Page 95 of Jude

Chapter 19

The sound of a torturedscream jerked Jude awake. He tasted dirt and blood in his mouth. His eyes were gritty as he blinked them open.

Grimacing as a throbbing ache shot through his thigh, he eased a lump of stone off his leg.

His pants were torn. Blood seeped from a wound on his leg. He checked the injury. It was nothing he couldn’t patch up.

Easing himself onto his knees, Jude forced himself to focus on the sound that had woken him. It was a low, broken cry. It sounded as if someone was being tortured.

The place looked like a war zone. Two walls were gone, and the ceiling hung down as if it were about to collapse. Piles of blasted stone were heaped around the place. The doors were gone and the guards who’d been trying to break through were dead. A huge hole in an external wall showed the night sky.

He looked around, trying to locate Octavia. He’d tried to cover her as the first explosion hit, then had lost his hold. He couldn’t see her through the smoke.

Jude scrambled to his feet, scraping a hand across his face and stumbling forward, grimacing as pain flashed up his thigh.

He grew closer to the sound of the broken cry. Whoever it was, they needed to be put out of their misery.

His heart raced as he grew closer. He recognized that noise. He’d heard it once before, over two years ago. “Tobias?” Jude slowed when he got to a pile of rubble.

He spotted a hand poking out of the rubble, blood covering the fingers. “Holy shit.” Jude dropped to his knees and grabbed hold of the hand. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. I’m here.”

He shoved aside a chunk of rubble, followed by another. He revealed Tobias’s bloody face, his eyes wide.

“Everything will be fine. I’ll get this off you. I’ll get you free.”

“Fuck! Get me out of here.” Tobias’s throat sounded raw.

“I’m doing just that. Hold still. This might hurt.” He dropped his hold on Tobias’s hand. His muscles shook as he shoved against a large piece of stone wall that had collapsed on his brother.

“Hurry!” gasped Tobias. “I can’t feel her pulse anymore.”

Her pulse? Jude wrenched aside a piece of rock. He meant Octavia. Jude slammed his shoulder against a large chunk of jagged stone.

Tobias groaned, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

“Sorry. But I have to get you both out.” Jude spoke through gritted teeth.

“No worries.” Tobias’s voice was just a whisper. “You do what you need to do.”

It took another thirty seconds of kicking and cursing, but finally, Tobias was free enough to wriggle out.

He curled into a ball on his side and lay there panting.

Jude stared at the rubble still covering Octavia, shock freezing him to the spot. “You need to help me, Tobias. We have to get her out.”

Tobias remained where he was, his body shuddering.

Jude could see he was suffering. Having been pinned under that rubble must have kicked nasty memories into focus. He grabbed his brother’s shoulder. “This is Octavia. We have to save her.”

Tobias’s face was deathly pale, but he nodded. He scrambled forward on his hands and knees to the other side of the pile. “I was holding her hand. She’s under here.”

Between the two of them, they shifted more rock. Every second it took, Octavia’s life was slipping away. Sweat coursed down Jude’s face and his fingers were bloody, but he kept on hauling away rubble.

Jude saw a flash of bare flesh. Adrenaline surged through him. He lifted a rock and hurled it away.

He saw her hand and grabbed it. Checking the pulse, his heart clenched. He couldn’t feel anything.

“No. No. No!” He glanced at Tobias. “We need a med kit.”