Chapter 72.
“I’m going in,” Alek announces. She pauses and seems to consider her next words carefully. “I saved my mother from a fire like this.”
Hannah grabs her arm and holds on tight. “Alek, there’s no time for that.” Alek stares at her like she’s lost her mind.
“But we have to do something before the whole building comes down with Wyatt in it!” Alek shouts.
“And we’re going to,” Hannah says. “I’ve got an idea.”
Wyatt reappears on the terrace, no longer alone. Through the smoke, they can see he’s holding a small blond girl in his arms. Even from three floors below, they can see that the girl is clearly unconscious.
Hannah’s eyes lock in. She goes cold, in the best way. Like a surgeon. Like a scientist. “Good,” Hannah says, her voice calm. “The girl is dry.”
“I don’t understand,” Alek says.
“Wyatt’s smart,” Hannah says, eyes fixed on Wyatt and the girl. “People think you help by putting them in a bathtub or shower in a fire like this. But the water makes asphyxiation more likely.”
Wyatt looks down, desperate.
“We’re going to jump!” he yells. “It’s our only chance!”
“Not yet!” Hannah yells back.
Hannah turns to the others.
“We have to get them off that terrace. Or they’re both going to die.”
There’s more smoke, more heat driving back the rescuers on the ground. Hannah is staring intently at the building, making a motion, counting with an index finger.
“Three stories,” she says. “Thirty feet. Maybe thirty-five.” She points—sharp, commanding.
Alek thinks: In the middle of all this insanity, it’s like she’s solving a physics problem.
“You three are the strongest,” she says, pointing at Jack, Tipton, and Marcelo. “Come with me. Now.”
They don’t argue. They move. They follow her to a point underneath the terrace. Hannah looks up again. Next, she’s using an index finger, drawing a line from the terrace to the ground. She looks around.
Hannah sprints to a wrecked storefront and yanks down a thick canvas awning that’s half torn loose. It’s heavy, grimy, stiff with soot.
“Perfect,” she says.
Tipton blinks. “What the hell is that going to do?”
“It’s going to keep them alive,” Hannah says.
She drags the canvas into the street and barks orders like she’s been doing this her whole life.
“Four corners. Hands through the folds. Wrap it. Don’t grip flat—grip rolled. Lock your elbows. Bend your knees on impact.”
Alek and Rupert rush in, forming a human brace line behind the men, forearms hooked together, backs against a parked vehicle.
She barks orders at the men: “You all sit close together. This spot. Right here. Alek and Rupert and I will form a safety chain with our arms.”
They’re all in position when they hear another explosion from the top floor and see the windows framing the terrace blow out, pressure punching outward.
The terrace is fully on fire, about to collapse underneath Wyatt and the little girl, any second could be the last.
Wyatt looks down one last time.
Hannah shouts, “NOW!”
Wyatt jumps. Not straight down. Out and away, like he knows if he clips the wall he’s dead. He keeps the girl tight against his chest.
The next thing they hear is him yelling at the top of his lungs:
“GERONIMO!”