Page 60 of Knot Your Sugar Rush
“Okay,” I say, and my voice comes out as steady as I can make it. “New plan—” Before I can finish, the ruin takes offense and shifts again, a protesting shudder that rolls through the bones of the place and into ours. Jamie slides the length of a breath.
And then the ruin finds one more failing seam and lets us know about it.
A thunder of old plaster above. A rain of grit. The long beam lurches.
“Hold him!” I bark.
“I’ve got him!” Cam’s voice, bright with fear and fury.
The rest of it—the decision, the load path, whether my bar or the wedge gives first—vanishes into the same simple command I’ve been living by since the first crack:
Don’t let go.
The ruin answers with a rumble that says we have seconds, not minutes.
We do not have him clear.
And I have no idea if the next sound we hear will be daylight ripping in or the island swallowing us whole.
Chapter thirty-eight
Cam
The entire building groans around us, like something ancient deciding it’s had enough of holding together.
“Jamie!” The name tears from my throat as the world comes down in chunks—plaster, stone, wood—a rain of ruin that stings every inch of exposed skin. My eyes water instantly, the acrid dust clawing at my throat and forcing me to squint through the swirling haze.
“I’ve got you!” My voice comes out ragged, breaking on the edges.
His fingers twitch, faint but there, and relief punches the air from my lungs.
Behind me, Theo’s voice cuts through the chaos like a line tossed to someone drowning. “Cam,don’tlet go. We’re coming to you.”
The building shivers again, the vibration buzzing up through my palms and knees. Somewhere above, something heavy shifts, and the sound is a warning in itself.
“Hold him!” Dane’s voice—hard, commanding, the one you listen to without thinking. “Cam, keep his arm steady. We’re coming to you.”
My pulse is in my ears, drowning out the rest. Jamie’s pulse flutters wildly under my thumb, too fast. I lean in close, letting my forehead rest near the rubble that hides his face. “You’re not going anywhere, Jamie. Do you hear me? Not on my watch.”
Another squeeze from his fingers—weaker.
No. Not weaker. I won’t believe that.
The smell of dust and old stone is thick enough to taste, gritty on my tongue. Beneath it—him. And beneath that, faint but unmistakable, my own cinnamon-threaded heat curling upward like smoke from embers. My body chooses the worst time to remind me it’s nearing that point again, every nerve straining toward him.
I shove it down. Now isn’t the time.
A chunk of ceiling gives way somewhere to my left, the crash rattling my teeth. Dane is suddenly beside me, his arm coming across my back, shielding me from a smaller spray of debris. The warmth of him, solid and unyielding, makes my chest ache.
“Stay low,” he says, steady but clipped. “We’ll get him out.”
Theo’s voice grunts from somewhere to my right, punctuated by the creak and snap of shifting wood. “The whole structure’s going—need more support—”
Dane leaps into action toward Theo. I tighten my grip on Jamie’s hand, my knuckles bone-white. His fingers are limp now, but warm.Still warm.
“Talk to me, Jamie,” I plead, my voice cracking. “Let me know you’re still in there.”
There’s no response, just the weight of his arm in my grasp.
