I shone the light down on Ray, who looked pale and sunken, his eyes closed. His arm angled wrong, as if he had fallen from a far height. The blood from his busted face was jellied on the floor by cold. I’d seen blood like this beneath animals that’d died in the winter woods, so thickened it looked solid. The dizziness swept over me again, and my legs trembled. I put the flashlight in my mouth. It made me gag, but I clenched my teeth and rose and pushed myself through the hole, grabbing for a two-by-four board crisscrossing the drywall.

Huge chunks of ceiling fell as I tried to hoist myself on the board. My body plunged, I slumped, almost lost my grip. In movies, this was the moment when action heroines would slide, smooth as spandex, into their own stunt rescue, but even sober and clear-headed, I would have struggled with the effort. It was like trying to clamber onto the highest rung of a monkey bar with all the other rungs removed. My arms would not do the job. I had to use my legs. I had to jump.

If I jumped, the shelf might tip and fall on Ray.

I looked down at him again. He opened his good eye. I didn’t know if he could see me or the hole in the ceiling. He looked both like a ghost and like a beaten child, remote and uncomprehending.

I scanned the shelf below me, laden with stone tablets and pieces of statues. It was heavy. It would crush a man. But it also might not budge easily. Staying here would not save us.

Creeping as close to the hole as I could get, I bunched my legs and leaped. The shelf swayed and rattled behind me, loud in my ears as I lurched, gasping, onto the beam, scrambling for balance. Something long and sharp scraped my elbow. I held on, righting myself. But I couldn’t stop from crying out, and the flashlight fell from my mouth, tumbling end over end, to the concrete beside Ray, glowing toward his empty, outstretched hand. I couldn’t go back for it. I couldn’t see the ceiling or the crawlspace anymore, or tell if my elbow was bleeding. I would have to feel my way, board by board, until I broke through.