“Ouch!Shit! That’s hot!” I heard her screech.
“Sorry!” I called sheepishly. I slowed the pull of the metal, giving it a chance to cool more before wrapping around her. I opened my eyes and tapped on Rhu’s shoulder to get his attention.
“Be careful,” I mouthed noiselessly to Rhu. “She has a piece of rebar going through her thigh. I think that’s where all the blood is coming from. I’ve severed it from the rest of the rebar so we can move her, but if we pull it out, she could bleed out.”
He nodded at me in understanding.
“Give me your hand,” Rhu called to her. “I don’t want you to try to move. Let me do all the work. I can pull you free, but my friend says there’s something in your leg, and we can’t move it right now.”
“No shit there’s something in my leg! The goddess-be-damned piece of iron is what’s been keeping me pinned here like a fucking frog on a kebob!” she swore angrily.
I couldn’t help myself. A bark of laughter escaped me. Rhu looked at me in confusion.
“What’s so funny? I could feel her say something, but I couldn’t understand it.”
“Our little friend has quite the salty vocabulary,” I responded.
He smiled grimly back, then leaned forward to grab Naya’s hand.
“Naya, are you hurt anywhere else that you know of?” Rhu asked. “Any neck or back pain?”
“I-I don’t think so,” she responded. Rhu nodded at me to let me know he understood what she said. I’d been able to clear a path to her face so he could see her.
“Okay, on the count of three, Luke is going to use his magic to lift as much of the weight off you as he can. When he does that, I’m going to pull you out. You good?”
I heard her acknowledgement and nodded at Rhu, confirming he had felt it as well.
“On three. One. Two.Three.”
I focused on the area around Naya and called to my Earth magic. I pulled on the earth, summoning the metal and rock tosupport the small area we were in and smoothing the metal beneath Naya so that Rhu could pull her free.
Rhu heaved, Naya screamed, and in moments, she was free of the rubble.
She lay panting on the ground, her straight brown hair tangled and sweaty in the light of Rhu’s flashlight. She was young, probably not more than fifteen or sixteen. She wore jeans and a t-shirt that had obviously seen better days. The denim of her right leg was black with blood, a jagged hole showing where the rebar had pierced it. As I watched she began to shiver.
“S-so c-cold,” she said, her face pale.
“She’s going into shock,” Rhu said anxiously. He took his jacket off and wrapped it around her shoulders, then lifted the teen into his arms as if she weighed next to nothing. “We need to get her out of here.”
I nodded.
“How many floors does this thing have?” I asked as I faced Rhu. I had been focusing on clearing the way for Naya and hadn’t thought to check.
“This area of the Pavilion should only have two floors. I think this is the basement area,” he said, nodding around. “We descended from the main floor to get to her. I recognize this section. We’re not far from the boiler room.”
“Okay, hold on,” I said, looking at Rhu as he cradled Naya in his arms. “I’ve never tried this before, but it should work. At least, in theory.”
“Intheory?” I heard Naya respond, her voice rising in alarm.
“He can do this,” Rhu said confidently. I just wished I was as confident.
I knelt in front of them, laying my hands on the stone beneath us. Closing my eyes, I once more sent my awareness out into the earth and created a slow-moving pillar beneath us.
I felt Rhu stumble slightly as the ground beneath us quaked, but he quickly found his footing. I pulled the metal and stone around us, creating something akin to an elevator shaft, pushing aside all the debris that was above us while slowly raising the pillar up from the ground.
“There’s sky…” I heard Naya say, her voice trailing off.
I opened my eyes and felt sweat bead on my forehead. This took a huge amount of power. I don’t think I’d ever used this much power at once before. We were outside the debris of the ruined structure. Looking around, I understood suddenly why I had gotten so lost in its depths: we had to be almost a mile away from the tower that housed the auditorium at its base.
