Page 39 of Knot Your Sugar Rush (Starling Grove #2)

Chapter thirty-nine

Theo

T he air is wrong. Too hot. Too thick. It smells like splintered wood, rust, and the fine, choking dust of stone crumbling to pieces.

Somewhere in that haze, Cam’s voice is calling Jamie’s name. Her pitch is high, edged with desperation, and it lights a fire under my ribs. I’m already moving before I think, shoving at fallen beams, wedging my shoulder under whatever’s blocking my path.

“Jamie, hold on!” My throat burns from breathing in debris, but I don’t care.

I can see Cam now, crouched low, both hands wrapped around Jamie’s arm.

He’s free from the beam except his leg, but he’s still covered in ceiling debris.

She’s pale except for the streak of dust smeared across her cheek, eyes wide and wild.

Behind her, the mess of twisted wood and stone is still shifting, groaning like some wounded animal deciding whether to lash out again.

Dane’s braced against a section of wall, holding it like he thinks his own body can keep the whole place from falling. And maybe it can—for a few seconds. Long enough.

I drop to my knees in the narrow gap I’ve cleared, splinters biting deep into my palms. “Cam, I’m here—” I reach through ceiling debris, fingers skimming hers before I find Jamie’s wrist. Warm. Alive. I tighten my grip. “I’ve got him.”

Dane grunts, muscles corded with the strain of holding the wall upright. “Then pull, Theo! Now! ”

I try—but the debris doesn’t want to give him up. It’s got him caught under something heavy. Every inch I gain, the timbers shift with a sound like a gunshot, and I freeze, because if I pull too hard, the wrong way—

Another crack. Louder. The floor jumps under my knees.

“Back! Back!” Dane shouts, and my heart stops.

But I can’t just let go. I shift my weight lower, wrapping both hands around Jamie’s arm now. My elbows wedge into the wreckage, my shoulders screaming.

Cam’s still holding on, her knuckles white. Our eyes meet for a heartbeat through the dust, and in hers I see it—the same stubborn, terrified refusal that’s running hot in my own veins.

The wall beside us bows inward. Dane roars something—I don’t even hear the words—and braces harder. I can feel the building deciding to come down.

I yank on Jamie’s arm, using every bit of leverage I’ve got. Something tears — fabric? — and his hand slips halfway into mine before catching again on the beam pinning him.

And then the sound hits — deep and final, the crack of something vital breaking.

The whole place moves.

I hold on anyway.