Chapter Sixteen
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The stream of people exiting the hotel stalled around the front entrance, prevented from going any farther by the tightly packed crowd gathered outside. There were too many people between Autumn and the entrance for her to see it clearly and the wind had just changed direction, blowing the worst of the smoke straight at them.
She squinted and covered her mouth and nose with her forearm to try and block it out, struggling to wedge her way through everyone milling around the entrance in confusion. Sirens blared. People were shouting, but she couldn’t tell if it was the protesters in the street or due to the fire.
She shot an anxious glance up at the far end of the building. Black smoke drifted into the clear summer air, tongues of orange and yellow flames licking out from around the corner.
Heart hammering against her ribs, she looked back at the entrance and kept fighting her way closer. Did Jonas have Carly? Had they made it out, or were they still trapped inside? She didn’t know how extensive the fire was at this point, but it was already terrifying and would spread quickly if the fire crews didn’t get here fast.
The phone in her hand hadn’t buzzed, but she checked it for the dozenth time anyway. Still nothing from Jonas or Gavin.
The growing crowd pressed in tighter and tighter around her until she could hardly move, the sense of claustrophobia adding to the panic churning inside her. There was no sign of Jonas or Carly, and she now realized that trying to fight her way to the entrance through this mess was pointless.
She pivoted and pushed back through the crowd the way she’d come. The sirens stopped suddenly, signaling that the fire crew was finally on scene.
She felt like a fish trying to battle its way upstream as she slowly made her way toward the far edge of the swelling crowd until she had enough room to move. The fear kept building, the frantic need to find Carly a constant scream in her head.
Skirting the perimeter, she headed for the far side of the crowd, scanning the entire time for any sign of her daughter. And when she got close enough to see the scene unfolding on the street, her stomach clenched.
It looked like a war zone. The responding fire trucks were stuck down the street, unable to get any closer to the hotel because of the chaos. A wall of angry protesters rushed past the burning hotel carrying what looked like Molotov cocktails, heading in the direction of the conference center.
“Autumn!”
She whipped around. Through the shifting sea of bodies, she spotted Jonas’s head for an instant before the frightened crowd swallowed him back up.
“Jonas!” She raised her arm, waved it frantically as she began shoving her way toward him. A flash of red-gold hair appeared off to the right. Her heart leapt, then sank when she realized it wasn’t Carly.
Jonas reappeared. He must have spotted her because he raised his arm and started in her direction. They met near the far edge of the crowd. Her daughter wasn’t there.
Cold tentacles of fear slid through her. “Where’s Carly?” she shouted over the noise, shoving down a burst of panic. Maybe he’d put her somewhere safe to wait rather than risk pulling her into the crowd.
The look on his face turned her insides to ice. He opened his mouth, hesitated before answering. “We got separated inside. I—”
“You what ?” She spun around, an icy wave of terror breaking over her. No. No. This wasn’t happening. “Carly!”
“She was ahead of me,” Jonas shouted behind her. “I saw her get outside, but I couldn’t get to her.”
Autumn didn’t respond, couldn’t even if she’d wanted to, fear all but choking her as she scanned the area. Her baby was alone somewhere in this chaotic, dangerous mess.
Her gaze landed on a police officer off to one side trying to direct people away from the burning building. She rushed at him as fast as her rubbery legs and the packed crowd would allow her. He spotted her, must have seen the panic on her face because he stopped and faced her.
“My daughter’s missing,” she blurted out when he was within earshot. “Twelve years old, strawberry blond hair. She made it out of the hotel but—”
“Ma’am, I need you to keep moving—”
“My twelve year old is missing!”
A scuffle broke out beside her. She got a flying elbow to the middle of her back. “Hey!” The cop immediately shoved past her to intervene.
She almost grabbed him to yank him back around and make him help her, so frustrated she was on the verge of screaming. Instead she whipped up the phone and dialed 911 while she kept scanning the area.
A faint busy tone droned in her ear. “Come on,” she snapped, and dialed again. The lines couldn’t possibly all be busy.
This time it connected, but she couldn’t hear what the operator was saying and plugged her other ear, straining to understand. “I can’t hear you,” she said into the phone, and without waiting quickly detailed what was happening.
The mass of people around her suddenly shifted. The quick change in momentum knocked her off balance. She stumbled, grabbed for the person closest to her and managed to catch a fistful of shirt to slow her momentum and keep from doing a face plant in the midst of the dangerous crowd.
Her knees hit the pavement with a painful thud and the phone fell from her hand. Before she could grab it, the crowd moved again, this time in the opposite direction. Cursing under her breath, she made one last attempt to snatch it between all the moving feet, missed, and hurriedly surged to her own feet before she got trampled.
It was like she’d been trapped in a washing machine. She was bounced back and forth, jostled from every side until she lost all sense of direction. She fought to hold her ground, but the momentum of the crowd was too much.
The shrill screech of police whistles punctuated the mingled shouts, drumming, and shuffle of thousands of panicked feet, adding to the unbearable tension inside her.
Carly! Where was she? Autumn had to get free of this, had to find her daughter before she was carried away on this human tide.
A hard weight knocked her forward, then plastered tight against her back, flattening her against the person in front of her. With an enraged cry, she shoved against the man’s back to fight the crushing pressure, battling to stay on her feet as the crowd swept her along in a powerful, inescapable current.