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One glance down and she realized she wouldn’t survive if her grip loosened.
Which it began to do as she struggled to get a second grip on the railing.
Jude’s hands shot out to cover hers.
Nikki peeled herself off the wall.
Jude yelled, “Help me!”
He and Nikki pulled Kate up as her heart pounded in her throat and her body quaked. She hooked her leg over the top of the railing and they hauled her over. When she was on her feet, albeit shakily, she drew in a long breath.
“Holy shit!” she cried.
Jude’s hands cupped her face. He stared deep into her eyes.
Neither said a word for several suspended seconds.
Then he kissed her soundly.
Nikki said from beside them, “We can’t hang here, peeps.”
Kate tore her mouth from Jude’s and her gaze flashed to Nikki, who’d paled at Kate’s near-fall—and the injuries Nikki herself had sustained.
She was bleeding from a gash on her forehead and likely had a broken nose as the blood spewed over her lip. Tears pooled in her eyes, but Nikki powered through the pain and terror.
Kate reached for the golden clasp on her medical tote.
“Not now,” Nikki contended. “We’re on the move.”
They started down the stairs again. Only two flights were left to go when a door flung open.
A little girl came racing out, crying and trembling as she dragged a hot-pink backpack alongside her. Her mother followed close, speaking rapid-fire Spanish Kate could barely keep up with. Something about the federales and the woman’s esposo. Her husband was nowhere in sight, so Kate deduced he was in prison. They must be visiting?
There was no rhyme or reason—or time to dissect the dialogue. She hurried the two along. Just as another blast blew the recently closed door of the exit to that floor off its hinges.
Jude yanked Kate and Nikki backward so that they fell against the steps they’d just descended, thereby saving them from getting knocked out by the door.
The little girl immediately collapsed to the ground, the heavy piece of metal whizzing over her body—only to hurl across the opposite side of the stairwell, clipping the woman before it bounced off the wall and clamored to the ground level, to meet the same fate as Kate’s shoes.
The inertia involuntarily propelled the woman forward, so that she took a violent tumble down the steps and then lay sprawled on the landing, unconscious.
The little girl began to shriek.
“Goddamn it!” Jude helped both Kate and Nikki to their feet. “Kate, get the girl!” He rushed down the stairs to the woman.
Kate scooped up the daughter and held her tight.
Nikki reached for the fastening of Kate’s medical tote at her hip and flipped up the smooth leather flap. She dug through the bag and retrieved bandages and other paraphernalia, then rapidly joined Jude, pressing gauze to the woman’s cheek, which was split wide open. Her leg was twisted in an unnatural position as well, and Kate gently turned the crying child’s head away to block the view.
“This building can go at any moment,” Jude said between clenched teeth. Smoke was billowing up from the ground floor. No flames had reached the main exit of the stairwell, indicating the fire was currently contained within the bowels—and most likely in the lobby.
Neither containment would last for long.
Jude whisked off the strap from his duffle bag, set it on the floor and unzipped the top, retrieving a belt for Nikki to fashion a tourniquet. Then he doubled up a long-sleeved shirt within a stiff, sturdy suede jacket to create a makeshift stretcher that would at least somewhat stabilize the broken leg so he could carry the woman out of the building, with Nikki’s help. They carefully, though quickly, made their way down the last couple of flights and Nikki kicked the metal bar on the door with her foot, so it flew wide open.
They coughed from the inhalation of smoke and the sting of the suddenly fresher, clearer air. Their ears rang from the blaring of the emergency signals that echoed down the stairwell.
First responders were on the scene and there was a melee of screaming and crying people, some clearly injured, others disoriented or searching frantically for someone in their party who’d gone missing.
