Shock Wave. Dana Mentink

stood, feet slightly apart, hands loose at his sides. Though he kept his voice just above a whisper, every syllable was clear. “Sage, you need to leave this theater for your own safety. If I have to carry you out kicking and screaming, I am prepared for that contingency.”

      She heard the hardened resolution in his quiet voice. Dimples and charming drawl aside, she knew he would not hesitate, and she was no match for his size and strength. She would lose this battle.

      But not the war.

      “Fine. I guess I have no choice if you’re going to be a bully.”

      He did not smile. “Great. Let’s move.”

      Was he right that someone had helped those boxes to fall on them? The same person who’d found her trapped and left her? Swallowing a surge of fear, she crept behind him back the way they had come. Trey’s body was wire-taut as he led them toward the stage door.

      She peered past the proscenium arch into the rows of empty chairs. A flicker caught her eye.

      “Trey,” she whispered. “I just saw a light. Out there.” She pointed.

      “Might be Fred or maybe Derick has arrived,” he whispered back.

      “No, I’m sure it’s Antonia.” She called out. “Antonia? Is that you?” No answer. “Maybe she didn’t hear me. I’m going to go check.”

      “No, Sage.”

      There was warning in his voice, but she didn’t listen. Instead she darted ahead of him toward the stairs.

      He was after her in a moment.

      She pushed against the metal door as he put a hand on her from behind.

      Her knees trembled, a shaking that spread throughout her body.

      Confused, she pushed the door harder but the shuddering kept on, rippling through her body until she could hardly stand.

      Fighting for footing, she looked at Trey, unable to see his face clearly.

      Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, the realization hit.

      Earthquake.

      The floor bucked and rolled under her feet like a live thing.

      Trey went down on his back as the wood gave way.

      “Get out,” he yelled. “Sage, get out now.”

      Suddenly he was snatched from her view.

      She tried to reach out to him, but she was being tumbled about as the surface continued to undulate. The sound of distressed wood shrieked and groaned around her. That’s when her mind put it together. This was the moment every Californian held in the back of their mind. The reality that was heightened by the 1989 Loma Prieta quake and captured in faded black-and-white photos from 1906.

      This was the day scientists and doomsday broadcasters had predicted would come.

      She heard the theater rattle around her, the beams coming loose from their supports, bits of plaster beginning to fracture and fall.

      This was no ordinary earthquake.

      This was the big one.

      A sudden upheaval under her feet tossed her onto her back and she found herself staring at the ceiling, sections of which were breaking away, loosening huge chunks of plaster. She desperately tried to get her feet under her, to find some stability against the violent movement.

      Somewhere she heard a scream. Antonia?

      No time to process.

      She wanted to call out for Trey, but the words froze in her throat as roar of sound enveloped her.

      Like a scene from a bad movie, she watched uncomprehendingly as the floor of the stage ripped in half, sections parting wide like the jaws of a hungry beast.

      A black chasm of splintered wood gaped in front of her and Sage rolled into the abyss, darkness swallowing her up.

      FOUR

      Trey tried to figure out which direction was up. His body filled with one desperate need. Get to your feet, soldier. Try as he might, he could not find a point of reference in the tumbling chaos. The thunderous shaking unleashed a tsunami of sound as wood and pieces of the old opera house ripped loose and smacked into him, bashing his shoulders and slicing into his neck. He threw up his hands to shield his head as his body finally made contact with what he assumed was the floor.

      Another twenty seconds of tooth-rattling vibrations and the tumult was suddenly over. He sat up, loosening a pile of grit that showered off of him. He blinked hard. It was completely dark and for a moment he wondered if he had been knocked blind. Gradually, a weak filtering of light from somewhere up above made him realize that first off, he was not blind and second, wherever he’d fallen there would no longer be the easy comfort of a light switch.

      “Sage?” he called. Trey had not felt fear since his return from the war zone, but he felt it now, thick and weighty, as he received no answer. He looked around, trying to get his bearings. He’d fallen through the stage, into this cavernous black space. Far above he could now make out the underside of the wood floor, ripped and jagged, showing through the clouds of dust that billowed everywhere. Perhaps she had not fallen with him. Maybe she was still up there. “Sage,” he shouted again. The quiet was undisturbed.

      He got to his feet, wobbling on the debris that slipped and slid beneath his feet. Every movement unleashed another tide of detritus and each sound made him stop, ears straining for some noise, any sign of life, from her. His heart hammered against his ribs as he floundered his way free, peering through the gloom to find her. Where are you? He prayed she was safe, that maybe she’d had time to run off the stage before it buckled. Yet another situation in which she would never have found herself if she’d listened to him in the first place. No time for quiet deliberation.

      “Sage Harrington, answer me right now!” he bellowed in a volume so loud it echoed and bounced through the darkness.

      It was not an answer, exactly, but a whoosh of debris stirred somewhere at his eleven o’clock. He scrambled over broken boards until he neared the spot, wishing he had not lost his grip on the flashlight earlier. He called again, treading gently on the rubble, turning over sheets of plaster until he saw a tiny pinprick of light. He got to his knees and pawed with his hands until he found the source, the luminous dial of Sage’s watch. He grasped her slender wrist and pulled her arm free, shoving aside as much of the mess as he could until he unearthed her.

      She was covered in dirt, eyes closed.

      He pressed two shaking fingers to her throat.

      At his touch she jerked awake and bolted backward, her feet scrambling for purchase, eyes wild and glittering in the gloom. “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me.”

      Trey held up his hands, palms forward. “It’s me, Sage. Trey Black. I’m not going to hurt you.”

      The crazed sheen in her eyes did not abate. Panting, she scanned the ceiling as if expecting a weight to drop down from above at any moment. Her body began to tremble and a bead of sweat rolled down her forehead.

      In the face of her reaction, his anger trickled away. He knew the look, he’d seen it before, long after the bombs had stopped and the bullets went quiet. He’d known good men to suffer from PTSD, even after they were safe at home, back with the people who had anguished over them their entire tour of duty. Maybe for some, there was no safety anymore after war imprinted that fear deep down inside. The realization added to the weight of grief he felt over what had happened to her, to them both, in Afghanistan. He tried again, softening his voice. “It’s okay. There was an earthquake.”

      “An earthquake?” she parroted back in a whisper.

      “Yes,” he said. “We’re in the Imperial Opera House. We were standing on the stage when it collapsed.” She nodded and he took that as a good sign. “I wondered if you are hurt.