Cut and Run 4 - Divide and Conquer

Ty over. “We need EMTs,” the man
    said, his voice overloud. He pointed down at the woman in an FBI
    windbreaker. She grimaced, the soot streaks on her face emphasizing
    how she was white with pain, holding onto her broken leg while
    another agent tried to splint it to hold it still.
    Ty took out his phone, though he was certain paramedics had
    already been called and were right behind him. He moved toward them
    as he made the call anyway. Why hadn‟t he done that first? Or at least
    told someone else to do it? He wasn‟t thinking clearly.
    “How many?” Ty asked the man, who seemed unharmed.
    “Four down here, two unaccounted for. They were in the store,
    checking the back rooms.” The man pointed to a couple of agents
    frantically laboring to push aside burning debris where some interior
    walls had collapsed in. “They were closer to it,” he said, dread clear in
    his voice.
    Divide & Conquer | 93

    Ty moved to help and ended up ordering one of them to head
    toward the exit because his head was split open and bleeding.
    His training was kicking in, so he wasn‟t panicking about Zane
    just yet. He knew that later, when the adrenaline wore off, he would be
    sick no matter what happened.
    They moved chunks of plaster and torn wood, tossing them to the
    side as they dug around. “Garrett!” Ty called again as soon as they‟d
    made a dent in it. Later, he wouldn‟t remember how much time had
    passed.
    Some of the plasterboard on the floor shifted further in, and the
    other guy digging yanked it off to reveal an unconscious agent with
    terrible burns on her face and hands. He knelt down and checked her
    neck and back, then swung her into his arms before nodding at Ty to
    keep going, then heading out of the ruined storefront.
    Ty stuck his head into the hole they‟d made, but there was
    nothing else in there but more plaster and cement block.
    “Fuck,” Ty breathed as he pulled back out and looked around a
    little wildly. Out in the concourse, the way he had come, he could see
    two firemen in their bulky yellow suits working their way toward him.
    It had been at least six minutes, then, counting on standard response
    time. It seemed like it had been so much longer. A lifetime longer. Ty
    turned and looked deeper into the store filled with dull smoke and
    shifting shadows.
    “Garrett!” he yelled as he headed that way. It was dark where the
    lights had all been blown out, and most of the debris was
    unidentifiable. He ducked under a fallen ceiling support, forced to
    crawl across the soaked carpet to get under it.
    The rubble blocked so much of the floor that he had to climb on it
    rather than pushing it aside. As he got closer to the back, the smoke
    cleared, blown by a cold breeze from the outside. And then he saw it: a
    bright splotch of red against a charred gray wall. The blood streaked in
    vertical lines like someone had tried to wipe it down the wall, and a
    thick, scorch-marked metal door lay at an angle under it, blocking the
    corner.
    94 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

    But one long leg ending in a familiar dress shoe extended out of
    the mess of splintered particle board into what used to be the entrance
    to the storeroom.
    “Zane,” Ty gasped as the feeling in his entire body seeped away.
    He moved as fast as he could, batting away the light pieces of
    wallboard and shoving the still-hot metal door over and out of the way.
    Ty knelt beside him. “Zane?” he whispered. His voice wavered as he
    ran his hand over Zane‟s face.
    He wasn‟t cut up or burned; the metal door had saved him from
    the explosion. One shoe was scorched, but even the laces were still
    intact. He didn‟t look like he was injured at all, other than the garish
    bloodstain on the wall behind him from his impact and slide to the floor
    under the door that had shielded him from the blast.
    But Zane didn‟t move, didn‟t twitch, didn‟t open his eyes when
    Ty tapped his cheek. Nothing.
    Ty‟s stomach turned. He pressed his fingers to Zane‟s neck,
    feeling for a pulse. His other hand ran through Zane‟s hair as he did so.
    The pulse was there. Ty gasped in relief, leaned down, and
    pressed his lips to Zane‟s forehead, heedless of who might see, and
    then he looked back into the store for help. He knew without a doubt he
    couldn‟t carry Zane out of there.
    “Hey!” he called as he saw a beam of light playing through the
    swirling smoke. “Man down!” he called to the fireman desperately.
    As the fireman