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“They’ve got the doors jammed,” he said. My breath was heaving in and out of my lungs, but I couldn’t hear anything from Jack. If I hadn’t felt him brush against me, I wouldn’t have known he was there at all.
Little whispers of sound surrounded us, and the noise grew in intensity until it became angry hisses. Smoke started to fill the barn from all directions and the heat became overwhelming.
“Back upstairs,” Jack yelled over the flames.
I could only see his outline with the barn doors closed, and if we waited too much longer we’d never be able to find the ladder again. More splinters jabbed through my gloves and into my fingers as I crawled quickly back up to the hayloft, and Jack pushed at me from below.
The air was a little easier to breathe once we got to the loft, and we could see for the moment, but the black smoke billowed up from the ground and past the hayloft door, sneaking inside little by little.
“Strip off your clothes.”
Jack had his shirt off and was down to his boxer briefs before I could get the command wrapped around my brain. He was already fashioning a rope out of his clothes and the jacket and sweater I’d left on the ground. He swiped at the blood running into his eyes with the back of his hand, but he stayed focused. I did as he asked until I was down to my bra and panties, unsure what I could do to help.
Jack pulled a knife and ran over to Doc Randall, efficiently slicing down the back of his blood soaked shirt and slacks.
I had no idea what was happening outside. The gunfire had stopped, and I didn’t know if Carver was dead or alive—whether the good guys would be waiting for us outside or the bad guys. I tried to move closer to the hayloft doors, but the flames from below had started to lick their way up until they almost reached the hayloft door. We couldn’t jump out the window without catching fire. There was no way down.
The floor grew hot beneath my bare skin, and Jack continued to work with the clothes rope. It was getting harder to see, and all I could do to help was hold the flashlight steady so he could see what he was doing. I knew Jack was trying, but I didn’t see hope for our escape.
“Give me your gun,” Jack said. He immediately went into a coughing fit, and we both huddled closer to the ground, breathing in as much air as possible.
I handed it over to him without question. He grabbed my hand and we crawled on hands and knees away from where the flames were starting to encroach on our space. Jack pulled my head close and said, “Hold on to my leg. Don’t let go.” He kissed me hard once, and I stopped him, my eyes blind with tears and smoke.
“I won’t let go,” I promised him. “In this life or the next.” And then I held on to his leg, waiting for the flames and smoke to take us both.
I jerked against his body as I felt the recoil of my gun. He fired every round into the outside wall and then did the same thing with his own weapon. He dropped the guns and grabbed onto my hands, holding me tight as he started kicking against the weakened wall. I tried to help him, my bare feet hitting the wood, but the smoke was starting to get to me.
Bright light hit my eyes, and I thought,This is it. There’s the white light at the end of the tunnel. But a great whoosh of air sucked at the smoke and I realized it was daylight. We both stuck our heads out of the makeshift hole and breathed in, coughing as our lungs seized.
I looked down, and that one brief moment of hope left me again when I saw we’d never survive a jump from that high.
“We don’t have long,” Jack said. “The fire will reach this side in a couple of minutes,” Boards creaked and moaned all around us, and great crashes sounded from below. “If the building doesn’t collapse first,” he added.
He tied the makeshift rope to one of the thick iron railroad spikes sticking out from the wall and let the rope of clothes unfurl. It was too short. By a lot. But we had a better chance with it than without.
“I’ll go first,” Jack said. “I’ll catch you. Trust me.”
I looked at him and nodded. “With my life.”
Jack launched himself out the hole we’d made in the wall and was at the end of the rope much too soon. The clothes strained against the nail they’d been secured to, and just when I could see Jack gather his resolve to drop the rest of the way to the ground, a police cruiser sped towards us and slammed to a stop beneath us. Carver got out to help, but Jack gauged the jump and let go, landing on top of his cruiser.
My hands were damp with sweat as I crawled through the hole, much less gracefully then Jack had managed to make it look. I knew it was stupid but all I could think was that I was going to die in my underwear while everyone watched. I almost laughed from the hysteria of it, but I started coughing instead.
Jack stayed on top of the cruiser, and then suddenly I was in his arms and I never wanted to let go. We held on to each other, our breaths heaving and blood and tears soaking our faces.
“I don’t think I’ve ever told you this,” I said. “But I’m really glad you were in the military.”
“At least you’ll never be able to say our life is boring.” He kissed the top of my head and wiped at my tears with his thumb.
“I could maybe deal with a little boredom in my life.”
“I’ll make sure our honeymoon doesn’t require anything more stressful than asking the beach waiters for drinks with umbrellas, or having slow, lazy sex in the surf.”
I stared up at him. His face was black with soot, and blood covered one side of his face. “Sounds like heaven,” I said.
“Good. Now let’s go put these assholes away.”
“Maybe I could get dressed first,” I said, noticing the crowd of cops gathering around us. “I think Martinez is taking pictures.”
