It’s like putting my hand in an open oven doorway. Hot. Way too fucking hot for her to be this exposed, even this low to the ground.
I tug at the tape, and she cries out as it lifts away from her skin. When it’s off, she inhales deeply, probably on instinct, without realizing the consequences.
She goes into a coughing fit, body straining against the wire that holds her, her face turning redder as she struggles. Cupping her face in my ungloved hand, I bite back the growl that I want to let out at how hot her skin feels and try to just support her head to help her.
Because there’s nothing else I can fucking do and it’s eating me alive, the helplessness devouring me like the fire consuming everything above us.
“Small, slow breaths, B,” I tell her when the coughing calms. “I think I can get you out, but it’s going—”
“Wy,” she gasps, the sound raspy and raw.
“B, don’t talk. Conserve the breath you’ve got.”
She doesn’t listen, though, trying to shake her head through another cough. “Not Eddie. 10-42. Yelling.”
The full weight of her head drops into my hand, her chest convulsing as she coughs again. She has to be talking about the arsonist, but I don’t give a shit about that right now. I care about her. About the way her breathing isn’t right, and the choking she’s doing with every word that tries to come out. The way her skin feels against mine, and how the sweat is pouring off her in waves like the ocean we once enjoyed together.
“B,” I whisper, emotion welling up in my throat. “I hear you, but I need you to stop talking, okay? Small, slow breaths, baby. I need you to do that and hold on. We’re going to get through this and then you can tell me everything.”
“Wy,” she sucks in a small breath, “I lo—”
“No!” I nearly shout, putting my thumb over her lips. “B, no. Not here. Not right now. Not when I can’t kiss you and hold you. Not as some last fucking confessional because you think you’re about to die.”
The crushing weight of the thoughts I can see swirling in her mind hit me like a devastating blow to the chest. The pain, the heartache, the hopelessness that I can so easily read on her face. She thinks she’s about to die, but she isn’t. I won’t allow it.
“You think there’s no hope, but you are my hope, Bryn. You have things to do with your life, memories to make. With me, with Gran, with our entire future ahead of us. You don’t get to be hopeless now,” I growl, fear leaking through each word, as tears slide down my face inside my mask.
After a brush of my thumb across her cheek, I push up and crawl over to where my irons are. The smoke and heat have climbed to near unbearable heights anywhere besides the floor, so I stay as low as possible. The ceiling is an angry ocean of smoke, swollen with gases and heat, primed to ignite at any moment.
I wasted too much time. I should have kept going. Should have used my irons before this. Should have had her out by now.
Looking for the best place to try and break the chain locking the wire, I put my glove back on, place the Halligan next to her ankle, and pull the chain taut to try and get some tension into it. This isn’t going to work. I know it isn’t just by looking at it.
Fuck.
An alarm goes off in my mask, and I try not to let my heartstop when I realize that it’s my oxygen. I’m almost out.
Swallowing a scream of frustration, I move around to the other side of the table, looking at the bolts on the legs. It hasn’t changed since I first looked at it. The wires are crossed and twisted within the legs of the table. Prying them away from each other isn’t going to free Bryn. Unless I can slide her and the table legs off the table together.
I glance at the ceiling. I don’t know if I have that kind of time.
But I have to try.
Getting the Halligan positioned, I start applying pressure at the bolt where it connects to the table, leveraging it with a boot as I lean back, trying to pry them apart. The wood of the table splinters, crackling like the fire above as it threatens our safety.
“No. Fucking no,” I growl, pulling again, knowing we’re running out of time.
“Dalton!”
Brody.
A second later, he’s dropping in next to me, bolt cutters in hand. He doesn’t waste any time assessing, he just starts cutting with a frantic pace that I want to kiss him for. He can see it too. He knows the beast that’s coming for us in the dark of the ceiling.
Not just a little flame and fire. The worst-case scenario, and instinct tells me it’s imminent.
Moving around Brody, back to the side of the table with Bryn, I start pulling at the wires that he’s cut, moving her gingerly as she gasps. The wires have been digging into her for god knows how long, and with the heat in this room and the smoke in her lungs, I can’t imagine how it must feel.
“I know, baby. Hold on,” I encourage, taking the weight of her legs as Brody clips through turn after turn of wire.
