Chapter 6 - Breaking Every Rule
Andrew didn't hesitate for a single second. The warning from Human Resources, the threat of termination, the meager fourteen dollars an hour—all of it evaporated in an instant.
“I’m coming up,” Andrew said, his voice hard and steady. “Don't look down the shaft, Mrs. Kane. Just stay by the elevator doors and talk to her. Keep her voice. I’m on my way.”
He hung up before she could reply.
Andrew ripped off his gray janitorial apron, letting it drop to the floor. He grabbed his heavy-duty maintenance belt from the locker—the one containing a heavy brass flashlight, a set of universal master skeleton keys, a multi-tool, and a roll of industrial duct tape.
As he bolted out of the locker room toward the service stairwell, he ran straight into Marcus Vance, who was rushing out of the control room with a ring of master keys and a frantic look in his eyes.
“Cole! Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Vance barked, blocking the stairwell door. “The upper floors are locked down! The elevator system is unstable, and FEMA has issued a red-alert shelter-in-place for the entire district!”
“The girl is trapped in Elevator 7,” Andrew said, his eyes locking onto Vance with a fierce intensity that made the operations manager flinch. “Move out of my way.”
“Are you out of your mind?!” Vance shouted, grabbing Andrew’s shoulder. “The automated safety protocols dictate we wait for the city rescue squad! If you mess with those hoistway doors without cutting the secondary capacitor, you could trigger a counter-weight drop and crush the car! You’re fired, Cole! If you take one step up those stairs, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing and destruction of corporate property!”
Andrew didn't waste breath arguing. With a swift, decisive motion, he shrugged off Vance’s grip, shoved the bigger man back against the concrete wall, and wrenched the heavy fire door open.
“Call the city rescue squad yourself, Vance,” Andrew threw over his shoulder as he took the stairs three at a time. “Because by the time they fight their way through this storm, it’ll be too late.”
The climb up the fifty-story service stairwell was a vertical nightmare.
Without power, the emergency stairwells were pitch black, illuminated only by dim, flickering red battery strips. The howling gale outside slammed against the exterior concrete walls, making the entire stair tower sway rhythmically like the mast of a ship in a hurricane.
With every flight of stairs Andrew conquered, his lungs burned and his legs grew heavier. Sweat poured down his face, stinging his eyes. But he didn't slow down. He thought of Leo sitting at home waiting for his dad, and he thought of little Emma huddled in the dark, terrified and alone. Fathers don't walk away when their children are trapped in the dark, he told himself, pushing harder.
Forty floors.
Forty-five floors.
Forty-seven floors.
Andrew burst through the heavy fire door onto the executive level, gasping for air. The hallway was bathed in an eerie crimson emergency glow.
Celeste Kane was kneeling on the carpet right beside the open elevator shaft doors of Car 7, tears streaming down her face as she leaned over the dark abyss.
“Emma! Can you hear me, sweetie? Just keep talking to Mommy!” Celeste cried into the shaft.
From deep below, a faint, tearful voice drifted up: “It’s too dark, Mommy… I dropped my rabbit… I can't find it…”
Andrew hurried over, dropping to his knees beside Celeste.
Celeste turned, grabbing his arm with desperate strength. “Andrew! Thank God! She dropped her blue rabbit down into the pit below the car, and now she’s having a panic attack. She won't answer me anymore. She’s hyperventilating!”
Andrew peered down into the dark hoistway. About twelve feet below the lip of the forty-seventh-floor landing, the roof of Elevator Car 7 was wedged at a precarious angle. Through the narrow gap between the sliding doors, he could see pitch blackness and hear the ragged, shallow breathing of the terrified child.
“Emma,” Andrew called out, his voice calm, steady, and warm, cutting through the howling wind like a beacon of light. “Emma, it’s Andrew. The guy with the sewing kit.”
Down in the dark, the ragged breathing hitched.
“A… Andrew?” a small, fragile voice trembled up from the depths.
“I’m right here, kiddo,” Andrew said, leaning further over the edge, shining his heavy-duty brass flashlight down into the shaft. The beam cut through the swirling dust and darkness, illuminating the top of the elevator car and—lying precariously on a structural beam just two feet below the car's emergency hatch—the blue stuffed rabbit with its torn ear.
“I see your friend,” Andrew said. “He looks like he’s waiting for a ride home.”
“He fell…” Emma whimpered. “The door shook… and he fell…”
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“Well, good thing I brought my tools,” Andrew said, unhooking his heavy maintenance belt. “Now, Mrs. Kane, I need you to hold my belt loops. Grip tight. If I go down into that shaft, I need an anchor.”
Celeste didn't hesitate. She grabbed Andrew’s heavy canvas belt with both hands, bracing her feet against the steel doorframe. “I’ve got you. Go.”
