Chapter 58
KNOX
I needed to get back inside. Get Harper out. Now.
I turned toward the house, and that’s when two things registered simultaneously. First, I saw a dark figure toward the back end of the bungalow.
Silas. It had to be. And he was shaking some kind of canister.
Second, that smell I’d registered earlier came back on a fresh gust of wind. And this time, the smell was stronger. And clearer.
Gasoline.
Time seemed to freeze.
A million scenarios crashed through my mind. A billion different decisions I could make in this moment, each one leading to a different outcome. But only one outcome was acceptable.
Harper. Alive.
Right now, she was inside that bungalow. Locked in the bathroom like I’d told her. No window. No way to see what was coming. And by the time she smelled the smoke, by the time she realized what was happening …
It could be too late.
This was my fault. I’d told her to hide. I’d told her to wait for my voice.
And now my voice might be the last thing she ever heard.
Somewhere in the chaos of my heart’s panic, my brain dragged up intel that might matter right now.
For six months, I’d shared a cell with an arsonist named Danny.
The guy never shut up about fire. His family had died in a house fire when he was a kid, and it had flipped some switch in his brain.
He’d never hurt people, but property? Buildings?
Cars? You name it, Danny loved to burn it.
He’d even become a volunteer firefighter at one point, just to get closer to the flames.
The one thing I took away from all his ramblings were some very sobering facts.
Without accelerant, smoke would begin filling a house immediately after ignition. Within sixty to ninety seconds, it would spread everywhere. Visibility would drop. The air would turn toxic. Breathing would become painful.
That’s when victims usually lost consciousness.
Three minutes in, flashover became possible. The entire room could ignite simultaneously. Temperatures would spike to fifteen hundred degrees. Escape routes would vanish.
Within minutes, survival would be zero. Minutes.
That was without gasoline.
With gasoline, that timeline didn’t just accelerate. It collapsed.
Gasoline fumes were heavier than air. The vapors would spread under doors, through vents, into every corner of the house before the first flame even touched down.
The fire would move faster than a human could run.
Hallways would become tunnels of flame. Flashover could happen within thirty to sixty seconds of the first spark.
Bottom line: with gasoline, I’d have sixty seconds to get to her. Probably less.
In this instant, surrounded by howling wind, staring at a figure who hadn’t yet noticed me, I took off running.
My bare feet hit cold ground. One step. Two.
Then the world turned orange.
The flames didn’t crawl up the side of the house. They erupted. A wall of fire that roared to life with a sound like fabric tearing, if the fabric were made of thunder. Heat slammed into me from thirty feet away, so intense that my eyes watered instantly.
Three steps. Four. The bungalow was already screaming.
“Harper!”
The fire wrapped around the structure like a living thing. Not hungry. Starving. I realized with horror that Silas hadn’t just doused the back of the house.
He’d lined the entire perimeter.
The signs had been there. The faint chemical undertone beneath the woodsmoke. The way the ground around the foundation had that slick, almost-oily sheen I should have recognized sooner.
But I’d been so locked on to the threat, so focused on getting to the armed men who could help me keep Harper safe, I’d missed what was right under my nose.
I failed her.
Ten seconds gone.
The flames raced ahead of me, eating the distance faster than my legs could cover it. Fire climbed the siding like it was racing me to her. Like it knew exactly where she was hiding.
Fifteen seconds.
I could feel the heat blistering the air in my lungs with every breath. The cold dirt and grass beneath my feet had already started to melt, turning the ground slick. My heel slipped. I caught myself. Kept running.
Twenty seconds. The entire front of the house was engulfed.
Orange light turned the night sky into something hellish. Shadows danced and twisted. The windows on either side of the front door glowed from within, the curtains already burning.
By the time I reached the porch, the front door was already consumed. So were the windows. Flames clawed at every surface, and the gasoline fumes hit my throat like swallowing broken glass.
But I didn’t care.
Thirty seconds. Flashover was coming.
Harper was in the bathroom. Down the hall. Behind a locked door she wouldn’t open because I’d told her to wait for my voice.
And my voice couldn’t reach her through this.
“Harper!” The scream shredded my throat.
No response. Just the roar of the fire and the crack of wood surrendering to heat.
She couldn’t hear me. The bathroom was too far from the front of the house. She was still in there, still waiting, still trusting me to come back.
Forty seconds.
I slammed my shoulder into the front door. The wood was already warping from the heat, the paint bubbling and peeling. Fire licked up my arm instantly. I yanked back, hissing at the pain.
“Harper!”
I kicked. Bare foot against burning wood. The impact sent fire racing up my ankle, and I felt my skin split and blister in the same heartbeat. Pain screamed through my nervous system.
I kicked again.
The door groaned but held. The frame was swelling from the heat, sealing it tighter.
Fifty seconds.
Smoke was pouring from under the eaves now. Black and thick and poisonous. If it was this bad out here, inside would be …
No. Don’t think about that. Just get to her.
I stepped back. Three feet. The heat was unbearable. My lungs were full of ash and chemicals. Darkness crept at the edges of my vision like something patient. Something waiting.
Fifty-five seconds.
I thought about Harper in that bathroom. The way she’d looked at me before she closed the door.
“Come back to me.”
“Always,” I’d told her.
I’d meant it.
I gathered every ounce of strength I had left. Every year I’d spent in that concrete hell. Every rep in the yard. Every fight I’d survived. Every night I’d lain awake, thinking about the life I’d have when I got out.
This was that life. She was that life.
Sixty seconds.
And I kicked the door one final time.