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“SIMON!”
All thoughts of self-preservation go out the window. If my son is in danger, I don’t care if anything happens to me. I’ll gladly walk through fire to save him.
I rush forward without thinking, ducking beneath the crumbling door frame leading into the house. I’m only vaguely aware of Natalya screaming my name. It’s impossible to hear over the roar of the flames and the rush of my own blood past my ears. I can’t breathe. Can’t think. There’s no time to ask how this could have happened or who’s responsible. There’s really only one person itcouldbe.
By some miracle, I manage to squeeze past a flaming wooden beam, hunched in on myself to take up as little space as possible. It’s eerily quiet inside, save for the crackle of wood and the occasional electrical pop of wires melting. I don’t hear Simon crying. Whether or not that’s a good or bad thing, I can’t tell.
I step over something soft. It groans. When I look down, I realize it’s a person I’ve accidentally trampled on in my worry.
“Boris?” I exclaim. I kneel to check him over. He’s not only pinned under a toppled beam, but it looks like he’s bleeding profusely. I try my best not to think about the burns covering his skin or the smell of burning hair.
“He’s not here…” Boris rasps around a painful sounding cough. “Simon’s gone.”
I frown. “Gone? What do you mean?”
A part of the floor above topples down on us. Sparks fly, the fire and dark smoke growing more viscous with every passing second. There’s no time to question him.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” I tell him, trying my damnedest to move the fallen beam off him.
Boris yells in agony. I can’t imagine the pain he’s going through. Not only has he been shot, he’s simultaneously being crushed and burned alive. If I don’t get us out of here soon, we’ll both succumb to the smoke.
“Just leave!” he screams. “Get out of here!”
“No man left behind, old friend,” I say with a grunt, tossing the beam aside. I throw his arm over my shoulder, hoisting him onto my back in a fireman’s carry.
I move fast. Flames lick my skin, my face, myeyes. It’s hard to tell where the exit is. I’m lightheaded, disoriented. Didn’t I just come this way? Or was the exit through here? It’s hard to tell when everything’s been charred to a crisp.
“Dimitri!”
The sound of Natalya’s frantic cry cuts through my confusion. She calls my name again and again, growing more and more panicked. I follow the sound of her voice, a lighthouse amidst stormy seas. I trudge on, one step at a time as the fire consumes everything around us, until I finally fall through the remnants of the house’s front door.
I stumble forward a few more steps before collapsing, Boris slumping onto his side. Natalya quickly comes to our aid, but I wave her off.
“Help him,” I command around a haggard cough. The insides of my lungs feel like they’ve been shredded. I hope I didn’t inhale any harmful particulates. Though, knowing my luck, the smoke has probably fucked up my lungs for good.
Natalya moves rapidly, checking Boris. She examines him expertly, her hands perfectly still as she applies pressure to his bullet wound. He’s taken two to the upper chest near his left shoulder. Boris groans, writhing on the pavement.
“What the fuck areyoudoing here?” he seethes.
“Easy,” I warn. “She’s with me.”
“But—”
“Where’s my son, Boris?” I ask hastily. I’m pretty sure Boris is going to survive, but finding Simon is a race against the clock. “You said Simon’s gone? How is that possible?”
“I was—ah, fuck!—doing my morning rounds.” He hacks and wheezes. It’s a miracle he’s even coherent enough to speak. “I found her hovering over his crib.”
“Who?” I snap.
“Dahlia,” he croaks. “I didn’t think anything of it at first… But then I smelled the gasoline.”
A chill claws its way down my spine, the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck standing up on end. “Dahlia?”
“Oh, God,” Natalya whispers, her face suddenly pale.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Her eyes are suddenly stormy. “When I first came for my interview… Before you hired me as Simon’s nanny… Edvard said he’d take care of getting me an interview slot. I never gave it much thought, but it all makes sense now. Dahlia must have been working for him. That’s how I was able to land an interview on such short notice and bypass most of the background checks you would have done.”
