Already Gone (A Laura Frost FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 1) by Blake Pierce (notion reading list .txt) 📗

knew. This was the moment she had heard in thevision. It had to be. If they didn’t get to her now—

Laura burst down the hall. Nate wasstanding by a group of rotting wooden cupboards down around a rusted oven,surrounded by discarded trash and bits of broken furniture. The second she sawit, she knew. There was a whole row of busted cupboard doors, and then one thatjust so happened to be intact, carefully closed while all the others hung offtheir hinges. Not only that, but the area around it was a little less dusty andcluttered, the door just a little more clean. Laura didn’t have the time toexamine it for other signs, but she knew they would be there.

She dove forward, falling to her kneeson the floor. She slid a short distance closer to the intact cupboard,completely out of control. She yanked the door open as fast as she could,looking inside for exactly what she knew she would find. The dirt here was lesstightly packed, a slightly different color. It had been disturbed recently.

“She’s here!” Laura half-screamed,frantic, seizing hold of the first thing her hands fell on. A section ofcorrugated iron that looked like it had once been the roof of a chicken coop orsomething similar. The whole roof was lying in shattered pieces on the floor,close by the oven, but this piece was the right size to scoop dirt out of theway.

Laura set the piece of iron to theground and dug a deep gouge through the earth, throwing a clump of soil behindher. Nate barely dodged out of the way with a grunt, then set to his own knees,tearing at the remaining corrugated sheet to fashion his own digging implement.

Laura scrambled to the side to let himin, shouldering her way in through the other broken cabinets and tearing arotted wooden board out of the way. It came away soft in her hands, leaving anotheropening into the space where Nate had started to dig. She scooped another moundof earth from her new position inside the ruined cabinets, still seeing nothingbelow the dirt.

On his second frantic dig through theearth, the iron glanced off something that made a dull thunk.

“Laura!” he called, drawing herattention to the discovery—but it only made her blood go cold. That was thesound she had been waiting for. The sound that meant the girl’s time was almostup. Even now, she was breathing her last struggling breath.

Laura cast aside the corrugated iron andbegan to work with her hands, scribbling at chunks of loose dirt and flingingit out of the way. The object in the earth was some kind of metal lid. Laurahoped and prayed there was no lock, invisible under the rest of the dirt. AsNate dug another shovelful that exposed even more of the metal object, she dugher fingers through the earth at its sides, scrambling for the edge. Findingit, she pulled with all her might, lifting both dirt and lid until there was a thinspace beneath it.

Space for precious air to flow inside.

She heard a faint cough from inside andgasped with relief, struggling to lift the lid further. It was jammed undermore earth at the far end, where they hadn’t yet managed to clear it. Natepushed more of the dirt out of the way, his thick arms bulging as he strainedto lever the lid up.

It wasn’t coming.

He swore out loud as his fingersunearthed a lock, attached to the far end of the metal box—the coffin, Laura’smind recognized with horror. This would be a coffin if they didn’t get herfree.

“Hold on,” Laura said, hoping the girlwould hear her. “Just hold on! We’re getting you out!” Her fingers were achingfrom the strain of holding up the lid, the sharp metal edge biting into herskin. Laura didn’t care. She would endure the pain for as long as it took. Shewasn’t going to let the girl’s only source of air disappear.

Nate pulled his gun out of the holsterat his hip and used all of his strength to bring the grip down against thelock, yelling with effort as he did it. Reverberations shuddered through themetal, making Laura bite down on her own lip against the pain in her hands. Shetasted blood. The lock budged, just slightly. It was probably the only thing inthe kitchen that wasn’t falling apart with rust. Nate hit it again, anotherscream of effort ripping out of his throat.

The lock came away. Laura wasted notime. She pushed upward firmly, using all of her strength to lift the lid onthe box.

As it opened in front of her, Lauracould finally see the girl. She was lying there on her back, just like in Laura’svision. She was dirty and dusty, crying and gasping for air. Laura swallowedback a sob herself. Nate took the strain of the lid as she reached down,spreading out her arms to either side, enveloping the girl in an embrace as shelifted her out of the metal box and into her arms.

“You’re okay now,” Laura said, cradlingthe girl against her chest as she half-tumbled out of the cabinets and backinto the more open space of the kitchen. “It’s okay now. You’re safe. You’resafe.” She panted for breath even as the girl did, screwing her eyes tight shutwhile the kid couldn’t see her face. Tears streaked down across her cheeks,relief and horror and the delayed force of the pain in her head. Above them,she heard Nate taking out his radio, standing a few steps away to bark out thenews to the rest of the team and request an ambulance.

And it should have been a happy moment.A moment in which Laura felt she had won. She had saved the girl’s life, rightas she was on the brink of losing it. She had used her vision to stop a death.The death of a little girl, just like her own daughter.

But that wasn’t what she felt. Insteadof the growing relief and joy she had felt when she first saw the girl,something else took over. As Laura cradled her to her chest, she felt theencroaching chill of something dark. Something that she couldn’t name, but