by RJ Scott
Where the fuck are they?
Following instinct, he walked out into the empty hallway and down to where he’d once found Loki drinking beer and bemoaning his knee issue. Every team had a place that was considered private, where a skater could have a meltdown without everyone seeing. For the Dragons, it was the skate room.
He shoved open the door and shut it behind him, startling the twins from where they had their heads together, both of them spinning on their toes to face him. Connor looked guilty, and Cody like his whole world was ending.
“What?” Alex snapped. “I just got asked about photos of Cody on Deadspin. I assume it is Cody and not you, Connor?”
Connor shook his head.
“Okay, then what will I see Cody doing if I look at the site?”
Connor answered when Cody shook his head and slumped on the desk. “It’s not good, Simba.”
“What is it? Drugs? Drink?”
“That’s what they’re saying,” Connor snapped. “But it’s not true. Tell him, Cody.”
“It used to be true,” Cody said brokenly, and looked up at Alex, his startlingly blue eyes wet with emotion. He didn’t cry. Alex considered that Cody had done his crying and wasn’t letting any emotion escape in front of his captain.
“What used to be true?” Alex pressed.
“Cocaine,” Cody answered. He straightened. “I kicked it, Simba, but there are photos, from when I was being drafted.”
Alex turned and deliberately dropped the lock on the door; he didn’t want anyone walking in on this. He glanced at Connor. Cody’s twin looked pale.
“And you, Connor?”
Connor’s expression turned to anger. “What? Just because my idiot fucking twin used, it means I used as well?”
Alex held up a hand. “No, I didn’t mean that.” Then he stopped talking, because, yes, he had meant that. “Okay, we’ll take this upstairs, talk to management, get your agent in, get you signed into a program—”
“I’m clean now, Simba,” Cody snapped. “I haven’t used since I was eighteen.”
“So why are the photos out now?” Alex asked. He was suddenly exhausted. Cody was a solid part of their fourth line, and if he had to miss any games, it would take them out of the race to the playoffs.
And then he realized what he was doing. With Cody looking vulnerable and so damn young in front of him, he’d immediately thought of how this could impact the team. Where the fuck was his heart in all of this? He’d been riding the high of a win, and abruptly he was brought back to earth; that had to be why his compassion had stalled for a moment.
“Ignore I said that,” he amended. Then he stepped into Cody’s space and bro-hugged him. “We’ve got your back, Codes,” he said. For a second Cody clung to him, and then they parted. “Come on, let’s get this taken care of.”
He went to open the lock, but Cody’s soft voice stopped him.
“The photos are there because I refuse to pay any more money for them to stay hidden,” he said.
Alex cursed loudly and turned back to the twins. “Shit, is someone blackmailing you?”
And that was when everything went to hell.
Alex felt like every muscle in his body had been pulled tight and then released an instant later. Some force appeared to pick up his world and throw him to the ground along with plaster and brick and plastic. Next to him, Cody extricated himself from the workings of the skate machine, stumbling to stand, and Connor was on all fours looking dazed, shaking his head, trying to clear his ears. All Alex could hear was a high-pitched whining; Cody was talking right at him, and he couldn’t hear.
“Is everyone okay?” he asked, his voice weirdly internal. Cody nodded, pressing a hand to his wrist and grimacing. Connor nodded as well.
What the fuck was that?
He unlocked the door, but it took a lot of pulling, and he realized the door had buckled inwards.
Was the team okay? Was the arena empty? Where was Jo? Fear lent him strength, and with Cody and Connor pushing the door back out, he finally managed to get it open and walked onto the set of a disaster movie. Walls were gone, dust in the air, and he pulled up his jersey to cover his mouth. Rubble blocked their way past the sticks room, and to the right, back toward the locker rooms, there was a collapsed wall and the sickening sight of charred debris. He turned to face Cody and Connor, lifted his hand to indicate a cell phone at his ear, but hell, not one of them would have their cells on them that close to the end of the game. Cody was cradling his wrist to his chest, which didn’t look good, and Connor was by the collapsed walls, looking at a possible way out. The wall shifted, dust and rubble falling, and Alex yanked Connor back.
There was no way out to the locker room, and fuck, was there anyone beyond the fallen wall?
“Hey!” Alex shouted, and the twins joined in. “We’re in here!” Nobody called back as they shouted, or at least if they did, he couldn’t hear over the damn whining in his ears. He wasn’t even sure how long it had been since the explosion or collapse or whatever it was. Had he lost consciousness at all? He tapped his wrist and looked at Connor, who shrugged and held up both hands, meaning ten.
That wasn’t that long. Ten minutes wasn’t enough time for rescuers to get here.
He closed his eyes, imagined the schematics for the place. As the first one signed to the new Dragons’ franchise, he’d also been early enough to be part of the ceremony putting the plans up on the wall of the central admin office. There had been champagne and food, and so much enthusiasm. But it was the plans he had to imagine. The corridor curved left to medical, right to the locker rooms. Past the rubble that at least had space above it was the trainers’ office, and team equipment, X-ray, and then finally the corridor passed two areas for entertainment, then was the visitors’ locker room. If they could make it there, they could get to the ice through their exit.
“We have to go over,” Alex said, or shouted, because his hearing was still fucked. He scrambled over loose chunks of concrete and exposed metal bars. “Give me a leg up,” he asked Connor. Cody moved to help as well, but he wasn’t steady on his feet, his wrist looking like it was broken, swollen, and his face pale.
Finally, with a push from Connor, Alex climbed the enormous obstacles and realized that there was enough space over for them to wriggle through. Thank god Drago wasn’t with them; there would be no way for the huge goalie to get through. Beyond, the space was gloomy. The dim lighting on that side was gone, and he could see nothing further than the rubble, but he could smell smoke, and that didn’t bode well. He was convinced the arena had every single prevention for fire, but he couldn’t fucking see any of it.
He scrambled back down. “We can get over there,” he shouted. “Make it to the visitors’ locker room, get out on the ice.”
At Connor’s side, Cody slumped a little, falling heavily against his brother. Connor held on, but in slow motion, Cody seemed to crumple quietly to the ground. Connor dropped to his knees, cradling Cody’s head.
“Cody!” he was saying, over and over. Alex felt for a pulse. It was steady and strong.
“Maybe he hit his head,” Alex said. “Concussion. Could you see him when it happened?”
“I fell into him,” Connor said.
They both saw the blood at the same time, darkening Cody’s pants and spreading on the ground. Alex scrambled to untie his pants, and revealed a gash in his thigh. No longer than four inches, it wasn’t gushing blood, but there was enough seepage for Alex to imagine the worst. Thinking on his feet, he ripped the tape off his socks and wrapped it around Cody’s leg above the wound. He couldn’t look Connor in the eye, because what the fuck did he know about stopping bleeding? Connor pressed material against the wound, and at least it wasn’t darkening too much with blood.
“Go for help,” Connor said. His voice was lower, and Alex realized the ringing in his ears was clearing. “Get over there and get some help.” There was an edge to Connor’s voice, fear and panic in every syllable.
Alex
looked at Connor, then, into blue eyes the same as Cody’s.
“I’ll be as quick as I can,” he reassured him.
Then, without a backward glance, he went over the blocks of rubble, wriggling through the small hole and dropping down as best he could on the other side. Feeling his way in the dark, he cautiously walked away from the blockage, using his hands at knee level to ascertain what metal and stone were in his way. There was light ahead, but it was fire in the medical admin office. The door was shut, the fire contained, but behind that room was the medical area; was that on fire as well? He walked into something hard and cursed, thankful for the uniform that protected some of him, and pulled the jersey up higher over his face, his eyes stinging.
Equipment room. Team equipment room. Hospitality. Visiting team street lockers.
He was close, and he finally pushed through the closed door to the visitors’ locker room, devoid of the other team and mercifully not damaged in any way. Hopefully the team had got out of the stadium well before the incident. Stumbling and settling his breathing, he made it to the other exit that led out onto the ice. There was more light there—not fire, but the steadiness of low lighting.
The door was locked or jammed up, or hell knew what was stopping it from opening. He looked around for something, anything, to use as a lever. If he couldn’t get out there, he’d have to go back in and work his way around further, but that had been blocked.
For the first time in his life, he felt like he wasn’t in control.
And he was terrified of letting Cody and Connor down, and maybe never seeing Jo again.
Chapter 17
The force of the explosion ripped a huge hole behind the visitor’s bench, glass shattering, chairs mangled, destroyed. For a moment, Jo was frozen. The debris thrown out had reached as high as she was, and large chunks of concrete and metal had fallen to the right of her. Where was Alex? Was he okay? Had it been a bomb?
She couldn’t think, gripped her hair tight and attempted to get her thoughts in order. She didn’t have time to think about anything other than what had happened in front of her.
Instincts and training kicked in, and she pulled out her cell, cursing at the shitty signal, and hoping to hell someone else could call 9-1-1. Then she moved down the stairs as swiftly as she could, finding the most solid path.
“My son!” a woman was screaming, gripping a chair, her hair matted with blood.
“Ma’am, where is your son?”
The woman looked at her blankly, but she stopped screaming and pointed into the gaping hole.
“He was right next to me,” she sobbed.
Jo looked around for something to steady herself so she could get a proper view into the hole. The woman moved closer, and the structure shifted.
“You need to stay where you are,” Jo snapped. “Stay back.”
Gently, she eased herself to the edge, tightly gripping the mess of concrete, the undersides of chairs and the twisted rebar that was exposed. She looked over and down. She didn’t know what was under there. There was water gushing from a broken pipe, and two floors exposed. She couldn’t see anything, no sign of the woman’s son. And then she heard it—a low, thready call for help—and just that enabled her to pinpoint where he was. About three feet below, his jersey caught on protruding metal.
She could try to climb down, or maybe get underneath him? Whatever had exploded had taken away most of the rooms below; she couldn’t see a door.
“I’m going to lean over,” she announced to the mom, who nodded frantically. “I’ll see if I can get him loose and he can climb back up. Can you hold my legs?” The mom let go of the metal that was the only thing supporting her, but managed to stop her slide with a foot hooked to the stand.
“Stay back, ma’am. I’ve got you, Jo,” said a voice from behind.
Jo looked behind her. Dennison and the rest of the guys who’d been at the game were at her side.
“Ma’am you need to move back now. We’ve got this.” Dennison hooked his solid weight and gripped Jo’s ankle. “Is this the only ingress?” he asked as they settled their position so she could lean right down.
Jo hesitated. What if she was wrong? What if there was an easier way to get to the boy? One that didn’t involve the possibility of him falling into the crater below? But no, there was nothing, right? This was the only way.
“Jo?” Dennison snapped.
“This is the only way,” Jo said.
“Let’s go, then.”
With Dennison holding her weight, she managed to reach far enough down that she could touch the boy, who didn’t look much older than ten or so.
“Hi,” Jo said, thankful that the kid had his eyes open, and apart from a cut on his head didn’t seem to have any injuries.
“Help me,” the boy said, his knuckles white where he was gripping the exposed metal.
“Hold my hand,” Jo said.
“I can’t. I don’t want to let go.”
The structure creaked again, and Jo knew she didn’t have time to hesitate. With a firm tug on the boys wrists, he let go, and she had her hands around them.
“Pull me up!” she shouted, and Dennison, along with others, did just that. She deposited the kid with his mom. A paramedic was there, helping them away.
“What the hell, Jo?” Dennison asked. He didn’t need an answer, because he was focused and organizing teams to spread out and work the scene. “We’re looking for survivors. Someone get me the office. I want an estimate of who’s still gonna be here.”
“Sir,” Mitch said, and sprinted up the stairs to the back wall, vanishing through the door.
“Support is two out,” Dennison said to Jo. “You’re with me.”
Jo followed Dennison, the same as Mitch, but at the top the two of them went right and down to the next exit doors.
They met on-duty firefighters in the lobby, the lieutenant from that engine shouting orders, asking for schematics, setting up a cordon.
The team. Where would the team be?
“Give us something to do,” she demanded of the acting scene officer, and he looked at her and Dennison, recognition flaring in his eyes.
“Denny?”
“We were at the game,” Dennison explained. “At the bar on the concourse level post-game.”
“Issues?”
“None. All civilians from that level evacuated. All damage appears contained to player benches and the front twenty rows of seats. Big hole; minimal civilian presence, paramedics on site. We were here, so I have personnel assessing. Tunnels below have collapsed.”
The lieutenant unrolled the emergency plan. “Let’s get them back. I want eyes on everyone’s positions.”
Then it was a blur.
“The team is trapped,” someone called, and Jo’s chest constricted painfully. Trapped by debris? Injured? Where was Alex?
She couldn’t do anything about it. She wasn’t allowed back there. Other firefighters and paramedics swarmed the corridors to the player’s area, and she had to stay where she was.
“No one’s hurt!” a voice called out.
The relief was short-lived as one by one the players emerged, some in uniform still, others in suits, and there was no sign of Alex.
“We have three team members missing.” Ryan was there, shouting at Dennison. “Cody, Connor, Alex—they weren’t in the main room.”
“Where were they?” Dennison asked, gripping Ryan and dragging him toward the scene commander.
Ryan was wild-eyed. “They left the locker room. No one saw the twins go, but Alex went through the doors to the corridor. We tried to get to them, but there was a mountain of rubble. You have to go the other way to get to them.”
“Sir!” a firefighter shouted, “We have a survivor here.”
A team of three headed that way, and all Jo could do was watch. Where was Alex? What if he was dead? What if somewhere in the building the man she loved was crushed, or dying at that moment? Every particle of her training left her, and her legs were u
nsteady. Dennison gripped her before she fell and eased her back against the wall.
“Breathe, probie,” he ordered.
Breathe? She couldn’t; her chest was too tight.
Then she saw Alex, covered in dust and debris, blood on his hands, and she’d never seen anything so perfect. He saw her at the same time, and somehow they met in the middle of all the chaos, holding each other tightly for a brief instant.
Then he turned from her. “Connor and Cody James—they’re trapped between home and visitors, near the skate room. Cody is badly hurt.”
Alex didn’t move while they waited for news, and Jo stood next to him. Over and over, she thought, they’ll be okay. Once she said it out loud, but Alex looked so broken and fearful that she didn’t speak again. She moved a little closer, needing to feel he was there and well.
When Cody was lifted out on a stretcher, paramedics already working on him, Alex left her side. And when the paramedics headed to the ambulance with Cody, Alex pulled the team together, and one by one they said they were going to the hospital.
Alex sent her a look of confusion, like he wanted to stay, but he couldn’t. Torn.
“You have a job to do, captain,” she said. “Just like I do.”
He nodded. “I love you,” he whispered. “Stay safe.”
“I love you,” she responded, and stepped back and away.
Within ten minutes of leaving, the news that an explosive device had been responsible for the destruction was relayed through the ranks of officials on site.
“The same as the one at the Ferris wheel?” she asked Dennison.
“Bomb squad is on site. Looks that way. Source is the hydrotherapy room right between the two locker rooms.”
Jeez, she’d only just been down there with Abby and baby Izzy. There’d been that maintenance man she’d seen, and for a moment she thought about actually saying something, and then stopped herself. A lot of people probably had access to that space, and one maintenance guy wasn’t worth mentioning. Only… it niggled, and she imagined people dead in the rubble and the pain and suffering that the bomb could have caused, and without real thought, she found the first cop she could.