Chapter 16
Jackie held Selena in her arms, the beloved ground beneath her feet. The entirety of the main house was engulfed by the blaze, waves of heat so intense she had to stand back to keep herself from injury.
She watched as Razorback lowered Sloan through the window and let him go, the other men from HERO Force quickly scooping him up and pulling him to safety. Only Ian was left inside, his face clearly visible through the open window.
They were going to be okay, and grateful tears streamed down her face as she hugged her daughter.
Suddenly, a loud roar came from the center of the building, and she didn’t understand what it was. Her eyes shot to Razorback.
Get down here.
I need you safe.
Even from a distance she could tell when he was looking at her, the primal physical pull that joined them like an invisible chain. For the first time, she let herself hope he wasn’t just a passing presence in her life, let herself imagine he might stay.
But he disappeared from view.
A penetrating cry of horror rose from her lungs, unrecognizable and deep.
“Ian!” She ran toward the structure, the flaming skeleton of her refuge now destined to be his grave.
The roar had been the sound of the second floor collapsing onto the first, taking him with it.
She was aware of Selena’s questions, the urgency in her daughter’s voice, but Jackie was focused on the fire that burned below the bathroom—a spot that had once been her den.
She got as close as she dared, falling to her knees on the concrete and wailing, the brightness of the fire lighting up her closed eyelids. Selena cried, too, the girl’s questions now answered, her grieving voice mingling with her mother’s.
Ian was gone.
“No, no, no!” she screamed, the word repeating over and over in her head. The fire crackled and hissed, a malicious animal after the kill. She held her daughter tightly, time bowing to emotion.
Someone yelled, “There he is!”
Her eyes popped open. The silhouette of a man was clear in the shattered den window. Several HERO Force men ran past them to the building, pulling Ian through the opening and carrying him between their bodies like an injured athlete, his head hanging down.
Jackie ran behind them, Selena’s hand fisted tightly in hers. He wasn’t moving, wasn’t supporting himself in any way, and she told herself he was dead even as she desperately wished he was not.
The men put him down in the bed of her pickup truck.
“The keys were in the house,” she called, even as one of the men slipped into the driver’s seat. The truck was running by the time she got to it. “How did you do that?”
“I hotwired it,” said the man in the driver’s seat.
Razorback’s chest was bare, a blackness covering his skin like paint, his pants singed and smoking in spots, and she covered them with her hands to put them out completely.
A flash of metal glinted in the hand of the youngest man, who used a knife to cut the pants off Razorback’s legs.
The man looked at her, a baby face like she’d rarely seen belying the commanding tone of his voice. “Get in. We have to get him to the chopper.” She did as she was told, never once letting go of Selena.
The truck bounced over ruts in the road, fresh air streaming around her body and the burning Pedazo de Cielo getting smaller in the distance. Her refuge was gone, her house of safety aflame. There was no turning back now from whatever lay ahead.
Jackie realized it was raining—thunder and lightning, too—and wondered if it had been doing that the whole time they’d been inside, battling the flames. The man hovered over Razorback with a stethoscope and a face full of concern.
“He’s burned,” she said dumbly.
“That’s soot. He has some second-degree burns, nothing too bad that I can see. It’s the smoke inhalation I’m worried about.”
“Are you a doctor?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I’m Logan O’Malley.”
She mumbled a greeting and swallowed hard. “Is he going to be okay?”
“I’m not sure. Oxygen saturation is low. His heart’s working hard to compensate.”
“Please don’t let him die.”
Logan met her stare, far more alert and competent than she. “I’ll do everything I can for him, ma’am.”