Pure Blood_ A Nocturne City Novel - Caitlin Kittredge [47]
Ringing—no, screaming—was the only thing I heard as I managed to raise my head. I was deaf from the blast, totally incapacitated. The Jaguar was on fire, a twisted frame already turning black all that was left. In the driver’s seat, I could see a charred shape that I didn’t want to look too closely at. Shelby’s uncle was toasted.
Shelby.
My legs worked when I tried to stand on them, although I could feel deep bruising starting everywhere from being hit by debris. “Shelby!” I screamed. I couldn’t hear myself, but I sucked in toxic smoke, so screaming seemed like a good guess.
She had been so close to the car, so much closer to the blast radius than me…
If she was dead, I didn’t know what I’d do. Five minutes ago I hadn’t even liked Shelby. Now, suddenly, the thought that she might be dead was almost too much to bear.
No one else got to leave me.
“Shelby!” That time, I could hear myself a little, but all of my senses were still overwhelmed by fire and smoke and debris.
Close to the car, the bomb had blown a huge chunk out of the garage wall and ceiling, rebar and concrete tiles lying in a rockslide around the car. Half under the biggest piece of ceiling, Shelby was lying unconscious.
She had to be unconscious.
I crouched and felt for a pulse, which was steady but faint. She had a bad cut on her temple that was steadily pumping blood, and there was the matter of the fivehundred-pound piece of concrete trapping the lower half of her body.
“Shelby!” I slapped her cheek. “Wake up!”
After the longest wait of my life, she choked and opened her eyes. “Oh gods.”
“Stay still,” I said, reading her expression and her lips more than hearing. “How hurt are you?”
“My leg.” Tears sprouted in her eyes and she let out a mewl as the pain hit. “My left leg. It really hurts…”
“That’s good,” I said.
“How in hell is this good?” Shelby screamed at me.
“Pain means you’re not going to spend the rest of your life blowing into a tube to move your wheelchair,” I said. Black smoke began to billow from under the Jaguar’s hood. The fire was getting hotter and smellier and louder. “We have to get out of here,” I said. “The other cars are going to catch and then we’ll have fifteen bombs instead of one.”
“Oh gods,” said Shelby, eyes dilating until they were almost black. Her breathing went shallow.
Crap. Of all the times for a person to go into shock. “Listen!” I snapped my fingers in her face. “I’m going to try to lift this block but you’re gonna have to move fast because I can’t hold it. Got that?”
“My fucking leg is crushed!” Shelby howled. “How am I supposed to move fast?”
“Figure it out, unless you want to get extra crispy,” I snapped, grabbing the concrete by the smoothest edge and getting to my feet. I bent my knees and braced myself.
I didn’t know how strong I really was. I had never tested the were strength—most of the time I was more interested in hiding it. I was fairly certain I couldn’t go around tossing Volkswagens, but who knew for sure?
Bright lady, if we get out of this, I promise I’ll stop being mean to Sunny and Shelby and that I’ll really make an effort to make things work with Trevor. But I can’t do that if I’m dead, and charred corpses are really unattractive, so please—don’t fry me.
“Get ready!” I told Shelby, and then shoved at the block with every ounce of muscle in me. There was a rock-smashing screech as rebar tore free of masonry, and I felt the block start to slip no matter how hard I braced it. “Shelby, go!” I gasped as I pushed even harder, pulse screaming in my ears. I felt something give in my shoulder at the same time the block moved, and I fell back as it crashed to earth.
Shelby sat a few feet away, bleeding from a torn hole in her calf. “Hex me,” I said reflexively. Rebar had punched right through muscle and bone.
The car next to the Jaguar was burning now, the upholstery giving off an acrid chemical smoke. Genuine all-leather interior, my ass.
“We gotta go,” I told Shelby, pulling her up and draping her right arm over my shoulder.