“Tommy!” George yelled, grabbing Thomas as his eyes rolled back and he collapsed.

George eased him to the ground. “Did you get hurt somewhere else?”

Thomas moaned, and his eyes fluttered open. He tried to focus on George’s face, but his vision wouldn’t adjust. “I don’t think so.”

“How do you feel?”

“I feel … I feel…” Thomas failed to find the words he needed to explain the dizzying, throbbing pain pounding in his skull.

“You feel what?” George asked.

“Like I’m going to be sick.” Thomas yanked off his mask, lurched forward, and vomited all over the front of George’s uniform. When the retching stopped, he collapsed back on the ground, too weak to lift his arms to wipe off the vomit. George cleaned Thomas’s mouth with his sleeve and eased his mask back onto his face.

“Thank you, James,” Thomas slurred as his eyes fluttered closed again.

“Thomas, it’s me. George.”

“I tried to find you,” Thomas mumbled. “I tried so hard.”

“I know you did,” George said.

Thomas’s unfocused eyes fluttered open behind his gas mask. He looked up at George. “But I failed.” His voice hitched. “I’m so sorry.”

George swallowed back tears. “It’s okay, Tommy. I’m here now.”

Thomas’s eyes slid closed again, pushing tears down his cheeks. “James?” he whispered. “I’m scared.”

“Me too, Tommy,” George whispered. “Me too.” He helped Thomas sit up when he noticed crooked cracks in the clay wall, branching from across the ceiling down to the floor like a tattered spiderweb. He glanced back to Thomas and the cracks lining the lenses of his gas mask. Looking closer, he noticed a gash torn in the fabric of the face piece near the outlet valve. He fell to his knees and pulled the broken gas mask off Thomas’s head. Dropping the useless mask on the ground, he took off his own mask and placed it over Thomas’s face.

“What are you doing?” Thomas mumbled.

“Saving your life,” George said, tightening the straps.

Thomas’s eyes flew open, and he tried to push George’s hands away. “No, James. That’s yours. You need it.”

“What I need is for you to stay still,” George said, cinching the last strap. “That’s a royal order.”

“Why are you doing this?” Thomas asked. He reached up to pull off the mask, but his arm felt like it was filled with clay, heavy and wet. It fell limp beside him, and his head lolled to the side.

George leaned over and placed an ear to Thomas’s chest. It rose and fell with his shallow breaths and pulsed with a slow but steady heartbeat. Wincing against the pain in his side, George pulled on Thomas’s broken gas mask. “It’s what brothers do.”

THIRTY-NINE

THOMAS WOKE TO silence. He tried to open his eyes, but they rolled back in his head again and his eyelids drooped closed. He took a deep breath. The air was hot and stale. He drew in a second breath and forced his eyes open. His vision was cloudy and dim. The memory of the cave-in came flooding back in a rush of terror. He scrambled back, but a sharp pain radiated through his leg at the sudden movement. Thomas cried out, but his voice sounded muffled. He lifted his hands to his face and felt the rough fabric, cold metal, and round glass eyepieces of a gas mask.