Chapter 23 - Arko
The explosion came out of nowhere, and the blast tipped me off my feet. I lay on the ground, curled up into myself, and made sure to keep my face and head covered to protect myself from the falling debris.
The heat felt like a furnace, and the smoke felt like it was choking the air out of me. Behind me, Anton was tied to a chair, and I’d been on my way to release him when the godforsaken blast happened.
I coughed to clear my lungs as I rose to my feet, feeling dizzy and sick, and I ran to get Anton. His eyes were wide, and he was twisting to tie himself free as the fire spread behind him.
“Come on, I’ve got you,” I said, as I took a knife to his binds and set him free. Anton jumped to his feet, swaying just a little, and I wrapped an arm around his waist to keep him steady. He ripped off the tape from his mouth, wincing in pain.
“What the hell happened?” he wheezed.
“I don’t know,” I said, worry gnawing in my chest. “But we’d better get you out of here. Caspian and the others have cleared the route out.”
“Caspian?” Anton sounded shocked.
“I know, long story.”
We were almost out the door when Artyom came running around the corner.
“Comms are down,” he said, gasping for air as he pointed down a dark corridor. “Come on, let’s get you out of here before the fire spreads.”
Anton was weak and struggling to move, so Artyom helped from the other side, forcing Anton’s arm around his shoulder.
“I have no idea where everyone else is,” I wheezed. “What the fuck happened?”
“I overrode the commands for the explosives around the doors,” Artyom bellowed at me through the roaring fire. “But one of the men manually set one off that wasn’t linked to the central line.”
“Fuck. Are there more?” I shouted back.
“I don’t think so,” Artyom shook his head. “Most of the kidnappers are dead. Some are missing. Maybe they ran, or hid.”
“Where are the others?” I asked, prepared to go look for them if they were still inside.
“Our brothers are still manning the perimeter, in case these guys have back-up. The Lebedevs are all out.”
“And Andrey?” I asked. Anton tripped over something in the dark, and I held him tighter, not willing to let him go just yet.
“Last I checked, he was making way to the forest to check on Beatrice.”
We were nearing the exit now, one of the main doors that was safe to go through. The fire was a raging blaze inside, consuming the oxygen.
“Jump through with Anton!” I ordered Artyom. “I’ve got your back.”
Artyom nodded, muttering words of encouragement to Anton, and together, they leaped over the fire. I was about to follow when I saw movement from the corner of my left eye.
The smoke was thicker here, and I thought I might have imagined it when I saw a flicker of silver. I whirled left to see two men barreling at me with knives in their hands, leaping over flames, reaching for their guns.
Without thinking, I grabbed a fallen metal sheet off the ground and used it as a shield just in time for a bullet to ricochet off it.
“You fuckers!” I roared, pulling out my own gun just as one of the men leaped right onto me with a knife.
The bullet went straight through his chest, and we both fell on the hot, burning ground.
I pushed him off me, pain searing through my shoulders, and reached for my fallen gun, but it was too far.
The other man was coming at me now, and on impulse, I grabbed the knife from the dead man and threw it across the air. It took the oncoming attacker by surprise, giving me precious seconds to reach for the distant gun.
Then, I shot.
The man slumped to the ground, and without wasting another second, I jumped over the fire, making way for the exit of the distillery. As I met the dead of night, I looked up at the clear sky, with tears stinging in my eyes, and thanked the stars for keeping Anton and Beatrice safe.
Just then, I saw one of my men rushing toward me from across the ground.
“Boss. We’ve called back-up to contain the fire.”
I nodded. “The Lebedevs are all accounted for?”
“Yes, sir. They’re all out,” he said. I sighed with relief, at last grabbing the water he gave me. I didn’t go so far as to call the Lebedevs family just yet, but somehow, it became important to me to make sure they weren’t hurt.
The water hardly quenched my thirst, and I was bone-tired and exhausted, but I needed to check in with the others.
I wiped the beads of blood from my forehead, from when one of the kidnappers had slammed me against the wall just when we’d stormed in. My head hurt, my knees were ready to buckle, and I knew I had injuries I hadn’t even registered yet, but I needed to see Beatrice and tell her everything was okay.
She must have been worried sick when the comms went down. I saw everyone gathered around one of our vans that had pulled up, talking over each other. When I walked up to them, I felt my heart sink as their worried gazes met mine.
“What the hell is going on here?” I asked, freezing like we’ve descended into hell. My eyes roved over the faces—Caspian, Anton, Artyom, Dante, and everyone but her. “Where the hell is Beatrice?”
“That’s the thing,” Andrey said, his voice quivering. “We don’t know. I went to check on her, but she wasn’t there.”
“Could one of the escaping kidnappers have taken her?” Caspian groaned, running a hand through his hair.
“I don’t think so,” Alek said. “We had our patrols out, and vehicles parked throughout the route. If anyone tried to take her, they would have been seen and stopped.”
My heart went into overdrive as I started to think, and an idea came to mind. No, I thought to myself, paling as I turned to look back at the burning building. She wouldn’t have.
Just then, one of Caspian’s men came running up with a report. “She’s not at her post or anywhere near it,” he said. “The guards on patrol said they had been checking in every five minutes like you ordered, but she wasn’t there when they went back.”
My blood ran cold. “When was the last time you saw her?”
“Just before the third explosion that started the fire.”
I turned back to the burning building, the fear lodged in my throat. The entire roof was engulfed in flames, and sooner or later, that building was bound to collapse. As I watched, frozen in fear, another section of the building collapsed inward with a thunderous crash.
And she was in there. I couldn’t imagine how terrified she was, knowing her fear of fire, and she went in there before the flames started.
Without thinking, I dashed through the front door.
“Arko, stop right there!” Andrey grabbed my arm. “You can’t go back in there. The whole place is coming down.”
I pulled away, my feet not stopping as I turned and screamed. “She’s in there. I know she is!”
“You don’t know that,” Dante screamed back, just as Caspian yelled out explosive curses at Beatrice.
I ignored them all, my feet hitting the ground like wind as I ran toward her. She must have thought something happened to us, and I knew she was too damn selfless to stand by and do nothing.
The heat hit me like a wall as I reached the exit I had used moments earlier. Flames devoured the doorframe, but there was still a gap I could get through. I pulled my shirt over my nose and mouth and pushed forward.
Inside was hell. The smoke was so thick I could barely see a foot in front of me. The roar of the fire drowned out everything else.
“Beatrice!” I shouted. “Beatrice!”
I moved through the burning corridor, staying close to the wall in case I lost my way in all that smoke. The skin on my hands blistered from the heat as I felt my way forward.
“Beatrice!” I called again, voice cracking from the smoke.
That’s when I heard a faint bout of coughing from a room up ahead, to my right. I moved as quickly as I could and saw some fallen, broken beams blocking the entrance. Through a gap in the rubble, I saw movement.
“Beatrice?” I screamed again.
“Arko?” She sounded weak and panicked.
“Fuck!” I roared back. “I’m here. Stay right there!”
I tried to remove pieces of the debris, but they were too damn heavy. But there was no other way. Eventually, I decided I couldn’t clear the whole thing and moved just enough pieces to create a hole large enough for her to slither out through.
When I got a good look at her, she was pressed against the far wall, her face red from the heat, and her eyes wide-set with horror.
“I’m going to get you out,” I said, extending a hand. “Just try to slide out through this hole.”
“I’m sorry,” she said between coughs as she came closer, and I moved away to give her space to climb. “I thought something happened to you when the comms went down.”
“Save it for when we’re out of here,” I grunted, waving my hands to urge her to move faster. “Come on!”
She squeezed through the opening, and I was immediately by her side, catching her in my arms. I knew we were in a hurry, that every second was a matter of life and death, but I couldn’t help myself from stilling for a moment, from holding her in my arms.
“You have no idea how much you scared me.” I kissed her senseless, but just then, we heard another crash, pulling us back to the present.
“Can you scold me once we’re out of here?” she laugh-cried, and I laughed too, grabbing her arm to make a run for it. I kept her against the wall and myself toward the hallway, closer to the fire as I led her toward the exit.
“This way,” I said, keeping her close.
Flames badly engulfed the exit, and I saw Beatrice panic.
“Come on!” I said. “We have to jump through it!”
“There has to be another way,” she cried, looking around in desperation. The fire was so hot now that I could feel the heat singe the hair on my neck.
“There isn’t,” I said, and without thinking, lifted her off the ground. Before she could protest, or scream, or even shout, I jumped over the fire. The place could have come down on our heads any time now, and I knew that.
We tumbled out onto gravel, gasping and coughing in the night air. I grabbed Beatrice and half-dragged her away from the building. We’d barely made it thirty yards when the section we’d just escaped from collapsed entirely to the ground.
“Oh my god,” Beatrice cried, shielding her eyes.
I coughed and wheezed as I stood, pulling her up gently.
From a distance, I saw Caspian and the others running toward us.
I put a careful arm around her shoulders and pulled her a little further away, the blaze so hot I couldn’t think clear enough where we were standing.
Beside me, I saw Beatrice’s chest rising and falling, her eyes fixed on the flames. I knew the signs that she was about to have a panic attack. I pulled her as far as I could, but her neck remained craned toward the building, her breathing ragged as she stayed fixated on the disaster.
Caspian and the others reached our side, pulling us away toward one of the waiting vans.
I immediately sat on the ground and pulled Bea down with me, our backs resting against the tires.
Time seemed to blur as people passed us water, covered us with blankets.
I heard someone calling for medics, and in between all that chaos, I found ourselves alone.
“Bea?” I spoke softly, so as not to spook her. “You’re safe now, okay? You’re safe.”
She nodded as she dropped her shoulder to my head. I thought she was still frightened, in the middle of a panic attack, and I rubbed soft circles down her spine.
“That fire won’t hurt you,” I said to comfort her. “It will never hurt you.” My heart was wrenching into itself, thinking of what she must have gone through in there.
She just nodded and took a deep breath, like she was trying to ground herself. I was so fucking angry at her for putting herself in danger like that, but at that moment, I needed nothing more than to make sure she was okay.
I pulled her closer to myself, and she nestled into my chest, her eyes still on the flames.
“It’s all far away now,” I whispered in her ear. “You’re okay. I’m here. You’re okay.”
“I know I am.” I heard her soft voice and thought I’d dreamt it, because she didn’t sound scared. She sounded almost…resigned. “It was just fire.”
I buried my face in her hair, holding back the tears of panic filling my own eyes. “Don’t ever do that again.”
She pulled away, her face lifting to search my eyes, then gently cupped my cheeks. “Hey…hey…I’m okay.”
“But what if you weren’t?” I couldn’t help but ask. I didn’t know it happened. I was supposed to be comforting her, but she seemed fine. I, on the other hand, was a complete mess.
“There are lots of what-ifs out there, Arko. But I’m here, and I’m safe.
You know why I went in there? Because I knew you would have come if it had been me in there,” she said, smiling at me with such love that I felt my heart crack open.
“It was better, for me, to go into those flames to make sure you were okay, than to stand outside and do nothing.”
I shook my head, as though to protest, but she leaned her forehead against mine, her breath warm against my face. “I’ve never seen you this scared before,” she murmured. “It’s kind of cute.”
I let out a choked laugh, and then she was laughing too. The truth was, I’d never felt fear like I’d felt tonight, knowing she was in there. Having her safe now, by my side, was the most peaceful moment I’d had all day.
“Thank you,” I said quietly. “For coming in there for me, and you know, not dying on me.”
“Like I said,” she replied, brushing her lips against mine, “I knew I wasn’t in danger with you around.”