Page 21 of Breaking Point
Then, abruptly, they were falling.
Luciana closed her eyes, knowing that this was the end.They were two vulnerable humans with soft bodies.They would be crushed as the building fell on them.
They landed heavily and not onto something soft.Brice cried out, then immediately tightened his arms around her again, protecting her head.Luciana groaned, as her hip seemed to shoot fire through her leg and up her back.
Slowly, the horrible sounds faded.Then they stopped.
Luciana realized that she was still alive.Still breathing.And so was Brice.
A little light came from somewhere.So much dust was in the air that the light was nearly smothered.It was enough, though, for Luciana to see.She tried to lift herself and cried out as her hip flared with sharp pain.
“Stay still.”Brice’s voice was hoarse.
“I want to make sure you’re alright.”Her voice was no less strained than his.
“I think I broke my other leg.”And astonishingly, he laughed.It was a low series of chuckles that made his chest vibrate.
“You’re hysterical,” she whispered, trying to pull herself along whatever they were lying on so she could see his face.It hurt like hell to move, and she hit her head on something over them.The space they were in was built of crazy angles, with barely enough room for them.If whatever was over them shifted again, there wouldn’t be enough room….
She brushed the dust and dirt off Brice’s face.More fell on it.“Why are you laughing?”It hurt to talk.Everything hurt.
“Because we’re alive.”His gaze met hers.“We’realive.”
Her chest tightened.Warmth grew there.“Yes,” she breathed.
The look in his eyes.Luciana had not seen it before, yet she recognized it all the same.Something had just changed.Something fundamental had shifted.She could feel it, too.
“I would kiss you, but I can’t move,” Brice said.
She stroked his cheek.“I can’t reach any farther than this, either.”
He turned his head, wincing, and pressed his lips to her fingertips.
The building had stopped moving and shrieking.Instead, they could hear the cries of others.Calls for help.Screams of pain, of fear, of helplessness.
Luciana rested her forehead against his arm, trembling.
They were alive.
Chapter Eight
THIRTY-SEVEN PEOPLE DIED WHENthe Aventine Arena collapsed.Hundreds more were injured and later, many more people succumbed to their injuries.
It took eleven hours for the rubble to be cleared, shored up, and excavated enough to begin extracting the humans trapped beneath.It took fifteen hours for Luciana and Brice to be eased out from under the slab of roof, and they were among the lucky first because the box they had been in had been located just beneath the roof.
People in the lower stalls had to wait much longer for rescue, even though anyone who hadn’t been in the arena when it collapsed came to the Aventine to help, even if it was clearing out rubble and sweeping up dust.
In the hours it took for them to be rescued, Luciana and Brice dozed.When they were not sleeping, they talked.They spoke about everything and anything.In that dim, dusty pocket that might collapse at any time, they had no reason to hold anything of themselves in reserve.
Luciana found she could speak about her life with a rare objectivity.“When Devar was given to Rayen and me, I was only twenty-two.My life had barely begun.Rayen already had the stellar career that couldn’t be interrupted, and she was earning enough for both of us.She argued I should stay at home and give Devar all the care and attention he needed.So I did.We didn’t even pick a last name for Devar.Rayen lodged the register entry, and she used her own name.And it isn’t until just now that I’ve realized how much I have resented that, all this time.”
“She didn’t give Devar anything of you.He got her name,” Brice murmured.
“Yes!Only…she supported all of us, without a murmur of complaint, for twenty years, until he reached his majority.And she let me stay in the Capitol, which was home for me.So there is that.”
“Some parents don’t manage even that much,” Brice said.
“I knew that.And I was grateful,” Luciana admitted.“When Devar was…ten, I think, I got bored.He didn’t need me as much.So I started making things.”
