Chapter 21 Alejandro #2
I smashed the tray sideways into the unsecured oxygen rigs, metal clanging against steel canisters that wobbled dangerously.
One toppled, hissing as its valve fractured, oxygen blasting out in an icy roar that vibrated through my bones.
The ignition device in my fist clicked under my thumb—small, smooth—and I slammed it on the container.
Sparks burst where metal struck metal, catching the leaking oxygen in an instant flash.
The air itself seemed to ignite, blooming into a violent wall of heat that punched upward and ripped the breath from my lungs.
The explosion slapped the air, sending sparks racing up the wall. The chemicals soaked into the concrete and wood, and with a whoosh, sucked the oxygen right out of my lungs. The fire was alive and eating everything in its path.
Raven shouted as the fire reached his arm, charred his jacket, and he stumbled back.
Smoke thickened fast. My lungs burned with the first breath.
I heard shouting outside the half-open metal door…
Levi… Novak… other voices. A sliver of light was visible through the smoke.
I tried to get to the door, but Raven’s hand clamped on my shoulder, yanking me back with a strength born of panic.
He shoved past me, tried to force himself through the door to escape the fire, but I threw my weight back, blocking him with everything I had. I wasn’t letting him out. Not him.
“Alejandro—” Levi shouted and reached for me.
“No!” I threw my shoulder against the door, slamming it shut before Raven could get out. I won’t let him hurt anyone else. He dies here today.
“No!” Levi’s voice cracked. “Don’t you fucking do this!”
Raven shoved me aside, pulling at the door, but it was on fire, burning, and smoke rolled low along the floor, thick and oily.
The flames climbed the wall and crawled across the ceiling—too fast, too familiar.
For a heartbeat, it was the cartel rooms again, heat blistering my face while I watched men I hated die, men who’d hurt my sister, my momma…
me… The sound of it—crackling, popping—itched under my skin in the same place the old scars lived. I stepped back. No one was getting out.
Raven wasn’t getting out.
I was at peace with that. I flicked open the syringe, ready to give myself the remaining fatal dose, so when I burned, I’d know nothing, but Raven’s shadow moved through the flames, his face streaked with soot, eyes bright and wild.
“You think this ends here?” he rasped. “I survived before!”
“No door,” I said, and acceptance flooded me. This was done. I was done.
He lunged at me, and we slammed into a steel pillar.
Pain shot up my back. He grabbed a bone saw from the floor, swinging it at my neck.
I ducked, and it embedded itself into the wall, and he hit me—jaw snapping sideways, iron flooding my mouth, teeth rattling.
The shock went straight down my spine, lighting up nerves that had been trained to brace for worse.
But I’d been hit worse. By him, his men, and the world he forced me to survive.
We crashed to the floor, rolling through burning debris that seared straight through my clothes. Smoke clawed down my throat, scraping it raw until I tasted blood and felt that old panic rising—the kind that used to choke me in locked rooms just like this.
“You were mine,” he spat, forcing my hand into fire as heat blistered my arm. “You were always mine.”
“No,” I rasped, his gun at my temple, and I drove the hypodermic into his neck.
Straight in. Deep. A clean, surgical kill—the mercy he never gave anyone. His eyes went wide, a wet, sucking breath, and he fell to one side, and I shoved him away as he died. Too quick. I wanted to see him burn.
The ceiling groaned. A metal beam above us twisted like a dying animal.
Something cracked, and a shower of burning drywall rained over us.
I staggered to my feet, coughed, my eyes burning, the air unbreathable.
The room warped and wavered, and I’d guaranteed I wouldn’t have a quick death, no more meds, nothing. I need the gun.
Raven’s gun.
A bullet to my temple, and I wouldn’t burn to death.
I yanked at his hand, took the gun, checked the door one last time—the heat-warped frame remained fused into a single, immovable barricade.
Well shit.
I placed the gun to my temple.
Another beam snapped, and the ceiling dropped in a rush of heat and debris.
I hit the floor hard, weapon flying from me, arms over my head. The blast slammed into my ribs and tore the breath from my lungs. Pain exploded across my back as a beam pinned me, heat burning through fabric and skin while dust and ash rained into my mouth.
Somewhere far away—muffled by fire, by collapsing metal, by my own heartbeat thundering in my ears—I could swear I heard Levi scream my name. Raw. Terrified. A sound that cut deeper than any blade Raven ever held.
I let myself hear the sound of someone who wanted me to live, and then everything narrowed to a burning point of light. The pain intensified. I was dying.
And it was okay.