Strength. Safety.

Her heart stopped its frantic pounding.

"All right?" Gabe asked quietly.

"Yes." The hand grasping her own was big, powerful. She tried to identify the shape and textures of the anchor that was keeping her from the terror; light calluses on the ball of the hand and the forefinger, long fingers, strong tendons. Most of all she was conscious of the warmth and strength. "I'm sorry I lost it for a minute. I'm not usually this cowardly."

"You don't usually have a hotel sitting on you." Humor colored his voice as he repeated her words. "I thought we agreed you had a right to be afraid. I've been in better situations myself."

Her grip on his hand tightened. "It's just that it feels… like a coffin."

"You simply have to remember that it's not. In the daylight it would look like a rubble heap at the local dump."

Her laugh was half-hysterical. "And I'm part of the trash."

"No, you're not trash. You're a human being and your life is very, very precious."

He meant it. She did have value for him even though she was a stranger. The realization caused her rising panic to abate.

"What are you doing in Mekhit?" he asked.

He was trying to keep her talking, trying tokeep the fear at bay, she realized. "I was on vacation from school."

"School? Which university do you attend?"

"None. I'm not old enough."

"How old are you?"

"Fourteen."

"Then what in hell were you doing alone in a parking garage at three o'clock in the morn-ing?"

She couldn't think of a plausible answer, so she asked a question of her own to divert him. "Why are you here?"

"I'm a reporter and I was staying at the hotel. I was having a drink in the bar in the lobby when the hotel started shaking like a belly dancer. I was luckier than you; I made it to the street before it toppled like a house of cards. The entire town is a disaster."

Evan had been waiting in the car outside the hotel. If Gabe had survived, Evan was probably all right too. She hadn't really been worried. Evan always said he had nine lives and she herself had seen him use up at least three of them.