Double Play (Nadia Stafford 3.5)

He started toward the building. She caught his arm. He tried to shake her off, but she said, "No, Jack. You go that way and they'll stop you, and then you'll pull your damned gun and this will turn into an even bigger cluster-fuck. Come around back. They've got the scene cordoned off, but there's more chaos there. We can get through."

As she led him, he said, "Have you heard--?"

"I would have told you if I had. But that only means the explosion knocked out the damn signal."

He'd keep telling himself that was all it meant.

"Here." Evelyn gestured to a gaping hole in the side of the building. "No one's gone in yet. Those walls aren't going to hold and they're already dealing with the two guys they found on the first floor. They'll need more equipment before they go searching for more survivors."

Jack nodded and picked his way through the rubble toward the opening.

"If they do go in, I'll tell them she's trapped," she said. "To hell with what happens after that."

Jack nodded again and looked around, trying not to assess the damage. Just find a path down to the basement.

The basement. Under a building's worth of rubble, because it had collapsed and she was down there and he'd been chatting up Cillian, so fucking confident--

"Jack," Evelyn said.

When he only nodded, she gripped his arm, tight. "Keep it together, Jack."

Another nod.

"I was just saying that if I can get them to search, I will, screw the consequences. I know that's what you want."

He started for the nearest hole. Then he stopped and said a gruff, "Thanks. I--"

"Just get down there before someone sees you."

The building hadn't entirely collapsed. That's what he kept telling himself as he pushed through the rubble. The walls still stood. Most of the building still stood. Whatever Cillian had planned, it hadn't quite worked as he'd intended.

Fucking shock of the century.

When I find her, I'll make him--

Forget that.

No, don't forget the first part. When I find her. Not if. He would, and then he'd take care of Cillian, whom he'd left in the motel room.

Never in his life had it been more difficult not to kill someone, not to put as many bullets in him as he could. A blinding moment of rage, unlike anything since that moment he'd walked into his house thirty years ago and found his family. He'd always thought that if one of their killers had been there, he'd have emptied his gun in him. But he hadn't with Cillian. He couldn't afford the delay. And he wasn't giving that bastard such an easy way out.

Jack heard knocking. Someone hitting a pipe. He exhaled, seemingly for the first time since Cillian hit the detonator.

He made his way toward the sound. That wasn't easy. He had to crawl through impossibly small spaces. He fit, though. He made himself fit. Finally, he could see a jean-clad leg ahead. A leg pinned under a slab of concrete. He crawled through the wreckage until--

"Quinn," he said. "Fuck."

"Yeah, not who you're looking for." Quinn twisted, grimacing as he tried to lift the slab on his leg. "Go on. Find her. Just tell someone I'm here."

Jack almost did exactly that. Then he heard a creak and looked up to see a section of the wall teetering over Quinn.

"Fuck," Jack said.

Quinn looked up. "Well, that would solve one of your problems, huh?"

Jack crawled through and grabbed the chunk pinning Quinn's leg. "On three."

Quinn helped lift, but the slab barely moved.