Chapter Fifteen
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Carly sat on her bed, unmoving as the fire alarm blared out in the hallway. Her school did fire drills all the time. Was this a drill? Or maybe a false alarm?
The alarm kept going, and her anxiety grew. Her mom was downstairs somewhere at her conference. Should she leave the room and go down the fire exit?
Her inner voice told her to stay here, certain that her mom would come and get her. She didn’t want to get lost if there really was a fire and not be able to find her mom.
She jumped when a sharp knock came at the suite door. “Carly?” A man’s voice called out.
She didn’t answer, heart tripping as she sat frozen on the bed. Who was it? What did he want?
“My name’s Jonas, I work with your mom. We’ve met once before at the Christmas dinner last year, do you remember?”
She had a vague memory of him, brown hair and glasses. But she still didn’t answer. Her mom had taught her never to answer the door when she was alone.
He knocked louder. “Carly? I just talked to your mom on the phone. She’s been evacuated, and they won’t let her back in the building, so she asked me to come get you and take you outside to meet her. We have to leave now. I hear you like Taylor Swift?”
That was her and her mom’s secret code. He wouldn’t know it unless her mom had told him.
Carly jumped up and hurried to the door, checking the peephole first. It was him. She undid the safety chain and opened the door a few inches.
He smiled down at her. “Hi. You okay?”
She nodded, the pit of her stomach buzzing. “Is there a fire?” She didn’t smell or see any smoke, and he didn’t look worried.
“It’s probably just a drill, but we have to leave now just in case. The staff is evacuating everyone. Do you need to grab anything?”
“My laptop.” She backed away from the door, quickly got her backpack and slipped it on as she made her way back to him. She was still a bit scared but trying to hide it.
“It’s okay,” he told her. “We’ll be outside in just a few minutes, and your mom is there waiting for you.”
Carly nodded and stepped out into the hall. He set a guiding hand on her shoulder and steered her toward the stairwell entrance at the end of the hall. It was practically empty except for several staff members they passed on the way.
“Everyone out of that room?” one woman asked them in a brisk tone as she unlocked another door to check for occupants.
“Yes.” Jonas pressed the metal release bar on the steel door, shoved it open and held it for Carly. He stepped inside the stairwell behind her, and they joined the line of people moving down the steps. They went down one flight of stairs. Turned to go down another.
Just before they reached the bottom, she smelled smoke.
Fear jolted through her, and she looked up at Jonas, who looked worried now. Was there an actual fire? How bad, and how close? Would they be able to get out in time?
Other people around them must have noticed the smoke as well because they started murmuring in concern and darting nervous glances around. Carly swallowed and moved closer to Jonas.
He squeezed her shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile that did nothing to stop the hot buzzing in her stomach. “It’s all right. Almost there, keep going.”
But they weren’t.
Before they reached the next floor the smoke was already so thick she could hardly see the people at the bottom of the stairs, stinging her eyes and throat. She coughed, put a hand over her nose and mouth.
Jonas pulled the collar of his shirt over his lower face and increased his grip on her. “Keep going.”
She did, but it was slow because of all the people stuck in front of them. At the next landing security was there. “This way, folks,” the man said in a booming voice, directing them through the door and down the hall to the stairwell on the opposite end.
But once they got there the smoke was almost as bad and only thickened as they made their way down the stairs. Jonas grabbed a handful of Carly’s unicorn hoodie and held on tight.
She coughed, pulled the collar of her hoodie up over her nose and mouth. They still weren’t at the bottom, and she didn’t know how many more flights they had to go.
The smoke thickened as they neared the lobby. They got stuck inside the stairwell doorway at the bottom, a mass of people ahead of them blocking their way to the main exit and the street beyond.
“Crouch down.” Jonas pushed on her shoulder, urged her into a crouch in front of him, and she realized he was trying to avoid the worst of the smoke.
Anxiety shot through her. Why wouldn’t the people in front of them move faster and let them out?
Through the smoke Carly could just make out the open exit doors almost straight ahead. But no one was moving.
They stood there trapped in the stairwell while the seconds ticked by and the smoke continued to get worse. Everyone was coughing, an almost electric sense of panic crackling in the air.
Several people started pushing forward against the wall of bodies hemming them in. A heartbeat later, a mini stampede ensued, fear and desperation driving people to mow down whoever was in their way of the exit.
Oh no—
Jonas suddenly yanked her to her feet, pulling her close to the front of his body to try and protect her from the crush. One second they were okay, and the next they were being flattened from all sides. The sense of claustrophobia increased as they remained trapped in the stairwell without any forward motion, their path ahead still completely blocked.
Carly huddled in front of him, and she could feel his fear.
“Let us out!” Jonas yelled.
“We can’t fucking breathe!” someone behind them up the stairs shouted. “Move!”
It was like a powerful wave slammed into them from behind, crushing them even harder into the people ahead of them. Screams and scuffles broke out as people fought to free themselves. She and Jonas were trapped in place, unable to move while the smoke thickened.
Panic crawled up her spine. Jonas shoved backward against the force behind them, fighting to hold his ground.
A high-pitched scream rent the air.
Pandemonium broke loose. Everyone started pushing and shoving. Knocking others down to get past them, only to wind up trapped just inside the doorway, making the blockage worse.
Carly cried out and shrank closer to Jonas. They couldn’t stay here. They’d be trampled. Their only chance was to force their way outside.
Jonas pushed her toward a small gap that opened between some people struggling ahead of them. “Go, go,” he yelled over the mingled shouts and screams, propelling her forward.
She struggled through the gap, got stuck right after that but managed to wriggle through another. She looked over her shoulder for Jonas but couldn’t stop, the force of the people behind her shoving her forward.
Jonas was too big, couldn’t get through the same gap. He shot a hand out, grabbed for the strap of her backpack so he wouldn’t lose her.
It slipped off her shoulders, leaving him holding a fistful of nylon. A heartbeat later he disappeared from view, as if swallowed alive by the roiling mass of people all fighting their way to the only exit available.
After what felt like an eternity later, Carly finally made it through the restriction. She squinted and coughed, though the smoke seemed thinner here. Disoriented, she tried to push her way through the unmoving crowd filling the sidewalk to find some space.
She pulled the hoodie away from her nose and mouth, blinked to clear her eyes. Her stomach lurched when she saw what was happening. A tide of protesters charged up the street right in front of her, yelling war cries that made the hair on her neck stand up.
Cars were overturned and burning, broken glass glinting in the sunlight. Everywhere she looked there was chaos. People were massed together in large groups, trying to flee in all directions to get away from the danger, caught between the fires and the protesters.
And everywhere she looked, there was no sign of her mom.
She whirled around in a circle, scanning frantically for her or Jonas. They couldn’t be far away. Her mom had to still be somewhere nearby, she wouldn’t have gone away from the hotel without her.
But the crowd swallowed her up again, forced her to keep moving away from the hotel entrance. “Mom!” Carly tried to spin around, an icy wave of fear breaking over her.
She was lost and being dragged right into the middle of the protests.