“I’m sorry,” Sandy whimpered. “I can’t.”
Samuel didn’t know what to do. He had his own fears about climbing down the elevator shaft, least of all his vertigo reminding him what would happen if he slipped and plummeted to his death. But they didn’t have another option. Looking between Sandy and the shaft, he tried to decide what to do. He couldn’t carry Sandy, and he couldn’t force her down either. But he needed to go. The decision plagued him as he struggled to make up his mind. He couldn’t bring himself to leave Sandy behind, but how could he force her to climb down? Time was ticking by and he needed to do something, if he didn’t, then both of them would die.
***
“Where’s Sandy?”
“She was right behind me,” Samuel replied as his feet touched the ground, ashamed by the decision he had made. When push came to shove, he had been selfish once again. He couldn’t coax Sandy onto the ladder and so he had gone first, the fire blazing up toward them and leaving her trapped on the sixth floor unless she plucked up enough courage to follow.
“Sandy?” Devon called up the elevator shaft, his voice frantic as his eyes searched the darkness for his friend. “Sandy! Come on!”
Samuel gritted his teeth and waited, a part of himself aware that no matter how much Devon called for her, Sandy wouldn’t be coming down. He didn’t know what to say and so kept his mouth shut, making himself as small as possible against the wall as Austin and Eric worked to get the doors open to the underground parking lot, the air already much cooler.
He tried to reason with himself silently that there hadn’t been another choice, but as Devon continued to call upwards, he felt the guilt amassing inside of him like a cancer. If he had stayed behind, then he would have condemned himself to death for a woman he had known no longer than an hour. In reality it hadn’t even been a choice. Samuel had chosen to live, and he should be comfortable knowing that, but in doing so he had also sentenced another person to die and that was something he was going to have to live with forever.
Just like R Hauser, Cassie and Anthony Calvert-Lewin, Sandy was another person whose life Samuel had had the opportunity to do something good for. Instead he had failed. Sandy was another name on his list. A list that was growing longer and longer by the second.
Chapter 18
“Come on,” Austin urged everyone out of the elevator shaft. “Let’s go.”
“But,” Devon glanced upwards, Sandy still nowhere to be seen. “We can’t just leave her.”
“We don’t have a choice pal,” Austin replied, placing a hand comfortingly on Devon’s shoulder and looking at him apologetically. “She isn’t coming. There’s nothing we can do.”
Devon lowered his head, his shoulders sagging as he accepted what Austin was saying. They didn’t have a choice but to leave her behind, he only wished he could’ve done more. He should’ve stayed behind and make sure she climbed down; he should’ve been the last one. Sandy had been by his side throughout his career, stood up for him when he’d messed up shots or screwed up his edits. She had been his mentor and he hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye.
“Austin’s right Dev,” Eric nodded to his friend. “Sandy would want us to get out of here. We don’t know how long we have left.”
Eventually Devon gave in, turning toward the open elevator doors where Samuel waited, making sure that they didn’t slide closed and trap the four men inside again. They had all made it down from the sixth floor, now they just had to get out of the underground parking lot and get to somewhere safe. The terror outside was something none of them was prepared for, but something they all needed to face. With Trident ablaze, there was no telling what else would be happening outside.
“Where are the exits?”
“We’re on the lower level,” Austin replied, the four of them having climbed all the way down to the bottom of the elevator shaft, leaving them at basement level B. “We need to go up one before we can get out.”
“Don’t suppose you’ve got a car down here?” Samuel asked Austin, thinking how much easier their lives would become if they could just drive straight out of the parking lot. He was worried what they might find at the exit and if they were spotted coming out of the parking lot – himself especially – what would happen to them.
Austin shook his head, “I take the subway, you?”
“I walk, mostly,” Samuel replied. “Great. What do we do if they’ve got the exit covered when we get there?”
“We’ll just wait it out,” Austin shrugged in reply, not willing to admit that he hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. The fact that they’d just made it out of the building was enough for him in the meantime. He liked to focus on the positive things and if that was all he had for the time being, he was going to keep it top of his mind. “This place isn’t going to go up in flames at least. So, if needs be, we’ll just hunker down and wait for the opportunity to leave. Better than being trapped in a burning building.”
“Do you think everyone else got out?” Samuel wondered, thinking about who had been left on the nineteenth floor when the pair of them left. Caitlin had still been up there, and a few others that he knew. Would they have fled when they saw the fire
