28. Knox
Knox
I wake to a sound that does not belong in sleep.
A dry snapping noise. Then another. For one disoriented second I lie there listening, trying to place it, and then the smell reaches me.
Smoke.
I’m out of bed before I’m fully awake.
The room is dark except for the dull orange light leaking under the door. Smoke is already pushing in there too, thin at first, but enough. I cross the room fast, pull the curtain aside, and look out.
Fire is running along the walkway outside. It has reached the door and climbed high enough under the window that going out that way would mean going straight through it.
Fuck.
Not a chance. Not with all four of us. Not with Vale in the shape he’s in.
I grab the extinguisher from the wall, yank the pin, aim low, squeeze. It gives me almost nothing. A pathetic cough of powder and then dead resistance in the handle.
Empty.
I throw it aside and turn back. “Up. Now.”
That gets them.
Havoc is moving before his eyes are fully open. Vale wakes harder, slower because of the bruising, but alert almost immediately. Lena sits up in the bed, still caught between sleep and fear until she sees the smoke.
“What happened?” Vale asks.
“Fire,” I say. “Door and window are blocked.”
Lena is already off the bed, bare feet on the floor, looking from me to the door to the orange light under it. I can see the moment she understands.
Havoc reaches the window beside me, looks out, and his whole expression changes. “That’s deliberate.”
“Yes.”
The heat is building now. Not unbearable yet, but rising fast enough to tell me we don’t have long.
I check the bathroom window next. Too small. Painted shut. No use.
The only viable route is sideways.
I look at the wall opposite the door. Cheap motel construction. Thin partition. Another room beyond it.
“We go through,” I say.
Havoc follows my line of sight at once and nods. “Yeah.”
Vale coughs once into his elbow, then says, “The walls won’t hold much.”
Lena looks at all three of us. “You mean literally through the wall.”
“Yes,” I say.
That’s enough explanation. She pulls the blanket off the bed and wraps it over her mouth and nose without being told twice.
Good.
We clear the furniture fast. Chair. Side table. Lamp. Havoc rips the curtain rod loose. I take the lamp base. Vale comes in on the side despite the state of his ribs, jaw set, one arm braced protectively across his middle.
“Don’t overdo it,” I tell him.
He gives me a look. “Excellent timing.”
The first blow punches a small hole through the paneling.
The second opens it wider. Drywall dust comes out in a cloud.
The air tastes worse by the second. Havoc attacks the weak point with the curtain rod like he means to take the whole building apart.
I follow with the lamp base, widening the break until I can get my forearm through and feel empty space on the other side.
Another room.
“Keep going.”
We do.
The wall starts to give in chunks now. Splintered board, insulation, torn paper backing. Vale drives his shoulder into the break, hisses with pain, does it again. Havoc swears at him for being an idiot while helping tear the opening wider.
Smoke is thick enough now that Lena’s outline is blurred if I glance at her too long. She’s staying low, eyes on us, not panicking, which matters more than she knows.
A minute ago I could see all four walls. Now the far corners are blurring. The orange under the door has become a hard, shifting glow, and every time the air moves, it carries more heat with it.
I hit the weak spot in the wall again and again, feel the cheap motel board start to loosen, hear Havoc cursing beside me as he tears at the opening with the curtain rod.
Vale coughs hard behind us.
Lena says, through the blanket over her mouth, “Tell me there’s something.”
I punch my fist through and this time my arm goes farther. Not insulation, but space.
“There,” I say. “We’ve got air on the other side.”
Havoc redoubles the force of his swings. I widen the break with the lamp base, tearing out chunks instead of holes now, until part of the next room comes into view through the dust and smoke: the edge of a bed, a lamp, wallpaper, dark and intact.
An exit.
Not out yet. But closer.
“Keep it together,” I say. “We go through one at a time. Nobody rushes and gets caught.”
The words come out harder than I mean them to, but that’s what they need right now. Structure. Order. Something simple enough to obey while the room turns hostile around us.
The fire reaches us before we finish.
There’s a hot crack from behind. “Knox,” Lena screams. “Hurry please.”
I look.
Flames have pushed past the line under the door now. They’ve found the curtains by the window. One edge catches, then the whole cheap fabric goes up almost at once, fire racing upward in a sheet that licks the ceiling.
The room changes from dangerous to lethal.
“Now,” I say. “Move.”
I climb halfway through the gap and tear the opening wider with my hands until the jagged edges give enough for a body.
“Lena first.”
She doesn’t argue. Good.
She drops the blanket from her mouth long enough to crawl through, then starts coughing the second she lands on the other side, the kind of cough that bends the body and steals time.
I go after her immediately, drop into the next room, catch her by the arm before she can fold all the way down, and pull her toward the door.
“Stay with me,” I tell her.
She nods once but can’t speak. She’s still coughing, face red, eyes streaming.
Behind us Havoc says, “Move, Vale.”
I drag the second room’s door open.
The walkway outside is visible. Clear. For one second, relief hits so hard it feels almost painful.
“We’ve got it,” I call back. “Bring him through.”
Lena stumbles toward the open doorway, half-bent, still trying to breathe past the smoke. I keep a hand on her shoulder and guide her toward the threshold.
Then the sound comes.
A deep, ugly crack from inside the room.
I turn at once. The burning curtain rod must have given way.
Or part of the ceiling near the window. Or the wall we broke loose shifted under the heat.
I don’t know which, only that something heavy comes down inside the room we just left, and the crash is bad enough to shake the floor under us.
Dust and sparks blow through the gap.
“Havoc,” I call out. “Vale. You in there?”
There’s no response.