Oxygen Zero

POV:Malia

​My lungs were burning with a thin, metallic fire. Every breath took more than it gave; the air in the sealed vault was thick with the tang of ozone, spent gun propellant, and our own damp terror. The oxygen was gone. Not metaphorically; my vision was already fraying at the edges, bleeding into dark, static fringes every time my heart gave a sluggish, desperate thump against my ribs.

​"Malia. Look at me."

​Jarrah’s voice wasn't a command; it was a lifeline stretched so thin I could hear the raw friction in his throat. He was crouched against the far retaining wall, his broad shoulders coated in chalky grey plaster dust, his knuckles torn and weeping dark blood down his hands. Between his knees sat the stripped frame of our last emergency pack and the crude, localized breaching charge he’d spent the last four minutes wiring together with trembling, precise fingers.

​"I'm looking," I rasped. My voice sounded small, like paper tearing in an empty room.

​He didn't look up from the copper wiring, but I saw the hard muscles of his jaw leap. "Thirty seconds. The concrete on this wall is thin; it's an old seal from when Calaby walled off the 1970s extension line. If the charge cuts through, the pressure differential is going to yank us through that gap like ragdolls."

​"And if the line isn't empty?" I squeezed my eyes shut against the throb behind my brow. "If it's collapsed?"

​"Then we die out there instead of in this box," he said quietly.

​He raised his eyes then. They were bloodshot, rimmed with dark soot, but deep inside them was a burning, furious light that made my chest ache harder than the lack of air. For months, we had danced around the sharp edges of each other, keeping our distance behind tactical protocols, syndicate loyalty, and the lethal shadow of the Calaby family. But stuck in this tomb, three stories under the pavement, all those manufactured walls were collapsing faster than the brickwork.

​"Hold onto the rebar behind you," Jarrah ordered, sticking the pliable grey explosive along the hairline fracture in the wall. He primed the detonator. "Don't let go of the bar, Mara. No matter what."

​I dragged myself toward the rusted iron rod jutting from the foundation, my fingers curling around the cold, pitted metal until my knuckles turned stark white. Jarrah scrambled backward, hurling his body over mine, pinning me against the floor with his weight. His chest rose and fell in jagged, heavy surges against my back. His neck was hot against my cheek, his pulse hammering like a trapped bird against his throat.

​"Cover your ears," he growled into my hair.

​He squeezed the manual switch.

​The shockwave didn't just strike our ears; it slammed into our sternums, driving the last scrap of air straight out of our lungs.

​The concrete wall didn't just fracture; it buckled inward with a hideous, grinding roar. Instantly, the pressure ruptured. A violent vacuum took hold, screaming like a dying jet engine as the stagnant, airless vacuum of the vault collided with the cold subterranean draft of the abandoned subway line beyond.

​The air blew outward in a blinding, explosive hurricane of plaster dust, pulverized mortar, and shattered concrete. The force pulled at my limbs with terrifying, physical gravity. My fingers slipped from the rusted rebar with a sickening scrape, my fingernails tearing on the metal.

​"I've got you!" Jarrah bellowed over the roar of rushing air.

​His arm locked around my waist like a steel band, but the sheer momentum of the blowback dragged us both off our feet. We tumbled headlong through the newly blown crater, swallowed whole by an avalanche of dust, noise, and blinding, chaotic darkness.

​We fell hard. My shoulder slammed into something solid and ironed a rail track, and the impact rattled through my teeth, knocking the vision clean out of my eyes. We slid down a steep embankment of coarse gravel and crushed stone, rolling over each other in a tangle of limbs, boots, and ragged gasps.

​Then came the silence.

​It settled like heavy snow over the dark, broken space.

​I lay on my back across the cold iron rail, coughing violently, my mouth full of gritty dirt and pulverized stone. But as my chest heaved, something else rushed in cool, damp, subterranean air. It tasted of wet rust, ancient earth, and real, living oxygen. I pulled it into my starved lungs, choking on the sweetness of it, tears cutting clean tracks through the dust on my face.

​Beside me, Jarrah was pushing himself up from the gravel, his chest heaving. He didn't check his weapons. He didn't look down the long, pitch-black throat of the abandoned tunnel.

​He crawled directly over to me on his hands and knees.

​"Mara," he breathed.

​He reached down, his hands shaking openly, and cupped my face. His palms were hot, rough with grit and sweat, but the gesture was tender enough to break something vital inside me. He pulled me up slightly, forcing me to look at him through the gloom. His thumb brushed over my cheekbone, wiping away a smear of dirt and blood, his touch lingering, pressing, desperate.

​"Look at me," he whispered, his voice cracking. "Tell me you're whole."

​"I'm here," I choked out, wrapping my hand over his wrist, feeling the heavy, wild thrum of his vein beneath my fingers. "Jarrah... I'm here."

​He let out a jagged sound, half a laugh, half a sob, and leaned down, burying his face into the crook of my neck. His arms wrapped around me, pulling my bruised body flush against his chest, locking me to him as if he were trying to weld our skin together. There was no tactical distance left. No caution. No slow-burn restraint to hide behind. His mouth found the shell of my ear, pressing hot, desperate kisses against my skin, my jaw, until his lips brushed mine in a raw, ragged collision of relief and starving devotion.

​I gave back everything I had withheld for months. I tangled my hands in his dust-caked hair, holding him close, feeling the solid, living weight of him above me in the dark while our lungs shared the same cold air.

​"We aren't dead," I whispered against his mouth.

​"No," Jarrah murmured, his forehead resting against mine, his thumbs still tracing the line of my jaw with a furious, possessive reverence. "Not yet."

​Then, from deep within the pitch-black tunnel behind us, came the low, deliberate clink of iron striking iron.