23. Alex #2
“Fire,” I say when the operator answers and asks the address of the emergency.
My voice sounds steadier than my hands. “Mason Street apartments. First floor. 3A, Mrs. Vance’s unit if you have it in your system.
We can’t get out through the front door because the fire is already there. Two people inside.”
The window doesn’t move.
I shove harder. Paint flakes beneath my nails. Old wood groans in the frame but stays jammed, swollen from rain and years of nobody caring enough to fix what tenants had been complaining about forever.
Mrs. Vance coughs behind me.
The sound yanks panic up through my chest, hot and useless. I put the phone on speaker, toss it onto the couch cushion, and grab the heavy flashlight from my bag.
The first hit dents the latch.
The second sends pain buzzing up my arm.
The third breaks something loose with a metallic snap.
Cold air slips through a narrow gap when I force the window up, but not enough. Definitely not for Mrs. Vance. Maybe not even enough for me to squeeze through. Smoke rushes toward the opening, dragging itself past our knees, our hands, our faces.
Mrs. Vance tries to help pull the side table away from the wall. Her cane skids on the rug. I catch her before she goes down, and she feels too light under my hands.
“No,” she rasps, shoving weakly at my arm and pointing toward the window. “Get out of here.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
She glares at me through watering eyes like I have said something personally offensive. “Didn’t ask for a speech.”
I hook one arm around her waist and help her down to the floor because low is better, low is air, low is what everyone says until low isn’t enough either. The operator is still talking from the couch.
Orange light flickers at the crack beneath the door.
And I know, right now in this moment, I know exactly what happened.
Preston did this.
He knew I would come back for Mrs. Vance. Or he hoped I would. Or maybe he only knew she was the woman who humiliated him with a cane and decided she should burn for it.
Maybe he didn’t know I’d be here, but I’m not stupid enough to think it’s all a coincidence.
The room heats up too fast. Smoke scratches down my throat until every breath feels borrowed and I’m struggling to stay awake.
I pull my sweatshirt sleeve over Mrs. Vance’s mouth, then press the other over mine.
She tries to push it away, stubborn even now, and I hold it there with a look I hope is half as terrifying as hers.
My phone buzzes somewhere on the couch.
Ryder.
His name flashes against the cushion through the haze, bright and impossible.
I grab it with fingers that don’t want to work.
The call connects, but I cough before I can speak. It tears through me, bending me over Mrs. Vance’s shoulder while my eyes stream and the apartment tilts.
“Alex?”
His voice is rough with exertion while he’s moving on the other end of the call. A door slams on his end. Then the wind. Then the hard, clipped sound of him already becoming someone else. Firefighter. Rescuer. The man everyone trusts when everything is burning.
I press the phone close and crawl another inch toward the window with Mrs. Vance’s hand trapped in mine.
“Fire,” I manage. “Mrs. Vance.” I cough. “Ryder.”
Noise breaks over the line. His voice comes back sharper, louder. I catch pieces. Stay low. Window. Coming.
I want to answer.
The smoke takes the words out of my lungs and makes it impossible.
Mrs. Vance’s fingers squeeze mine once, weak but furious. I drag the personal alarm from my bag, yank the pin, and shove it toward the window. The shriek fills the apartment, loud and awful, cutting through smoke and sirens and Ryder’s voice in my ear.
Outside, someone yells.
Good.
They heard the alarm.
I try to tell Ryder that. Try to tell him the window is open a little, that Mrs. Vance is fading, that the hallway is gone, that I’m trying to hold on. My mouth shapes his name instead, broken by coughing and heat and the taste of ash.
The ceiling above the hall cracks, and I know we don’t have long.
Mrs. Vance’s hand slips.
I grab harder and pull her closer to me, closer to the thin ribbon of wet air leaking through the window.
The floor presses cold against my cheek when my elbow gives out.
My phone is still near my face. Ryder is still there, shouting my name like volume can reach through smoke and pull me out by force.
I love him.
The thought hits with cruel, perfect clarity.
I love Ryder.
I love his hands on locks and the coffee mugs he hands me to keep me busy.
I love his silent waiting when I need to speak for myself.
I love the part of him that scares him and is obsessed with me.
I love the part that stayed loyal to the idea of me.
I love the future I saw for one stupid second in his kitchen, with Home Base glowing on a monitor and my family filling his house with noise.
I love him. And I’ll never get another chance to tell him.
My chest locks.
I try to say it.
Nothing comes out but choked smoke.
The orange light grows brighter beneath the door, and the world thins at the edges until Ryder’s voice sounds far away, buried under the alarm and the rain and Mrs. Vance’s shallow breathing.
Preston got what he wanted. He did exactly what he said he would do to me if I left him.
He killed me before I could tell Ryder I was in love with him.
My fingers loosen around the phone.
The last thing I hear is Ryder screaming my name.