Page 1 of Only Fools Rush

1

LEONA

Something dripped on my face.

My eyelids fluttered.

Drip. Drip.

What was that? Where was I?

Dim, flickering light filtered into my vision. Dust swirled in the shadows, filling my nose and irritating my eyes. I went to rub them, but I hit a hard plane of resistance.

“Hey, little vixen,” a strained voice said from above me. “There you are.”

I blinked the dust from my eyes. My hand bumped against the resistance again while a sneeze tickled my nose. My muscles burned. My head swam. What was going on?

The last thing I remembered was fighting with Max at Ryuji’s club. He had pissed me off after talking shit about Cas, so I had punched him in the face. A gunshot had echoed. Heat and pain had flashed.

“Are you with me?” the voice whispered. I shifted but bumped against more things. “You have to stop hitting my ribs or I’m going to collapse. Fuck.”

“What’s going on?” My voice came out strangled, a strange sound even to my ears. Before I could say anything else, Iinhaled a puff of dust, and a coughing fit racked my body.Drip. Drip. “What’s on my face?”

“Probably my blood.”

Blood.

Club.

Ryuji.

Everything came rushing back. The fight with Max. The bomb going off, decimating the club. My body slamming against something, my leg going numb. The ceiling collapse. Ryuji’s arms before the world went dark.

“Ryuji!” I tried to sit up, but my legs were trapped. I couldn’t move. I sucked in a long breath until my lungs tightened. Another violent cough left me as more dust swirled around us. “What’s happening?”

“Shh, calm down,” he murmured in a soothing voice. “Don’t panic. The more you move, the worse it gets. Breathe. Yes, that’s it.”

In the flickering light, I could barely make out how our legs were pinned together as his body hunched over mine. Rocks, rebar, debris surrounded us with momentary light filtering in through tiny holes before disappearing.

Drip.

I caught a glimpse of Ryuji’s face. Blood leaked from a massive cut on his forehead, so much so that darkness drenched his skin.

He groaned, shifting his back. I strained my neck to use whatever light I could to see what was going on.

“Are you…” I gulped. “Are you holding up the rubble? For how long?”

His body caged mine, with the massive weight of the ceiling right above us both. My hands fisted at my sides, my throat tightening, as I realized he had protected us from being crushed, but where was everyone else?

“Few minutes maybe. I got this. No big deal.” His arms strained on either side of my head.Drip.“Don’t move. The rubble has been shifting. They’re coming for us.”

My breaths came hard and fast. “Where is everyone? Did they get out okay? How do you know?”

I tried to move again, but my knees knocked against his, and he swore. I froze, but the adrenaline running through my veins made my body tremble.

“Breathe. Slow.” He inhaled deeply, then waited for me to take a few deep breaths with him. “Everyone got out except us.”

“Are you sure?” His blood dripped down the side of my face into the shell of my ear. I squeezed my eyes to stop myself from absolutely freaking the fuck out. Everyone was fine. He said everyone got out. If we were trapped in here, they had to be losing their minds. “How’s Cas?”