Page 75 of Demons Dig Donuts

The rat screamed as Azazel beat him into the floor and Luke watched, licking his chops. Jimjam looked like he wanted to be anywhere else and Mr. Heiss was unreadable. The sound of Azazel striking the rat was weirdly wet, as if the suit was filled with Jell-O.

But then there was a new sound.

The fwoosh of a window opening fast from behind Indy by the giraffe.

Indy turned, squinting against a sudden burst of daylight blinding him.

What the—

Something grabbed Indy and pulled him through into the light.

He was falling.

Falling.

Falling and fucking falling with no end in sight and a painful death certainly imminent.

Despite the obvious horror of this moment, all he could think of was that he’d lost his coffee again.

Fuck.

CHAPTER

TEN

Indy had only a few precious seconds to think, and at the forefront of his mind was the vicious determination that becoming a bloody splat at the end of this fall was not how he was going to die.

The ring!

He rubbed and kissed it desperately, then screamed, “Dill, please—”

“Grow!”

Green.

A wall of green with bright light piercing through the cracks.

Loud rustling, a series of snaps going off like fireworks.

Trees, Indy realized.

Instead of hitting hard ground, he was falling through the equally not soft embrace of tree branches and thick scratchy foliage. It slowed his fall and eventually brought him to a stop, but his body throbbed with white-hot flashes of pain from the sudden halt and multiple collisions on the way down. His left arm burned miserably at his wrist and elbow, and all the air had been knocked right out of his lungs, so he couldn’t even scream.

He tasted blood.

His chest seized up as he tried to gasp.

Trying to move his arm only resulted in a pain powerful enough to blur his vision and wreck his already fragile equilibrium. When he finally inhaled, every muscle revolted and tensed, creating an inescapable agony that he would give anything to fucking end—

No.

No.

Indy wasn’t fucking dying.

Not today, not here, not like this.

The leaves shifted, the branches retreating to create a gentle hammock that curled all around Indy and cradled him. The leaves squeezed gently, asking, “Grow?”