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Three minutes, seven seconds.

“Laura?” Mateo called out in a normal tone, trying not to scare the girl so she’d come to him. “I need you to come here. Bonnie’s worried about you, honey. Your dad is worried. I need you to quit hiding.”

With the storm outside, he was pretty damn sure little Laura wouldn’t be hiding out on the deck, but he checked out the potting containers, anyway. They were empty. He checked under the bed. Nothing.

He went to the bathroom and didn’t see her. Then he flung open the door to the toilet and saw a tiny huddled little girl staring up at him with wide, terrified eyes as she tried to jam her body between the wall and the back of the toilet bowl. But she couldn’t. He would have loved to have coaxed her out of hiding and soothed her fear, but there was no damned time.

No damned time.

He grabbed the little girl underneath her armpits and she whimpered. Then he grabbed her around her waist.

“I want my Daddy,” she pleaded.

“Hang on, we’re going to go fast.” He glanced at his watch.

One minute, twenty-eight seconds.

“I’ve got her, Bonnie!” he yelled as he raced for the stairs. “Bonnie? I’ve got her.”

When he got to the first floor he saw that the front door was wide open.

Bonnie came from down the hall and almost bumped into them. “Let’s go!” he yelled.

He took a millisecond to turn toward the open sliding glass door that felt miles away.

“Braxton, stop what you’re doing. I’ve got the girl,” he roared at the top of his lungs. He turned back and ran out the front door, thankful that there were no steps leading up to the house. Instead he just hit the circular drive, making sure that Bonnie kept up with him.

He couldn’t check his watch, not with Laura in his arms.

Then he was at Bonnie’s side when she stopped at the open door of a minivan. He put his arm around her and forced her to run beside him. There was no time to drive, only run.

He didn’t have time to look behind him to find Braxton, not while helping Bonnie run.

If the bomb in the HVAC unit was anything like the pool pump, Braxton wasn’t going to survive the blast, not with three bricks of C-4. But he had to get Bonnie and Laura to the end of the drive. He counted in his head. He knew he was down to seconds.

He knew it.

They were halfway down the drive. He looked over his shoulder.

He had to.

No Brax.

Bonnie slipped on the wet drive and fell to the ground.

It was a done deal.

He dropped down on top of her, making sure to cradle Laura’s head and little body so she wasn’t hurt.

The noise pummeled his eardrums as Laura shrieked, and then his body jolted so hard that he was lifted up then dropped back down onto the two bodies underneath him.

“Fuck!”

Before he could agonize over hurting Bonnie and Laura he was punched in the ribs. He took another shot in his ass. Then he was battered over and over again by hot rain. He gritted his teeth, trying not to scare Laura as he took the beating. The fiery hammer that hit his head forced a cry from his lips.

“Mateo?”

Something was shoving at him. He groaned as his back hit concrete. He peered up into the sky. It was wet and ashy. Ashy?