Listening to the silence on the other end of the phone, Brandon's handsome face grew colder by the second.
"Go check out the power room and see what's up with the blackout," Brandon said, not missing a beat.
"Got it," Kent murmured, motioning for the security guy who had tagged along to head towards the power room with him.
Meanwhile, Brandon picked up the pace, hurrying to the construction site.
Construction Site
The sudden lights-out threw the well-organized division of labor into a bit of chaos, and the crew, who had been hard at work, erupted into a frenzy of panic and questions.
"What's going on?"
"What happened?"
"Did we lose power?"
Voices asking questions overlapped with the mechanical hum of machinery.
Sophia also glanced around, but the sudden plunge into darkness meant her eyes couldn't adjust fast enough. Plus, it was dark as the inside of a cow outside, with the rain coming down, and she couldn't see a thing.
But the concrete mixer, which relied on external electricity, was still chugging along, and she could vaguely make out the delivery pipe raised high, aiming straight for the column's pouring spot.
Sophia wasn't sure if the blackout was a fluke or something else. Instinctively, she tightened her grip on Nell's arm next to her and called out into the darkness to Tomas, "What's happening?"
"Maybe some circuit fried." Tomas shouted back, edging into the crowd, "I'll have someone check the wiring. Everybody hold off on your work for now and stay safe."
Daniel, in a rush, lit up his phone to check the time; seeing the auspicious moment slipping away, he dashed into the rain, barking orders at everyone, "Those not involved, take a break where you are. Concrete mixer operators, keep at it..."
He was in a hurry, and moving fast, his body still not fully recovered, and before he knew it, he tripped over something, staggering forward, nearly taking a nosedive.
Sophia, right beside him, was pulling out her phone to turn on the flashlight. Before she could light it up, she saw Daniel take a tumble out of the corner of her eye, about to hit the ground hard. On instinct, she reached out and stabilized him by the arm, preventing a full-on faceplant.
At the same moment, Sophia felt Nell, whom she was still holding onto, lurch violently as if someone had rammed into him from the shadows, sending him reeling towards the railing.
The faint glow from Daniel's phone screen revealed the concrete delivery pump with its pipe raised high, and the concrete flowing rapidly into the column mold.
Nell was skinny and fragile-looking. When he hit the railing, his upper body almost flipped over it, and he was about to tumble down.
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