Her Obsession (by Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 46

0:འ།

My chest constricted, sharper than any hit I’d taken in the ring. The sound of him saying her name like that, like it was already half goodbye had my pulse pounding in my ears. I wanted to ask if she was conscious, but part of me was terrified of the answer. Instead, I barked, “How bad?”

“Bad,” he said simply. “But she’s talking. Or she was.”

Static hissed, and under it I thought I heard a ragged breath. My throat went tight. “Sage? Can you hear me?”

Nothing.

“C’mon, ghost, talk to me,” I said, leaning closer to the comm like proximity would pull her back. “You’re going to be fine. Just hang on.”

There was a faint noise, could’ve been her, could’ve been rubble shifting. Liam’s voice cut in, sharper now. “She’s fading. I need to get this beam off her, now.”

I could hear the panic creeping in, even if he was trying to hide it. I started moving before I’d even decided to, shouting for the others, demanding tools, hands, anything. My voice was raw, the comm still pressed to my ear like if I let go, I’d lose her. Somewhere in that darkness, she was slipping. And all I could do was tear through concrete and pray I reached her before she disappeared completely.

Liam

Every breath tasted like dust. The air was thick with it, coating the back of my throat until each swallow felt like grit. The beam across my legs was heavy enough to keep me pinned but not enough to crush bone. Small mercies. Naomi wasn’t as lucky. She was wedged awkwardly against a jagged section of collapsed wall. I’d shifted it to her own trembling fingers so I could start working on getting to Sage.

The comm in my ear crackled again, Nico’s voice low but urgent. “Status?”

I wiped the sweat off my brow with the back of my wrist. “Still trapped. Naomi’s bleeding but holding pressure herself. I’ve got to move this beam to get to Sage, but it’s… complicated. Every time I shift something, something else shifts with it.”

“Meaning?” Conner’s voice now, sharp and barely restrained.

“Meaning, one wrong move and the whole damn pile comes down,” I growled, my fingers wrapping around a piece of broken concrete no bigger than my fist. I eased it free, wincing as a low groan shuddered through the debris above us. Dust rained down like snow. “She’s pinned bad. I can’t just rip my way through…have to go slow.”

Naomi made a faint sound beside me. “She’s still breathing, Liam.”

I glanced at her, jaw tight. “Keep her talking if she wakes. I’ll work faster.”

Piece by piece, I cleared the smaller chunks around the beam, my body screaming from the awkward angles. Each time I shifted something heavier, I felt the pressure on my own legs change, a reminder that I was gambling with my own freedom as much as theirs.

Conner’s voice came through again, lower this time. “Liam. Just tell me what you need.”

“I need you to shut up unless you’ve got a damn crane,” I muttered, wedging my shoulder against a slab of plaster to stop it from tilting further. My hands burned from scraping them raw on stone. “If I lose the balance here, she’s gone before we ever see daylight again.”

There was a pause, just static for a heartbeat, before Nico’s steady tone cut in. “Hold it together in there, we’re working through the outside as best we can.”

That wasn’t enough. I took another careful piece, heard the beam shift, and froze. My pulse thundered in my ears. One wrong pull, and all three of us would be buried deeper, but if I didn’t move faster… Sage wouldn’t make it that long. The concrete was heavier than hell, but I got my shoulder under one slab, tilted it, and slid it to the side. The sound of it scraping against the debris was enough to set my teeth on edge.

Naomi flinched when a smaller chunk tumbled near her leg. “Careful, handsome. You’re going to kill us before the rest of this place does.”

1/2

8:10 pm P

Breached.

“Not planning on it, I muttered, wiping sweat and grime from my forehead with the back of my wrist. Every movement sent a stab of pain up my arm where it was trapped, but I kept working. Bit by bit, the space between us and the far wall was opening up Another shift, a bigger one this time and there was a endden groan from somewhere above. Dost rained down, and my gut clenched, expecting a collapse. But instead, there was a deep thunk followed by a cascade of rubble spilling away from one side wall and then light poured in. It stabbed into my eyes after all that darkness, a sharp golden slice cutting through the dust 1 blinked against it, vision adjusting just enough to make out the mess of twisted metal and concrete framing the beam of sunlight. For the first time since the blast, I felt the faintest pull of hope in my chest. That hope didn’t last long.

My eyes shifted past the hole to where Sage was. The light hit her just right and my stomach dropped. She wasn’t just pinned by the beam across her legs. Another was lying across her stomach, pressing her down, and… Christ, there was a length of rebar punching straight through her shoulder. She hadn’t mentioned it. Maybe she didn’t even know. The light vanished as a shadow fell over the hole. I looked up, and Conner’s face appeared, eyes scanning the wreckage before locking on mine. He took in Naomi, then glanced past me, his expression hardening in a way that told me he saw exactly what I just did.

“Talk to me,” be ordered, voice tight but controlled.

I swallowed, my throat dry. “She’s alive. But… it’s bad.”

Conner

1 dropped my head lower to see better. Yeah, bad didn’t begin to cover it.

“I’ve got her.” I said, already planning. “Keep working that side, clear what you can, but don’t touch the big ones until I say.”

I was already moving, sliding down through the hole, boots hitting the fractured concrete. The space stank of dust and blood. When I saw the rebar up close,

I forced myself to breathe evenly. No flinching. No panic. Not here. “You didn’t tell me about this,” I said, crouching beside her.

“Didn’t… know.” Liam said.

I assessed the beams, their weight, the way the rubble was stacked. Pull wrong, and the pressure shifts, tearing her open. Pull fast, and she bleeds out before see make the stairs.

“Liam,” I said, keeping my voice level, “when I lift the beam on her legs, you pull Naomi out first. Matteo’s got a med kit ready. Then we take her.”

“She needs out now,” he started.

“Wir move wrong, she’s dead before we’re clear,” I snapped.

the west quiet, and I could hear the rubble above us creak under the strain. I put my hand on the beam over her legs, testing its give, mapping every move in my head before making the first one.

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Her Obsession.