The pipes were quiet. No one was there to rescue us.

I felt around for the oblong and slammed the ceiling with it. The impact made my frozen fist ache. It was like wielding a baseball bat at cinder block. All the energy of my swing lashed backward into my body. I swung again, back aching from my crouch. Wham, wham. My shoulder recoiled in pain. I felt the ceiling. Nothing. Wham! A tiny dent.

I sagged over, exhausted, the hammer clunking on top of the shelf. How long would this take? Was it already too late? I looked down at the blackness. I spoke to Ray, but there was no answer, and my voice sounded echoed and strange, like I was speaking into a culvert.

I lifted the hammer. Wham. Sand kissed my hands. Wham. A bigger chunk tumbled, landing on the shelf. In the dark I felt for it. A crumbly, jagged piece. It was all I had. All we had. I closed my fist around it.

AFTER I MADE A HOLE in the ceiling the size of my fist, I started pulling down the drywall by hand, cringing when it tumbled to the floor, but unable to stop. The energy I had left could have filled a teaspoon, and the nausea was worsening. If I ceased moving, I would throw up or faint.

The hole widened to the diameter of a dinner plate. I pulled Ray’s tiny flashlight from my pocket and clicked it on again. It shone into foam insulation. I punched at the insulation and felt it give. My knuckles stung. I punched again.

The insulation broke free, and through the hole I saw a gap beyond.

Holding my breath and closing my eyes, I pulled at the hole until it grew, and then stuck my head and shoulders through, pushing the foam apart with my skull. It tumbled off me, gusting dust all over my face. When I opened my eyes and breathed again, the cloud made me cough and retch, and I almost dropped the flashlight. Then, warm air settled in its place, and my caked, freezing face ached from its own thawing.

There was a gap between the ceiling and roof that extended all the way toward the gallery. Boards interrupted the sheetrock in a network of lines. The light didn’t reach the far end, but I could crawl to Nelson’s office and punch through the ceiling there and get us out. For the first time since he tossed me into the room, I felt a splinter of hope.