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Lucy’s voice yanked him up short. “No.”
“What?”
She swung her body first left, then right, examining the hallway in the beam being thrown off by her flashlight. There weren’t any active flames this far down—not yet, anyway—but the smoke clinging to the air around them said it was only a matter of time. Minutes, if they were lucky. “We need to go right.”
Sam shook his head. “If we go left, that will take us back to the D side, along the outer wall. There will be an exit there. If not a door, then more storage rooms with windows, like the ones we just left behind. It doesn’t make any sense to go further into the building by turning right.”
“Unless this hallway on the left dead-ends, or has interior-only rooms.” Turning to the right, she said, “This hallway parallels the back of the building. There arealwaysexits on the C side.”
Here, she had him. Rear exits, usually several, were standard on buildings like this. If they went right, they’d find one. Eventually. Still… “Left is faster, and in case you hadn’t noticed, this place is kind of burning down. We don’t have time to go farther into the building just to get out.”
“Believe me,Inoticed this place is burning down,” Lucy said, straightening to her full five foot nine and staring him down in the eerie glow of both of their flashlights. “And I’m not about to get stuck in here. We need to radio command for help.”
“We don’t have time,” Sam said impatiently.
Annnnd still no budging from Lucy. If anything, her boots were even more rooted in the concrete beneath them. “What we don’t have time for is to fuck this up. You brazened your way in here and look what it got us.”
“Hey! IknowI saw someone—”
She held up a hand to stop him, mid-protest. “I’m not arguing with you right now. But I am telling you that I’m done flying by the seat ofyourpants. I already followed you into an untenable situation once today because you decided to break rank. I’m not doing it again. We are going to get out of here, and we’re going to do it the right way.”
Sam bit back the argument bubbling in his chest. Theyreallydidn’t have time for a pissing match, and Lucy’s choice might be conservative, but it wasn’t necessarily wrong. Even if she was a stickler for the damn rules.
“Fine,” he said, turning toward the right. “I’ll take point and you radio command. Good?”
Lucy nodded. “Good.”
Flattening his hand over the wall, he moved down the hallway. There was zero natural light this far into the warehouse, and the smoke here was just as thick as it had been in the C-side corridor. His flashlight allowed for at least a little visibility, and Sam surefooted his way down the hall, heading farther into the building.
Of course, his steps threatened to falter when Lucy spoke into her radio. “de Costa to command, requesting assistance with an escape route.”
“Command to de Costa,” Bridges said, and fuuuuuck, Sam was surprised there weren’t actual ice crystals on Lucy’s radio from his tone. “What’s your location?”
“Warehouse interior. Our point of entry on the D side is blocked by debris. We followed the corridor looking for an alternate exit point, but this place is going up fast. We need an exit on the C side.”
“Copy that.” A few seconds of silence passed, but Faurier didn’t waste them by standing still. He moved down the hallway, pushing past smoke and trying to cover as much ground as possible before the flames that were starting to creep down the walls gained purchase. The warehouse was a maze of interior rooms, and they passed one after the other until they reached another intersection.
His boots slapped to a halt just as Hawk’s voice filtered over the line. “Squad is on the C side of the warehouse. There are no ground-floor windows.” Sam’s heart sank like a stone in still water until Hawkins added, “But there are two doors. Keep heading to the back of the building. Dempsey’s gonna breach both and give y’all a way out.”
Sam’s heart jackhammered against his ribs as he turned left to keep heading toward the rear of the warehouse with Lucy on his six. Christ, he hoped that whomever he’d seen in that window—because hehadseen someone, he’d bet his balls on it—had found one of those doors and gotten the hell out of there. He threw a few callouts into the storage room doorways as they passed by, just in case, but they all went unanswered. The hallway seemed to stretch on forever, his lungs feeling like sandbags in his chest with each step. Smoke blurred Sam’s vision, turning the warehouse into even more of a maze. One more turn had them at a T-intersection, with the hallway splitting off to the left or right, and—finally—scant daylight spilled in through an opening on the right side, a familiar voice cutting through the muffled thud of Sam’s pulse against his eardrums.
“Faurier!” Dempsey stood about twenty-five paces down the corridor, his body framed by the exit that Lucy had known would be there. Even if ithadtaken what felt like a frigging millennium to get to it. “de Costa! Here, hurry.”
Dempsey waved them down the hall, and even though they’d been tight for more than half a decade, Sam didn’t think he’d ever been so happy to see the guy. Sam broke into a run, following Dempsey into daylight and taking a lightning-fast look over his shoulder to be sure that Lucy had followed before speaking.
“Did you find him?” he asked, whipping off his helmet, then his hood and mask in an effort to scan the area at the back of the building. Not that it worked, what with the sudden burst of sunlight trying to toast his corneas.
“Who?” Dempsey asked from somewhere beside him.
Sam squinted, trying again. “The person who was in the window. He must’ve come out through—”
“Faurier. de Costa.” Captain Bridges’s voice was stone cold furious, and Sam blinked until everything in front of him slid into focus.Fuck. Not only was Bridges standing there, arms crossed over his chest in a bulletproof knot, but Hawkins and Gamble were right there on either side of him, doing the same. “Faurier, go get checked out by Quinn and Luke.”
“Oh, that’s not—I mean, I’m fine,” Sam said reflexively, adding on, “sir,” even though the look on Bridges’s face told him he should’ve kept his trap shut.
“I think,” Bridges said through his teeth, “that you have disobeyed enough direct orders for today, Faurier. Also, you’re bleeding, so go. de Costa, return your gear to the rig and wait there with Gamble.”
Sam’s hand flew to the burn on his neck, which he’d forgotten all about thanks to the adrenaline cocktail running through his veins, and opened his mouth to protest. He’d been the one to break the rules—for a goddamn good reason, by the way—but Lucy had just been watching his back by following him into that warehouse.
