Chapter 73.
The canvas grabs them hard, steals their breath.
A brutal, snapping impact that drives everyone down two inches, knees buckling, arms burning. But it holds. They hold.
Hannah is in Wyatt’s face instantly, hands on his shoulders, eyes locked. “You alive?” she demands.
Wyatt sucks in air like he’s never owned oxygen before. “Yeah.”
Alek exhales so hard it almost turns into a sob.
Tipton shakes out his hands like they’re on fire. “That was insane.”
Marcelo grins through sweat. “That was teamwork.”
Wyatt looks at Hannah like he’s seeing her for the first time.
“We got you,” Hannah says.
“Thank you doesn’t seem to quite cover it,” he replies.
He looks down at the girl.
“She alive?”
Hannah presses two fingers to the child’s neck, then leans close to her mouth.
“She’s breathing.”
Her plan worked. Maybe even better than she thought it could.
Their impromptu rescue team did just enough to break the fall.
Wyatt and the little girl have survived, apparently without serious injury.
Wyatt was able to protect the girl with his arms even as he tucked and rolled and absorbed most of the shock of his landing.
“Nice move there at the end,” Tipton says.
Wyatt grins. “My high school football coach made us take a gymnastics class to improve our agility,” he says. “And to know how to fall. Always thought it was silly.”
When they’re all on their feet again, Hannah says to Wyatt, “I was going to tell you to drop the girl first. To make it easier on everybody down here.”
Wyatt still has the girl cradled in his arms. Her eyes are closed, passed out after everything that happened.
“I wasn’t letting go of her,” Wyatt says, finally smiling at Hannah.
They are all in the middle of the street now. It’s less than a minute since Wyatt jumped to safety.
Hannah’s voice stays steady, but her eyes don’t.
“Next time,” she says, “you don’t vanish into a burning building without telling us your plan.”
Wyatt almost laughs. “I didn’t have a plan.”
“That’s the problem,” Hannah says.
He turns and looks back at the terrace—just as it comes crashing to the ground. It collapses with a roar, dumping fire and debris into the street in a shower of sparks. Wyatt flinches. Then he looks back at Hannah.
“How did you know the fall wouldn’t kill us?” Wyatt asks.
“Basic physics,” she says. “Of course, one more floor and we would have had a problem. By the way? Geronimo?”
“Couldn’t help myself,” he says.
“Stupid,” Hannah says. “But funny . . .” She pauses and adds, “Well, now it’s funny.”
There is a terrible ending for the building, then, what sounds like one more bomb falling as all the structural materials explode and crumble to the ground.
They stand and watch, transfixed, moving even farther from the heat and smoke; from the sheer force of the destruction.
Alek is the one who breaks the silence.
“What were you thinking, running into a burning building like that?” she asks Wyatt.
He grins at her. “Hey, I’m a New Yorker,” he says. “Kind of our thing.”
“She’s being serious, Wyatt,” Hannah says.
Wyatt looks at the girl in his arms, then at the ruined street.
His voice drops. “This is why I’m here.”
Not for the money. Not for the glory. For this.
Alek studies him and thinks Wyatt looks very grown-up right now. He looks like a winner.
“It’s why we’re all here,” he says. “I’m proud of that.”
He looks up at them and a wide grin breaks through again—because he can’t help himself. “And you have to admit,” he says, “that was kind of cool.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Hannah says.
But she doesn’t let go of his sleeve.