“Dalton,” Brody yells at me, grabbing onto the strap of my oxygen pack to shake me.
I blink, and he points to the ground five feet in front of us. Hope soars in my chest at the sight of a body, and I drop the Halligan and axe, lunging into the hall.
“Bryn!” I call.
It only takes me a second to realize this isn’t her. Those aren’t her legs. This isn’t her body.
Not her.
Not fucking her.
The same bittersweet relief washes over me. If this woman isn’t moving, which she isn’t, that means it isn’t Bryn that’s unresponsive. It also means that Bryn is still missing, which means…
No. I refuse to let the thought take shape, killing it before it kills my hope.
I’m going to find her.
Gathering the woman’s legs, I cross one over the other and lift them over my knee so I can crawl her backward.
“Victim found, division two, delta side.” Brody’s voice comes through the radio in my mask as I get to him.
We lock eyes, and I know he sees the pain of truth in mine when he grits his teeth, then he nods, backing out of the doorway so I can follow him out with our victim. We both know what this means, and it’s about to kill me.
There’s one rule Brody and I have to follow. One rule that can’t be broken.
Two in. Two out.
But I can’t. I can’t do it. I have a job to do, but how the fuck am I supposed to leave my heart in that hallway and hope it’s still there when I come back? How do I put this woman’s life ahead of the one I know is still in there? Ahead of the woman I want to spend forever with?
I can’t. It’s impossible.
This woman has a family too. She deserves to go home, deserves to be with them.
But my heart…
“Brody,” I yell, pausing only enough to hoist the woman off my leg and towards him. “Take her.”
“Wyatt.”
The warning is clear. Before I even look at him, I know heknows.
He shakes his head. “Two in, two out. I’m not leaving you.”
“You need to get her out,” I tell him. Even though he’s denying me out loud, he’s taking the woman from me. “I have to find Bryn.”
“We’re coming right back in,” he says.
“There’s no time to argue, and we both know it could be too late by the time we get back here,” I tell him, grabbing both of his shoulders, pleading with him. “Please. Let me get her. I can’t lose her, man. I can’t do it.”
Heartbreak and sorrow, grief and long-buried pain, race to the surface. I watch it all cross his face. The image of his dark eyes clouding over with memories that haunt him every day sears itself into my soul. Something that will now haunt me every day.
I know, at that moment, he sees the same path he’s been walking as a widower being chosen for me. Knows the devastating position I’m putting him in. The possibility of saving his friend and the woman I love. At the risk of losing one friend, or more.
Lifting the strap for the rescue rope over his shoulder, he puts it over my head, grabs onto the side of my mask and stares me straight in the eye. “Do not fucking die on me. Do not let her die. Do you understand me? I will come back for you, brother. I swear it.”
Grabbing onto both his wrists, I tap my helmet against his. “You better.”
There’s no time to waste. He shoves the thermal camera into my hands, and we go our separate ways.
