“Don’t drop me!” Ben cries, cold bravado banished. He’s just a boy now, a real person who doesn’t want to die. This is the person I cared about, who I thought cared about me.

“Hold on!” I cry, fighting to be heard over the crash of the storm.

Ben yanks on my arm, braces himself, then pulls on my opposite forearm. He doesn’t make progress, though. Instead, the force, his body weight, scoots me forward, pulls my center of gravity toward the edge.

“You’ll pull us both over,” I yell through gritted teeth. “Grab on to the floor!”

But Ben doesn’t stop. Doesn’t try for the splintered flooring inches from his fingers. He keeps on climbing my arms. Excruciating pain radiates up my body; I think he might dislodge my arms from their sockets. My torso is digging into jagged wood, perilously close to a jutting piece of rebar. I’m slipping farther.

He’s going to climb me like a ladder, I realize. A human ladder. If I go down, who cares. Fuck.

Then, suddenly, there’s a weight on my legs. Strong arms, anchoring me. Grabbing me by the hips and starting to pull.

“I’ve got you!”

Gabriel!

“And I’ve got him,” I shriek as Ben wrenches my arm especially hard.

“Bronte, help.”

The pressure shifts, Bronte taking her brother’s place to secure me while Gabriel gets on his stomach, reaches down to grab Ben’s left arm.

“You hang on to the right, and we’ll both pull,” he says to me. And then to Ben: “Stop for a second. Go when I count to three.”

My arms shake as I use both hands to grab Ben’s right arm; at least Gabriel’s grip is firm. He counts to three, and on cue, we both grunt and pull while Ben uses the last of his strength to hoist himself up.

Ben shrieks, as if in pain, but we don’t stop. Sadism, maybe. Or fear of physics. Fear that if we stop, pause for even one second to check, the floor will slip out from under us. It wobbles beneath my stomach even now, Gabriel’s added weight beside me creating tiny shocks with every shift of his muscles.

Once we’ve hauled Ben onto the carpet, then retreated to the far wall and to more solid ground, it’s clear why Ben was screaming. The rebar has left a great gash in his thigh. He whines, the big baby. Bronte grabs a bathroom towel to stem the blood, the last nice thing I intend for us to do for him, while Gabriel holds Ben by the arms.

Seconds later, Sheriff Morrow and Deputy Shields burst through the door, guns drawn and Amber on their heels.

“Ho-ly shit,” Amber says, taking in the scene.