“It’s not safe here,” she yelled, the megaphone garbling her voice. “Back away.”
A sharp-eyed, blazer-wearing young woman slid through the crowd and thrust a fuzzy microphone into Hannah’s face. “Brianna Wu, KNXT News.” Her cameraman filmed Hannah batting it away.
The door behind her flew open, and Xander stormed out wearing a hard hat, followed by a half-dozen similarly helmeted guys in work clothes. His fierce glare skimmed the crowd’s upturned faces before lasering in on Hannah. “What the hell, Han? What part of ‘the building is falling down’ don’t you get?”
“It wasn’t me, I swear.”
His eyes narrowed, and his nostrils flared in a way that would’ve been sexy if not for the figurative pitchforks and torches. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?”
The Colonel puffed out his chest and stepped between them. “Now, look here, son. NASDEV is prepared to make you a substantial offer.”
“GUFON too!” Dr. Alterman piped up, a yappy Frenchie to his English bulldog. “We’ve got the resources to save this building.”
“Save Planet Gus,” someone screamed nearby. The TV reporter swiveled to question them.
“Save it?” Xander grabbed the bullhorn. “This building has been condemned, people. It’s coming down whether you nut jobs like it or not.”
“Greedy motherfucker,” a deep voice growled.
“Stop gentrification!” a shrill one added.
“Go back to Seattle, you loser,” another hollered.
A loud noise sounded from inside the building—a metallic, grumbly moan.
“It’s Gus!” someone shouted.
“It’s the aliens!”
“It’s the fuckin’ pipes,” Xander countered and flung the megaphone down, causing it to crackle and shriek. He stabbed a finger into Hannah’s chest. “You see? This place is on its last legs. If we don’t knock it down, someone’s gonna get hurt, or worse.”
“Where’s the water shut-off valve?” One of the hard-hat guys asked.
“I’ll get it.” Xander stomped back into the building and slammed the door behind him.
The noise grew louder, an eerie sound like the death cry of a wounded dragon. The veranda’s roof shuddered above their heads.
“Go, go, go,” one of the construction guys yelled and shoved Hannah, tumbling her into the protesters. Gravel bit into her palms and scraped her knees. She righted herself just in time to see the porch roof collapse in a whoomph of broken boards and shredded tar paper.
“Earthquake!” The crowd boiled into panicked flight in all directions.
But it wasn’t seismic activity. It was Souvenir Planet’s dying gasp. The walls trembled and swayed as if the building were breathing. One by one, they splintered and collapsed inward with a sickening crunch.
Hannah’s heart seized. “Xander,” she screeched and sprinted into the wreckage, wriggling free from the strong hands that clutched her arms and ripped her jacket.
Inside, shafts of sunlight pierced the shattered roof. Fallen beams lay like pick-up sticks. From somewhere in the back, a geyser of icy water sprayed skyward.
“Xander, where are you?” Using her phone’s flashlight, she scanned the rubble. Its beam glinted off something metallic—the cosmic transmitter. A faint groan emerged from that direction.
“Don’t move! I’m coming.” Scrambling like a crab, she picked her way over and under debris until she spotted him curled in a fetal position around the transmitter’s base, pale and dusty but alive. Falling beams had knocked his hardhat off, and blood trickled from his ear and lips.
“Oh God Oh God Oh God.” Splintered wood and jagged metal bit into her hands as she wrenched away the fallen beams separating them. With a sharp curse, she swiped at the tears blurring her vision. She couldn’t lose him now. Fate couldn’t be that cruel.
Sirens wailed outside, growing nearer.
“In here!” she screeched and reached for him, then jerked her hands back, afraid to injure him further. A tsunami of emotion pushed her babbling into warp drive.
“Oh, Xander. I’m so sorry. You could have died. What were you thinking? I love you so much. Don’t youeverscare me like that.”
