Chapter 15

Luke

"Help!" I heard a small voice cry out. "I'm stuck!"

"We're going to get you out of there! Just stay calm!"

I swung down next to Rhuyin and examined the tangle of debris. The girl was pinned beneath an iron girder. While it had trapped her, it had also protected her from blocks of concrete that had fallen when the walls caved in.

Rhu grabbed the girder and began to lift, the building making ominous creaking noises and the sound of rubble rattled down on us.

"Wait!" I said, stopping him with my hand on his arm. "Let me create a shield around her, then we can just slide her out."

He nodded.

"What's your name?" Rhu asked the dark-haired girl after clearing away some of the rubble that had shrouded her face.

"Naya," she replied shakily. "Naya Lokimedes."

Rhu looked at me questioningly, so I repeated her name so he could read my lips.

"Lokimedes? I know that name from somewhere. Nice to meet you, Naya," Rhu said. "I'm Rhuyin, this is my friend Luke. We're going to get you out of here."

Rhu leaned forward and put his mouth close to my ear.

"We need to hurry," he whispered. "She's lost a lot of blood."

I closed my eyes and sent my senses out into the earth. I couldn't afford to get distracted again so I forced myself to focus on this particular location. I could feel the void where Naya lay. We were close to the epicenter of the damage. She had been extremely lucky to have survived whatever had caused the explosion.

I summoned the metal around us, causing it to flow around her.

"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 to support 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."

"In theory?" 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.

I could see emergency vehicles all around the perimeter of the building, lights flashing and sirens wailing. Distantly I could almost feel emergency personnel making their way through the ruined portions of the building in search of victims. Rhu stayed focused on Naya as I worked to bring us down somewhere close to the rescue teams, ignoring the points and shouts as we got closer.

This was probably the most magic I had used in one go since I had created the tunnel to free Master Tarek. Elex and I had worked to hide our true abilities from the Elusians, using only the minimum power necessary to accomplish any task. That meant there were very few times when we were able to unleash everything we had.

As I set us down near one of the vehicles, slowly pulling the metal and earth back into the ground I heard Rhu hand Naya off to some medics with an urgent warning about the metal in her leg. As I looked back I could see a massive expanse of collapsed building radiating out from a central spot, like the ripples of water a stone makes when dropped in a pond.

Fuck. Naya hadn't been the only one fortunate to have survived that blast.

"Call them back," I told one of the medics urgently. She looked at me in confusion.

"I'm an Earth Mageia. I can feel the rescue teams in there. There's no one else in there, alive or dead. If they rush in, they're just going to get hurt for no reason."

She looked at me doubtfully for a moment, then her eyes rested on the metal and stone circle that had levitated us out of the building and nodded in understanding. I heard her relay the information on the radio at her shoulder before turning her attention to Naya.

A wave of dizziness washed over me and I shook my head.

"Are you okay?" I heard Rhu ask, but his voice seemed to be coming from very far away. I caught a final glimpse of his emerald green eyes before I dropped to my knees and felt the darkness overtake me.