Chapter Sixty-Five
Parker
I slam on the brakes, leaving the car parked diagonally across three spaces. Parking enforcement can bite me. Later.
Hitting the double doors at a run, I yell, “Nate!”
The conference room door swings open. “In here!”
I stumble over my own feet as I skid to a stop in the doorway.
Kurt sits in one of the cushy chairs, uncuffed.
His right wrist is bloody, the cast on his left almost black. If his face didn’t look like raw hamburger already, it would in about five minutes.
“Where. Is. He?” In three steps, I’m in front of him. Grabbing the lapels of his shirt, I haul him up and shove him against the wall as hard as I can.
“Parker!” AJ wraps an arm around my waist, drags me back, and pins me against him as Kurt loses the battle with gravity and collapses to the floor.
Lowering his voice, AJ hisses, “If you kill him now, he can’t help us find Eliot.”
I don’t miss the emphasis on the word now.
I’m not sure Kurt does either.
“I won’t kill him. I won’t touch him. Not while Eliot’s still alive. But Eliot better be alive.”
AJ lets go, but he doesn’t move far from my side.
“I d-don’t know wh-where he is,” Kurt stammers.
“But it’ll be one of the b-buildings that got shut down in the s-sweep.
” He cradles his bloody wrist, lines of pain bracketing his chapped lips.
“Or one of the empty ones. That’s wh-where they had m-me.
A building…on Villasco. Took me…all day to g-get free. ”
“We’re eliminating sites as fast as we can.” Nate’s eyes dart between his three screens. Wait, when did he get a third screen?
I shake my head. Beyond how fast they can get me the information I need, I don’t give a fuck about Nate’s screens. Eliot could be burning alive right now.
“Talk.” The single word, barked out like I expect Kurt to come to heel, is all I have in me.
Kurt manages to get himself back into the chair, and he cowers away from me. Smart move. At least he’s still talking. “V-vacant means no one will see the smoke until it’s too late. Can’t be…c-close to a fire station. Nowhere with a lot of foot traffic.”
“Down to three.” Nate’s gaze pings between me and his center screen. “A medical clinic on the east side of Cedar Park, a middle school fifteen minutes from here, and a two-story office building in Pflugerville.”
“Send me the addresses.” AJ’s already on his phone. “I’ll get APD and AFD units to all three.”
They’re too far apart. Pflugerville…Cedar Park…I can’t get to either of them in time. How long is Dines going to keep Eliot alive?
“Nate?” A fragmented theory running wild in my head finally coalesces into something I can say out loud. “Has the power been shut off to any of those places?”
Nate’s eyes widen, and that’s all I need. “Text me the address. Send everyone you can! And get the power back on!”
Ten minutes. I’m ten minutes away from where I hope they took Eliot. The lights and siren help, but it’s still rush hour, and too many people ain’t got the proper respect for emergency vehicles.
I lay on the horn as Last Nerve flashes across my phone screen. Nate.
“Tell me you have good news.” My voice cracks as I weave around an SUV with zero intention of pulling over. If I weren’t going a good ten miles an hour over the speed limit, I’d flip him off for good measure.
“I’m five minutes behind you. Do not go into that building alone, Parker. Please.”
“What the fuck are you doing? I need you at your computer. Running things.” My throat clogs, and my eyes start to burn. “Goddammit, Nate. You’re the only one I trust—”
“I delegated. Zephyr’s pulling blueprints. AFD’s got four engines and a rescue unit rolling. Two battalion chiefs on the way. Fourteen minutes. Maybe less.”
The distinctive sound of the Impala’s horn through my speakers cuts through the roar of my heartbeat in my ears.
“I see smoke!” Wisps of pale gray against an even paler blue sky send my pulse skyrocketing. “Nate…”
“Got the blueprints!”
I throw the car into park in front of the rusted school sign, pop the trunk, and reach for the only weapon I have besides my pistol. The tire iron ain’t much, but if I have to fight my way inside, I’ll do it.
“Where would they have him?”
One of the windows explodes, and a rush of bright orange flame licks up the far side of the building. “Shit!”
“Kurt says the fire’s gonna funnel to the west side of the building. It’s newer construction over there. Christ. Eliot’s report from this afternoon. The sprinklers on that side of the building are capped.” He blasts the horn again and shouts, “Get out of my fucking way!”
I sprint for the nearest door. “I’m goin’ in.”
“No! Four minutes.” Nate’s voice shatters on the last word. “Seven for AFD. Wait, Park. Please.”
“Eliot doesn’t have four minutes. Nate, if I don’t…” I swallow a sob. “I never told you…”
His voice goes quiet. “You never need to. I know.”
Heat pours from the building in waves, each pulse stealing more of the oxygen inside. I stay low, the smoke already making my eyes water.
Something moves in my periphery. A shadow across the school yard. The shot cuts through the roar of the flames. I tuck and roll, my phone bouncing out of reach as I pull my gun, and come up firing.
The man staggers. Two more shots, center mass, and he crumples to the ground.
I don’t stop to grab the phone. Just the tire iron.
The door’s locked. I don’t have time to pick it. Ten feet away, a classroom window showcases some sort of student art project. This part of the building’s older. It’ll break. It has to break. I holster my weapon, wrap both hands around the tire iron, and swing with everything I have.
The window shatters, glass bouncing across the classroom floor. The stench hits me in the face. Smoke mixed with something harsh and chemical that catches in the back of my throat. My eyes are burning with every blink.
Ignore it. Push past it. West side. I have to get to the west side.
But if I don’t check every door… What if Gabe doesn’t know how fire moves? What if Kurt didn’t tell him?
I grab my shirt with one hand, right above my double belt, and tug it up until it covers my mouth. It won’t help for long. I don’t need long. I need Eliot.
Halfway down a long hallway, and I’m already wheezing. I try to stay low, but my legs are starting to shake. My mouth tastes like metal.
The building groans, a long, low sound. I try to call his name, but it comes out as a weak, hoarse croak.
The classroom doors are all open. I don’t bother checking them.
“Senator Dines wants Eliot to burn.”
He’d be somewhere hard to get to. A closet. A locker room. Or worse—a crawlspace I have no way of finding because my phone is outside on the pavement somewhere.
At the end of the hall, the fire door’s propped open. Twenty feet away, flames dance along the ceiling. It’s hotter now. Sweat beads on my forehead, and I can’t get a full breath. More open classrooms. And there—two closed doors: a teacher’s lounge, and a second with an old, scratched sign.
Janitor
The knob won’t turn. I wedge the flat end of the tire iron between the frame and the strike plate.
Please…please be alive.
The building screams, light and sound everywhere all at once. The tire iron clatters to the floor.
The power. Somewhere beneath the wave of panic pulling me under, I know it’s the power. Fire alarms.
But all I can hear is Prophet.
“Your pain ends when you accept your new life.”
A wail fills my ears. I don’t realize it’s mine until I cough so hard I almost throw up.
No. Prophet isn’t here. I’m not in the box. And my new fucking life has Eliot in it.
I fumble for the tire iron, force it back into place, and throw my weight against it.
The door swings inward, bangs against the wall, and a stack of boxes topples over.
Oh, God.
Eliot.
He’s on the floor, his back to a pipe running up to the ceiling, with a respirator strapped to his face.
But the part that makes my blood run cold is the thin line of orange flame crawling along the ceiling behind him.