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Ever

But she couldn’t give up She had to keep fighting If not for herself, then for the little life beside her, her precious new nephew She threaded her arh the tiny hole between the, sinking into a frighteningly long nap His shoulders rose and fell evenly, thank God, but for how er?

Her fingers wrapped tighter around a rock and she banged steadily against the oppressive wall overhead Again and again If only she knew Morse code Her arritted her teeth and continued Didn’t the people up there have special listening gear?

Dim shouts echoed, like a celebration Someone had been found Someone else Her eyes burned with tears that she was too dehydrated to form Desperation clawed up her throat What if the rescue party moved on now? Far from her deeply buried spot?

Tiripped the rock tighter, her right hand around the tiny wrist of the child beside her Joshua’s pulse fluttered weakly against her thumb

Desperation thundered in her ears She pounded the rock harder overhead God, she didn’t want to die There’d been times after her divorce when the betrayal hurt soa family was over, but she’d never thrown in the towel Damn him She wasn’t a quitter

Except asn’t her hand cooperating anyrew leaden Her shoulder shrieked in agony, pushing a gaspingbeca…

Her hand wasn’tanymore It slid uselessly back onto the rubble-strewn floor Even if her will to live was kicking ass, her body waved the white flag of surrender

Master Sergeant Hugh Franco had given up caring if he lived or died five years ago These days, the air force pararescue that kept his soul planted on this side of mortality

That others may live

Since he didn’t have anything to live for here on earth, he volunteered for the assignments no sane person would touch And even if they would, his buds had people ould miss them Why cause them pain?

Which hat brought him to his current snowball’s-chance-in-hell mission

Hugh coh the narrow tunnel in the earthquake rubble His helh the dusty dark His headset echoed with chatter fro after hi other hout the chaos One of the search and rescue dogs aboveground had barked his head off the second he’d sniffed this fissure in the jusaw of broken concrete

Now, Hugh burrowed deeper on the say-so of a Ger a hole for a search cahty insistent pup, so Hugh was all in