Page 88 of Ryder’s Storm

Ryder cast a look at the bedroom door. He could feel the heat coming from it. Quickly, he ran into the bathroom, grabbed a large bath towel and soaked it in water. Then he put it over his head and shoulders, his head bending downward.

When he reached the door, he grabbed the knob and turned it, ignoring that the hot metal was burning his hand, and pain was shooting up his arm. He dipped his head and ripped the door open. Flames hit him, but the wet towel helped. He raced out into the corridor. Everything combustible was in flames. He headed for the first door to his right, one of the guest rooms, and ripped it open. The flames hadn’t reached the room yet, but were now slowly licking into it.

The guestroom was empty, the ensuite bathroom as well.

Ryder quickly left the room, heading back into the flames. When he reached the second guestroom, the door to it was already standing in flames, and the room behind it was burning hotter than hell. The floor was giving way, and several floorboards had already burned through. The subfloor was gone, and soon the joists would give way too.

In a split-second Ryder assessed the situation. He couldn’t reach the second guestroom nor Scarlet’s room, and could only hope that Brandon King wasn’t up here.

“Have the firemen concentrate their hoses on the foyer and the stairs,” Ryder called out, hoping the cell phone in his pocket could pick up his voice. “I’m coming down the stairs.”

The stairs were gone. It was clear that the fire had started somewhere underneath them to cut off his and Scarlet’s escape route. The clicking sound he’d heard when he and Scarlet had gone upstairs could have been some sort of trigger that started the fire.

Ryder heard a garbled voice come through his phone, but the fire created such a noise that he couldn’t make out the words. “I’m jumping now!”

Ryder took the ten-foot jump, landing on his feet, then rolled to his side. Beneath him were hot embers, remains of floorboards and joists. But he also felt sludge. The water from the hoses had extinguished some of the flames in the foyer.

“I’m in the foyer,” he yelled. “Heading for the kitchen and study.”

The living room had been empty when he’d arrived with Scarlet, which only left the back of the house. The flames were raging there too. The half-bath along the corridor was burning. Opposite of it was the study. The door was already damaged by the fire, holding on by only one hinge. Ryder kicked it in, and felt a rush of air, then the flames in the hallway shot past him into the room with such force that he lost his balance and fell forward into the study.

Despite the burns he’d already sustained, Ryder got back on his feet. The smoke and flames made it hard to see anything in the room, but his honed vampire senses told him that Brandon King was here.

“He’s in the study,” Ryder called out toward his cell phone, “the room behind the living room. Hit it with the hoses! Now!”

Ryder reached the heavy mahogany desk and made his way around it. Behind it, a man lay on the ground. Brandon King. He wasn’t moving.

A heavy burning joist came crashing down from the upper floor, the desk breaking its fall, missing Ryder and King by only a few inches. Ryder bent down to King and put his fingers on his neck, checking for a pulse. It was there, but just barely.

He also saw now why King hadn’t replied to Scarlet calling out for him. He was gagged and bound. Ryder pulled the gag from his mouth and hooked his arms underneath King’s armpits, when the window shattered. Ryder turned his back to it instantly, shielding King from the flying glass shards, which now embedded themselves in Ryder’s jacket.

Water suddenly streamed into the room, and a figure in a heavy Kevlar suit jumped through the window, and though Ryder couldn’t immediately see the man’s face, he recognized him anyway.

“Dad! Help me get him out!”

“I’ve got him,” Gabriel said, grabbing King. “Get out, the house is about to collapse. I’ll lift him through the window.”

Ryder headed toward the window and jumped through it. Outside, he pivoted and reached his arms through the opening, ready to help his father lift King through, when he heard joists crashing and window panes exploding. The framing of the old Victorian was breaking like matchsticks, collapsing under the weight of the second floor.

“Dad!” Ryder screamed.

41

Scarlet stood on the opposite side of the street in front of her home. Flames were shooting out of all the windows. A fire truck was aiming several hoses at the house, dousing it in water, but the flames showed no sign of abating. Frantically, she searched for Ryder to come out through the side of the neighbor’s yard, the same way she’d made it out. But there was no sign of him.

Tears shot to her eyes, and fear choked her as she ran toward the house. “Ryder! Ryder! Please!” she screamed over the din of the fire and the loud shouts of the firefighters as they tried to bring the fire under control.

“Scarlet!”

At the sound of her name, she whirled around and saw Maya jump out of the back of an ambulance, running toward her.

“Maya!” Scarlet cried out and pointed to the house. “He’s still in there. Ryder is still in there!”

Maya pulled her into her arms. “I know, honey.”

“He should be out by now. Why isn’t he out? We have to help him. Please!” Through tear-stained eyes she looked at Maya.

“Listen, Scarlet, he’s still in there because he’s trying to get your father out.”