Mercer felt the boards drop beneath him before he understood what was happening. One second he was reaching for his mother's bound hands. The next, the world tilted, splinters and dust filling the air, and he fell hard into the drainage channel below, the wind knocked completely out of him.
He lay stunned for a moment, ears ringing, before instinct dragged him upright. Water pooled shallow around his knees, and broken planks lay scattered across the channel floor where the mill's rotted timbers had finally surrendered under the weight of struggling bodies above.
"Mercer!" Tamsin's voice, distant and echoing strangely through the collapsed structure.
"Down here!" His voice came out rough, choked with dust. "I'm here!"
He pushed himself to his feet, scanning the surrounding wreckage. Cor
