Page 93 of Marcus

Cella smiled at that.

How could she not?

“Love you, too.”

By the time she watched Marcus head out of the play area, admiring those broad shoulders of his covered in a fitted blazer, she found Tiffany wasn’t even at the middle section yet. Shaking her head, she couldn’t help but laugh.

“You know, Marcus said there was no time limit on playing today, Tiff, so you don’t have to try to be slow going back up.”

Her daughter looked out a porthole near the middle. “Promise?”

Damn kid.

But she loved her.

More than she loved herself, honestly.

“Promise, baby,” Cella said.

“Okay!”

Tiffany had climbed, crawled, and jumped her way to nearly the top when a piercing noise cut through the air. Cella cringed, covering her ears as she looked up to the speakers where the sound was coming from.

“What the hell is that?”

In a blink, Marcus came to the doorway. “You okay?”

Over the noise, his voice was still faint.

She pointed at the speaker. Even Tiffany couldn’t be seen in the play equipment, probably covering her ears, too.

“What is that?”

“An alarm. A door must have been open in the back. Someone will shut it off in a min—”

The place went black.

Well, partly.

The power cut off before Marcus could even finish his statement. They had a bit of light from the windows, which helped, but beyond the doorway of the play section, it was quite dark.

Marcus looked behind him, and then back to Cella. “I don’t know—”

It all happened so fast, then.

The roar of motorcycles.

How Marcus went from confused to horrified.

Glass breaking.

The smell of gasoline.

It happened so fucking fast.

Cella’s scream for her daughter to get down became drowned in the noise—the shatter of glass as something else was thrown in through the window. She barely caught sight of the items, and her gaze swung from the breaking bottles with burning rags stuffed down the necks to the bikers outside in leather that roared past the now-broken windows.

Fire spread instantly.