Free The Last Days of Lorien by Pittacus Lore Page B

anything to help me figure out what had just happened.
    That’s when I saw the fire, rising up the entrance wall, small but getting bigger.
    It wasn’t until I tried to stand that I realized I was on the ground floor of the club, not on the mezzanine. I turned around and saw that the entire balcony had been knocked from its struts, smashed like a dropped dinner plate on the floor of the club.
    No , I thought. No.
    Not just on the floor of the club. On top of a mass of crushed concertgoers. They were already dead.
    The stage was intact, as was the other half of the dance floor that hadn’t gotten buried by the collapsing mezzanine. But the people there hadn’t been spared. The sheer force of the blast, in combination with the shrapnel from the shattered roof, had killed most of the audience members who hadn’t been crushed. Bodies littered the floor, while bloody and dazed survivors struggled to their feet from out of the sea of corpses.
    My leg was stuck, wedged between two crushed stones. I feared it was broken, or worse. But I needed to get up.
    Devektra , I thought. I needed to know she was okay.
    I strained against the rubble, but it wouldn’t give. I looked around for something I could use to pull myself out.
    That’s when I saw the guy I’d been talking to only minutes ago, the one who didn’t like Deloon this time of year. He was flat on the ground, the balcony a broken jigsaw beneath him. His eyes were wide open, his body eerily intact except for his jaw, which had been sheered clean off by shrapnel.
    I turned away from the grisly sight, and felt a hand on my shoulder. Mirkl stood above me, a shocked look on his face and caked in dust but apparently unharmed by the explosion.
    “Help?” he said.
    In my confusion I froze, unable to decide if he was asking for help or offering it.
    Mirkl didn’t wait for me to figure it out. He crouched down by my side and looked around, determining which rock to lift in order to free me. His slender arms looked weak, but when they found the chunk of rubble that trapped my leg, he pulled it away like it was nothing at all.
    I stared down at my knee. It was bloody and bruised, but not broken. I was going to be okay.
    Without knowing where I found the strength to do it, I stood up, first on my strong leg and then on my tingly weak one, wobbling on the uneven rubble beneath me. I turned to thank Mirkl. He had already disappeared into the mass of wailing, screaming and silent shell-shocked survivors.
    I looked towards the entrance. There was no entrance anymore. The doors and entire front wall of the club were now nothing more than an orange, raging inferno. My forehead prickled with sweat.
    The fire exit. It was the only way out. Or, it would have been. The fire exit had only been accessible from the balcony.
    I felt all hope slip out of me like a vapor.
    Then I saw a few survivors crowding at the base of the wall below the escape. Despite the balcony’s collapse, the struts, a few chunks of concrete and some girders remained at the base of the exit. It was enough. Barely. The survivors were hurriedly scrambling against the wall, grabbing on to whatever handholds they could manage and hoisting themselves out of the burning club.
    I was torn. I knew I had to run, to save myself, and still I couldn’t. I wanted to find Devektra.
    I was still trying to make a choice when I saw her shiny red pants sliding up the wall and out of the exit. After all that, she hadn’t thought twice about taking her first chance to safety. Had it even occurred to her to look for me?
    There was nothing keeping me here now. I ran to the crowd at the base of the wall. I tried to resist casting one glance back at the smoky, bloody, ruined club. Don’t look back.
    But I looked back and my eyes went straight to him.
    It was Paxton. He was alive but he was just crouched on the ground in despair, rocking back and forth.
    I knew I was being an idiot, but I didn’t care: without thinking twice, I gave up my