Mercy Kill_ A Mystery - Lori Armstrong [27]
Before I could mouth “thank you,” another blast rocked the building. Our eyes met and the words dirty bomb flitted through my mind as I watched nails imbed in him, turning him into a human pincushion.
The young flyboy dropped to his knees, blood gurgling from his mouth as he tried to speak. He fell forward, his big, heavy body landing on my legs. I reached for him, digging my fingers into the fabric of his shirt, intending to yank him away so I could finally free myself. Immediately, another bloody body riddled with shrapnel fell on top of me with enough force I felt my rib crack beneath the deadweight. Panic like I’d never experienced set in. My arms were pinned to the front of my torso as my fingers gripped a dead man’s shirt.
I couldn’t move at all.
I screamed until my lungs were devoid of air. I thrashed, but when I moved my head, a jagged chunk of fluorescent tubing dug into my neck, dangerously close to my jugular. Trapped like an animal. An ominous screeching followed a deafening groaning sound above me. I looked up through the haze of smoke as a steel girder splintered. Shards of metal whizzed through the air like flying razors as the remnants of the ceiling plummeted to the earth. The bodies piled on top of me took the brunt of the impact, as the roof joists bounced around me like pieces of a life-sized Erector Set.
My relief that I hadn’t ended up a shish kebab was short lived. Weirdly colored flames licked across the gaping hole above me. Debris floated down. Paper of all sizes and colors swirled in an industrial blizzard. At first the flaming pieces burned to ash before they hit, dusting my face with gritty powder. But the pieces got progressively bigger and were strangely warm when they landed on my skin. I squinted through the dusty air and realized the paper had been replaced by plastic.
Chunks of plastic backing that’d been attached to insulation floated down.
The pieces were getting bigger.
And I couldn’t move my head.
One piece of warm plastic landed on my lips, and I puffed out a breath. It floated away.
Okay. If I could just keep blowing away the plastic pieces, not allowing anything to cover my face, eventually somebody had to notice me. Eventually someone had to come by and rescue me, right? Firemen, police, ambulance crews, militia?
Where were A-Rod and J-Hawk?
They’d been on the dance floor when it blew up. What if they were dead, burned beyond recognition, wrapped in an eternal lover’s embrace?
I couldn’t think about worst-case scenarios because I was in one.
Warmth dripped down my cheek. For a second I thought I was bleeding. Maybe crying. But it wasn’t tears. It was water. I squinted at the ceiling. The flames above me were now tendrils of sooty black smoke.
Oh God. They were spraying something on the fire, and it was weighting down the plastic. Now the pieces were splatting like raindrops. Sticking like glue.
No! I screamed. Stop! Turn off the goddamn water!
But no one heard me above the pandemonium.
A wet chunk splatted onto my right eye. I pursed out my bottom lip and attempted to blow upward, like I had as a girl whenever my bangs hung in my eyes. I puffed out breath after breath until I was dizzy from lack of air, but the warm plastic had molded to my forehead.
Dread and panic created a lethal cocktail, and I debated the fastest way to die. Crank my head to the side and let the glass sever my jugular? Bleeding out wasn’t painful.
Was it?
Yes. I remembered the guard in Afghanistan. I sliced his throat, watching gurgling foamy blood dripping from his lips as he struggled.
Payback is a bitch, ain’t it?
With half my vision compromised by the plastic molding to my forehead and eye, I didn’t notice the larger chunk of plastic until the sheet covered my entire face. I gasped, allowing the warm plastic to line my mouth. The immediate suction pulled the plastic into my nostrils, too. I couldn’t breathe. At all. My heart raced so fast it nearly burst.
I was suffocating.
I pushed at the plastic with my tongue. Closed my jaw and tried to grind my front