Breath of Earth Read Online Free PDF

the comforting waves that arose from the earth, but painful weight squeezing and stabbing her entire body.
    â€œHelp!” Her cry bounced and echoed back at her. “Help! Ojisan, are you okay?” She didn’t care if anyone heard the familial term, not now.
    She couldn’t hear a reply, but his hand squeezed her leg.
    â€œHelp! Help!” Ingrid screamed with renewed vigor. Her right arm was still above her head, and she clawed at the slats. Grit burned her eyes and dusted her tongue. Raw pain radiated from her lower back, her thigh, her ribs. She still felt strangely cold, but from those points of agony, she recognized the heat of blood. The hole above opened a wee bit more. “Help! Down here!”
    A small earthquake shivered through the wreckage. Blue flared around her for a scant second. Debris rumbled. She took in the heat as dread twisted her stomach. God, don’t let a major earthquake hit now, not with the two of them and every other warden and student trapped in rubble.
    â€œHey! Hey!” The crunch of footsteps. A shadow, blocking the light. “We got one over here, alive! A woman!”
    â€œTwo of us!” Ingrid shouted. She could only see through slits; her eyes felt like they contained ground glass. Maybe they did. “Warden Sakaguchi’s here, too! Alive!”
    â€œSakaguchi! Sir! Sakaguchi’s over here!” the man yelled.
    â€œThey’re coming,” she yelled down to him. “Hold on.” Her voice sounded so strange, her throat tight with pain.
    More male voices, along with more crunches and clatter. Light dawned over her. Everything became a chaotic blur. Her lungs sucked in full breaths. Iron-strong hands gripped her arm.
    â€œDon’t pull me out yet! Everything will fall in on Mr. Sakaguchi,” she cried.
    â€œWhere is he?” someone asked.
    â€œDown by my legs. We were standing together when—when everything happened. I . . . I managed to climb up.”
    â€œLieutenant, you and the rest move this beam. Start a line to carry this debris to the street. We need this warden alive.”
    Ingrid waited, her shoulders exposed to the air. Reality seemed to waver around her like a heat mirage, and she wasn’t quite sure of the passage of time. Bit by bit, the weight against her vanished. The bodies around her flashed like shadows behind a campfire, and then hands grabbed hold of her again, and this time they pulled her out. Reality clarified itself as a hot lance of pain seared her backside. Someone screamed. She lay atop the rubble, acutely aware of pebbles and chunks of bricks grinding into the softness of her palms.
    The earth moved once more.
    The pressure wave was small, almost gentle. She braced herself, wondering if the building would swallow her again. The ruins shifted, but not much. Maybe the debris had already compacted. She absorbed the lap of heat, the risk of hypothermia fully gone, and blinked the grit from her eyes.
    â€œGet her to the doctor.” The commanding voice came from directly above.
    â€œMr. Sakaguchi?” she asked.
    â€œWe can see him. He’s alive and almost out.”
    â€œThank you. Thank God,” Ingrid said. She looked up to see a pant leg of dark blue with gold trim down the calf.
    They’d been rescued by the Unified Pacific’s American Army & Airship Corps.
    Located a block away from the auxiliary, Dr. Hatsumi’s Reiki practice had been familiar to Ingrid for as long as she could remember. “You can’t handle pain well,” Mama always said, and rushed Ingrid there for everything from sliced fingertips to digestive irregularities.
    Never had a visit been as urgent as this, though, nor had soldiers ever stood guard outside the door. She lay on her belly, lip pinched between her teeth, as the doctor muttered in Japanese. He didn’t seem to consider or care that she could understand his gripes about filthy American soldiers taking over his shop, but