," Strike had promised, and although she had no idea how he wanted to achieve that, she held on to that promise and to the sound of his voice in her head. I will find you.
There couldn't be much time left. Even discounting the feeling of suffocation her anxiety attacks induced, she could tell the air surrounding her had taken on a thick, humid quality. It was warm, too. Forget the cliché of being buried in 'cold, hard ground'. She was going to die marinated in her own sweat, stinking of sour-gone panic.
Suddenly, a sound travelled to her from above. A faint thump. Again. And again.
What was that? Was someone there?
The sounds continued, in an irregular rhythm.
"Hello?!" Robin took a breath as deep as she could. "HELLO?! IS ANYONE THERE?! HELP! I'M DOWN HERE!"
The thumping stopped, and Robin held her breath in dread.
No. Nonono. Don't go away. Don't leave me here.
Perhaps it was Redshirt? Coming back to do what - dig her back out? Finish what he'd started?
The sounds returned, getting louder, gaining a sharper quality. The ground above her shook.
And then she realized that was indeed what was happening: someone was digging. Right above her. Digging her up.
"I'M HERE!" She screamed again, hope flaring in her aching chest. Whoever this was, whatever they wanted - she would get out of here. To die? Or to be rescued? She barely cared. All that counted was to get out. "YES! I'M HERE! Oh, please - HERE!"
It took forever. By the time she started hearing voices - several, male and female - she'd begun to feel deceptively tired, and she was panting. The air had thickened further, and Robin was bathed in sweat, her face red and caked with dirt. The torch had weakened, its comforting shaft of light fading quickly. Any moment now, it would die completely, and she would be plunged into darkness.
Hurry up, she thought, no longer screaming. Saving her breath to stay alive.
And then something hard and sharp broke through the earth and hit the coffin lid. The plank cracked, showering Robin with clumps of earth and roots. She heard a voice now, muffled through the wood and earth.
"Robin?!"
Strike.
"I'M HERE!"
I will find you.
He'd kept his word.
She coughed, and starbursts broke in her vision, but hysterical laughter bubbled up in her. She coughed and laughed and cried and, through her own sobbing, kept hearing Cormoran's voice that called for her.
A few more moments of hectic shoveling and scraping and shouting above her (she recognized Barclay and Wardle and… Vanessa?), and then a crowbar was rammed between two of the planks, and, raining splinters, the wood broke away and was tossed aside by someone's big hands.
"Robin!"
The same big hands reached for her as she squinted into the blinding haloes of multiple torch lights and breathed in delicious, fresh air. She was being lifted - gently, urgently - and pulled up and out of the coffin, up into strong arms and into someone's lap. Pressed against a broad chest, she smelled wool and sweat and Benson & Hedges and a whiff of Pour Un Homme.
"Robin, look at me? Are you okay?"
Those hands wiped hair and tears and dirt out of her eyes, and she looked up into green eyes and into a pale, freckled face that seemed to have lost its fight against a beard.
"Robin! Talk to me!"
Somewhere behind him, she heard Wardle shout into his phone, ordering an ambulance, and Vanessa squatted down by her side, looking concerned.
"You alright, luv?"
"Yeah," she sniffed, as steadily as she could. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine."
Strike exhaled, his breath cool on her flushed face. "Thank fuck," he said, his voice breaking a little. "I thought…"
He broke off and, for a moment, he just held her. Robin fought the urge to curl up and bury her nose in his jumper and simply stay there, alive and safe. Instead, she pushed herself up into a sitting position. Strike's arm remained around her shoulder.
"I'm fine," she said again, to him, to Vanessa, to an out-of-breath Barclay with a shovel still in his hand and to Wardle barking into his phone but nodding at her.
And she was fine.
"Home or hospital?" Strike asked, concerned but relieved.
"Denmark Street," she said with a watery smile and wiped her sleeve across her nose. "Take me home."