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CHAPTER ONE

Charlie!” John clambered through the rubble toward the place where she’d been, choking on the dust of the explosion. The ruins shifted beneath his feet, and he stumbled over a block of concrete and caught himself just before falling, scraping his hands raw as he grabbed frantically at the broken surface. He reached it, the place where she’d been—he could feel her presence beneath him. He took hold of an immense block of concrete and hefted it with all his strength. He managed to tilt it from the pile and overturn it, where it fell with a thud, rattling the ground he stood on. Over his head, a steel beam creaked, wavering precariously.

“Charlie!” John cried her name again as he shoved another block of concrete away. “Charlie, I’m coming!” He was gasping for breath, moving the remains of the house with desperate, adrenaline-fueled strength, but the adrenaline was running thin. He set his jaw and pressed on. His palms slipped as he tried to lift the next block, and when he looked he realized, dazedly, that his hands left streaks of blood wherever they touched. He wiped his palms on his jeans and tried again. This time the broken concrete moved, and he balanced it on his thighs and took it three steps away, then dropped it on a pile of debris. It crashed down onto the rubble and shattered rock and glass beneath it, starting an avalanche of its own, and then, beneath the sounds of wreckage, he heard her whisper: “… John …”

“Charlie …” His heart stopped beating as he whispered back to her, and again the rubble moved under his feet. This time he fell, landing hard on his back, knocking the wind out of him. He struggled to inhale, his lungs useless, then haltingly he began to breathe. He sat up, light-headed, and saw what the collapse had revealed: He was in the little, hidden room in Charlie’s childhood house. Before him was a plain, smooth metal wall. At the center was a door.

It was only an outline, without hinges or a handle, but he knew what it was because Charlie had known, when she stopped running in the midst of their escape, and pressed her cheek against the surface, calling to someone, or something, inside.