“Someone has to find us soon,” I say.
Surely first responders are already responding. Firefighters. Rescue workers. I can hear the sirens on top of the car alarms. So much noise. They’ll be here. Because there isn’t enough air. There isn’t enough room. There isn’t anything but a pain in my head and Charlie trying to catch his breath.
Tears track through the dust on my face. Then I gasp. Choke on a sob.
“Ruby? Ruby, what’s wrong?” Charlie’s voice rises in panic.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I want my mom.” I feel bad for getting so mad at her last night. “I can’t breathe.”
“Ruby! Listen to me. It’s going to be okay.” Charlie’s voice cuts through the stillness. It is strong. Sure. Like someone who has been trained for situations like this. “It’s going to be okay.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you said so!”
What do I know? Growing up in California doesn’t make me an earthquake expert. And what if the whole world looks like this laundromat? This could be the end of everything. I push at the pain in my head. It’s still there. Throbbing.
“We should make noise,” I say. “We need to scream so someone will hear us.”
Charlie lets out a low and guttural yell. I follow with a scream, high and screeched. I scream over Charlie, through the rubble and out into the dusty air, until my throat hurts and my chest heaves and my head feels like it could explode.
Someone will hear us. Someone will help.
CHAPTER THREE
5:00 P.M.
Through the pain and the dust and the dirt, a speck of a promise slips through.
“Charlie! My phone!”
“Get it!”
I hear the hope in his voice and suddenly wish I’d kept the revelation to myself. Because okay, fine, I have a phone, but, “It’s in my back pocket and I can’t move my arms. Where’s yours?”
“Hell if I know. We need yours. Okay?”
“Okay.” I coax my left arm off my face, but the space above me is tight, pushing down. Boxing me in. My arm, just below my elbow, scrapes against a sharp slice of something jutting out from overhead. Glass, I think. From the window. A jagged spike rips through the sleeve of my sweatshirt and into my flesh like the tip of a knife cutting through birthday cake. Up and down my forearm the shock goes, like it’s cut clean through my skin and tissue and gone straight to the bone. The pain sears through me and I cry out.
“What is it? What happened?”
I grit my teeth, biting down to get through the burning pain. My vision fades for a split second, making everything too bright, like a camera flash. My stomach rolls with nausea. Then just as quickly, I’m back in the dark and panting again. I can’t twist my body enough to see the damage, but I can feel the blood as it spills out and seeps into the thick cotton sleeve of my sweatshirt.
“What happened?!” Charlie shouts this time. “Answer me!”
My stomach lurches again. I might throw up. I heave.
“Ruby!”
“I cut myself. I think it’s bad.” I’m scared to touch it. I don’t want to feel how deep it is. I don’t want to feel my own muscle and bone.
Charlie’s voice rises again. “Get your phone. We need help.”
“I’m close but I can’t.” I whimper. “I can’t get it.”
“Ruby. Focus.” Every time Charlie says my name, it grounds me. “There’s literally nothing more important right now.”
I twist my body into the inches of give this space will allow me, finally managing to get the tips of my left fingers into my back pocket. “Wait!” I can feel it. “I’ve almost got it.” I push my fingers a millimeter deeper, but I can’t pull it free. “I’m trying.”
“Don’t give up, Ruby.”
My arm screams with pain, a sharp spike carving, but the extra push is enough to get my hand all the way into my pocket.
I pull my arm back, crying out as the spike cuts back through the other way. “I have it!” I shove my phone so close to my face that I can’t even see the whole thing at once. Blood drips down my hand and smears the screen. I try to wipe it clean with my chin. “It’s five o’clock.”
“Who cares what time it is? Do you have any reception?”
I swipe at my phone and dial 9-1-1. When I press the green call button, my phone sits there, doing nothing, not paying attention to me. Like a glazed-over Leo playing video games last summer on the massive sectional couch in Michael Franklin’s pool house while Mila and I texted annoyed sighs back and forth across the room.
Mila doesn’t text me anymore.
“Nothing’s happening,” I say.
“What are you trying to do?”
“I dialed nine-one-one.”
“Everyone’s doing that. Try something else.”
Right. What was I even thinking? The 9-1-1 lines have to be crammed. “I’ll call my mom.” I pull up her number and press the green call button again. And there is . . . nothing. “It’s not going through.”
“Try again.”
I do. Still nothing. “I can’t.” It feels like my failure. Like it’s my fault my phone doesn’t work after an earthquake. I never should’ve told Charlie I had it. I never should’ve given him hope.
“Crap!” He punches something and I wait, frozen, as the space around us creeks and sways. Charlie sucks in a breath. “Oof.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I hurt.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere. My ribs hate me.”
I don’t like knowing Charlie’s in pain. “But your head’s fine. You aren’t concussed?”
“Concussed? Why wouldn’t you just call it a concussion?”
“Argh. I don’t know.” It’s a term they used in this junior lifeguard program I did as a kid. I was super obsessed with calling everything by the correct name because I wanted the instructors to see my dedication. So they would think I was the best. I don’t even know what I’m saying right now. “Just—are you okay? Do you have a head injury?”
“I don’t think so. Everything fell on my chest. I saw you put your hand over your head so I did the same thing.” He groans.
My own head hurts enough for me to have a possible concussion. Or a brain bleed. Is a brain bleed the same thing as a concussion? It’s likely either one could kill me. Is it a painful death? Or will I simply fall asleep and not wake up?
Wait. What if I fall asleep and don’t wake up?
“Is your head okay, Ruby?”
“I don’t know. It hurts.” I press at the pain.
“How bad?”
“Bad. But not like my arm.”
“Is it bleeding?”
“My arm or my head?”
“Both. Either. You tell me.”
“My arm is bleeding. Underneath my elbow.”
“Is it gushing blood?”
“More like oozing.”
He coughs. “You should apply pressure to try to stop the bleeding.”
Thinking about the seep of blood makes me light-headed. Foggy. If I could just shut my eyes for a second . . .