Page 61 of Knot Your Sugar Rush
And then, like some cruel echo, Zae’s face flashes in my mind—the day I couldn’t reach her in time, after her car was slammed into by a truck. The too-late. The empty.
Not again.
“Cam.” Dane’s voice brings me back. He’s crouched beside me again, one big hand over mine, reinforcing the grip like he’s transferring some of his strength straight into my bones. His eyes lock on mine through the grit in the air, steady and unflinching. “We’re going to move the beam pinning his leg on three. You keep him steady, no matter what shifts.”
I nod. It feels like my head is full of wet sand, but I nod.
“One,” he says, voice low. Theo’s already in place, wedged into a space I can barely see.
The whole building answers with a groan.
“Two.”
Dust rains harder, stinging my eyes. Jamie’s arm twitches. I grip harder.
“Three!”
The worldlurches.The floor dips beneath me, the sound of straining wood and stone screaming through the space. The pressure on Jamie’s arm changes and I cry out—not in pain, but from the sheer terror of losing that connection.
I hold on with everything I have, muscles screaming, the tendons in my wrist burning.
Then another shudder, bigger than the last. Something in the far corner gives way with a crash that rattles my teeth. Dane’s voice is sharp, urgent. “Theo, brace—brace! It’s shifting too fast!”
“I’m trying—” Theo’s voice is strained, broken by the weight he’s holding back.
“Cam,don’t let go!” Dane barks.
“As if I would!” My voice is feral now, my forehead pressed to the rubble, my body a shield.
The ground trembles again, and for a heartbeat I think we’ve lost. But then Jamie’s fingers twitch—so faint I almost imagineit—and I squeeze back hard enough to make my own hand ache. His face is agony, but I don’t look away.
“I’m right here,” I whisper. “You’re not alone. We’re going to get you out.”
The building doesn’t care. It keeps shifting, complaining, threatening to take him with it.
And then Dane’s voice, close again, fierce in my ear: “We’re going to try from another angle. Don’t lose him.”
I don’t even look up. “I won’t.”
The next moments are a blur of noise—grunts, crashes, the grinding sound of wood against stone, the groaning protest of a structure on the edge of collapse.
And through all of it, my fingers locked around his, my pulse in my ears, my mind clinging to one thought like a lifeline:
I am not letting go.
Chapter thirty-nine
Theo
The air is wrong. Too hot. Too thick. It smells like splintered wood, rust, and the fine, choking dust of stone crumbling to pieces.
Somewhere in that haze, Cam’s voice is calling Jamie’s name. Her pitch is high, edged with desperation, and it lights a fire under my ribs. I’m already moving before I think, shoving at fallen beams, wedging my shoulder under whatever’s blocking my path.
“Jamie, hold on!” My throat burns from breathing in debris, but I don’t care.
I can see Cam now, crouched low, both hands wrapped around Jamie’s arm. He’s free from the beam except his leg, but he’s still covered in ceiling debris. She’s pale except for the streak of dust smeared across her cheek, eyes wide and wild. Behind her, the mess of twisted wood and stone is still shifting, groaning like some wounded animal deciding whether to lash out again.
Dane’s braced against a section of wall, holding it like he thinks his own body can keep the whole place from falling. And maybe it can—for a few seconds. Long enough.
