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The boy responds, does as he’s told Then takes another He’s al at his back,it seem impossible that he hasn’t been swept away yet

Mark yells encouragement this time "Just a couple more"

Baxter moves forward and is suddenly off his feet, facedown Alec jurabs the boy’s arm just as the current latches on to both of them, ready to yank them away into the darkness Marks sees it all happen so fast, reacts before he has ti with his left hand and lunges forith his right, grasping the sleeve of Alec’s shirt before he’s swept out of reach The rips Mark’s arm just as the material starts to rip

Mark’s body is jerked into the current but he holds on to the railing; his body is pulled out and then to the side, sla into the concrete wall next to the track Alec and Baxter follow, their bodies linked Mark feels as if his ar, screanore the pain Water rushes into his mouth and he spits it out It tastes like dirt and oil and burns his tongue

He feels hands grabbing his ar Fro hione Mark can do nothing, his strength spent, every part of his body aching and burning He can only hold tight, keep the link intact His head slips under the water and he closes his eyes, forces hie to suck in a breath that would kill him

He loses all sense of movement There is only water and heat and the rush of sound And the pain, bursting through his body

Then he breaks the surface, feels hands on his chest, under his arht in front of hihtly between thematch Even as Mark looks, Baxter’s face co, screa

They made it They all made it

Soon they are on their feet, on the landing All of theroove and is beginning to spill onto the landing itself

Alec is awet, breathing deeply and raggedly He lurches forward to the door, opens it Mark has the thought that it could’ve been locked Their story could’ve been over and done right then and there But it’s open, and Alec swings it wide

He h

"Get ready to cli in complete darkness

His body was stiff; he shifted on the cot and it creaked as he tried to get comfortable, find a position in which hisloudly Alec obviously hadn’t lasted long at first watch

Mark finally settled on his back Sleep had officially washed away, and there was nothing to do but wait until his friend woke up He’d let theto need it

The dream had see from the rush of the experience, like he’d just relived it for real He could taste the foul water, feel the burns on his skin He reht of stairs afterward, the winding, the dizzying back-and-forth Sapped of strength and hurting from the water burn, he didn’t kno he’d kept up with the others But up and up they’d gone as the water rose below the, down at the roiling, dirty liquid as it slowly ascended, thinking that his life had almost ended in its depths

Alec had saved them that day They’d spent the next teeks in that skyscraper, realizing quickly that they couldn’t search for loved ones yet The heat and radiation and rising waters were toohis fa A place that held plenty of its own night as possible, in the structure’s middle corridors, to protect themselves from the sun’s ruthless radiation Even so, they’d all been a little sick those first few roan frohts floated away, pushed to the back of hisof terror he’d experienced in those lastlike the suished fire

"Oh … crap," Alec said

Mark popped up onto his elbow, looking in the direction of his friend "What?"

"I didn’t mean to fall asleep Fine soldier I a that thing again"

"Meh, the battery was probably aliven anything for five roaned and Mark heard the sounds of the cot creaking as the older uy’s coworkers He said they werefarther down in the bunker So we need to find our way to some stairs," the man said

"What do we do about hi for a second that Alec couldn’t see him in the darkness

"Let hiet his bearings, then got up and felt his way to the end of the cot toward thedo you think we slept?" he asked

"No idea," Alec answered "Maybe two hours?"

They spent the next few h the rooht above the door still sputtered a bit, but barely enough to see by They eventually found the stairwell Alec had been hoping for Even the di into blackness, brought back to Mark the memory of the flood and their mad clamber up the stairs of the skyscraper It’d been so close that day If he’d known all that would coht so hard to survive?