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Dawson climbs over me, then presses his body to my back until I’m crushed between his weight and the steel of the ladder. But my eyes are for Axel’s bedroom window. The three feet that separate it and me.
Then the six feet.
Tears burn my eyes, and my lungs struggle to take in enough oxygen to combat the smoke that’s settled in them. But it’s my heart that hurts most.
This is the pain he was trying to save me from. The ache I would endure if he were to die while working.
“Axel!” I try with all my strength to fight Dawson’s weight. To spring up and go back to Axel.
We could open the door and hide behind it while the wave of fire passes through! I could get a mask and helmet, which would make his worry go away, then we could get out together.
We could—
“Grab her, Chief!” Dawson wraps a single arm around my hips and drags me along the ladder while Ruiz angles it closer to the ground.
Fifteen feet from the window that could save Axel.
Twenty.
“Hey!” Ruiz locks the ladder in place and charges off the platform he works from. Coming to the side of the ladder, he shoves Dawson off and grabs me with hands rough enough to make me cry out. “You need to stop.”
“He’s in there alone!” Tears stream down my cheeks and dribble into my mouth. “He can’t get out without help.”
“And you screaming like a fucking banshee helps no one.”
He passes me off to Nixon and snatches the helmet straight from Dawson’s head. His legs move fast, and his chest heaves as he sprints back the way we came. “Someone raise the ladder for me!”
“You’re not kitted up!” Nix shouts to be heard in real-time, but speaks into the radio too. “Lieutenant Ruiz! I’m ordering you to stand down.”
“I’m respectfully declining.” He stops at the end of the ladder and waves for someone to move it closer. “He’s gonna need to jump, Chief. Someone needs to catch him.”
“I’ve got it.” Sloane sprints to the machinery and starts the ladder up. “You get one chance, Ruiz. Then you gotta duck, because that bitch is gonna chase him out.”
“Chief!” Axel’s voice scratches through every radio surrounding me. “Getting kind— hot i— he—. Is sh— out?”
“Why’s his voice breaking up?” I spin in Nixon’s grip and reach for the radio on his shoulder. “Axel! Come out now. I’m outside.”
“She— out?”
“I’m out!” I cry into the radio and turn in horror as the bottom floor seems to collapse in on itself. A heavy gust of boiling smoke and dust wafts through the windows and sizzles the hair from my skin. “Axel! Get out now.”
“A little closer!” Ruiz instructs from above. “Another five feet.”
“The fire’s gonna chase him out!” Nixon booms. “Ruiz, you’re gonna fry up. I’m ordering you down. Now.”
“Sorry, Chief. I’m already up. You shoulda said something before I made the climb.” Reaching up to his radio, he speaks so we all hear. “I’ll be about four feet out, Feeney. Eleven o’clock. If you miss me, you hit the ground. And I left my Halligan down there, pointing straight up, so I suggest you don’t miss.”
His biceps bulge while he finishes his climb and works to bring humor to a horrific situation. “Might I suggest you employ better engineers for the rebuild? Your bucket of shit is falling too quickly. No way this place was up to code.”
“Yo— ready?” Axel’s voice cuts in and out. “The floo— giving ou— Where’s Sull—”
“She’s down, safe and sound,” Ruiz reasons. He brings his sad eyes to me, emanating an ache so deep, I just know he’s thinking of Cootes. Of the woman he loved. The one he couldn’t help the night of the Oriane fire. “She’s waiting for you, kid. So now might be a good time to come on out.”
“Miss Sullivan.” An EMT withRosaon his badge and gloves on his hands, grabs me from Nixon—his brother—and gently tugs me away. “We need you to sit down.”
“No, I’m okay.”
I spin back to the house, and whimper when the walls tremble and a heavy beam falls inside. Its landing creates aboomso loud, I swear I feel it in the earth beneath my feet. Thick, black smoke rushes through the windows, so heavy, there’s no way I could still be standing if I was inside.
