Chapter Fourteen
Foster
I can’t see a damn thing.
It’s been years since I’ve danced with fire, but everything comes flying back.
Stay low.
Trust the wall.
Control your breathing.
Don’t let the noise get inside your head.
The house screams around me. Wood pops. Glass cracks somewhere deeper in. Heat rolls over my gear in thick, punishing waves, hotter than it should be, hotter than any normal contents fire has a right to be.
Accelerant.
Has to be.
I drop to one knee and sweep my gloved hand across the floor in front of me.
Clear.
Another few feet.
Clear.
Smoke pushes against my mask, black and heavy, turning the world into shadows and heat. My alarm chirps softly with each breath from the tank.
I force myself to slow down.
Running blind gets people killed.
So does panic.
“Livy!” I shout.
The mask eats half my voice.
No answer.
I keep moving.
Left hand to the wall.
Right hand sweeping.
I find the stairs by nearly slamming shoulder-first into the first step.
“Located the stairs,” I bark, though no one outside can hear me unless the radio clipped to the borrowed gear is actually working.
Static answers.
Of course.
I climb anyway.
The heat worsens halfway up, which is a bad sign.
Very bad.
Fire wants to climb. Smoke wants to kill. Stairs turn into chimneys when a house burns wrong.
This house is burning wrong.
I reach the landing and drop low again, crawling now. My shoulder clips a picture frame, causing it to fall and shatter somewhere behind me.
“Livy!”
Nothing.
Second door on the left.
My body settles into muscle memory as I make my way toward Livy’s room.
“Livy!” I shout again. “I’m coming, sweetheart.”
I stop and listen.
Nothing.
The helmet muffles too much. The fire roars too loud. The house groans in pain.
Sound is useless in here, so I go back to touch.
Left hand on the wall.
Right hand sweeping low.
I hit the first doorframe and keep going, knowing Livy’s room is one more away.
I find it with my shoulder against the jamb and press the back of my gloved hand to the door.
Low first.
Then higher.
Hot, but not cooking.
Not enough to tell me if fire has the room, but enough to make my gut tighten.
I crouch lower and check the gap beneath the door.
Smoke seeps out in slow, dirty breaths.
No hard pull.
No angry pulse.
No fire licking through the cracks.
Good.
Her door holding might be the only reason she’s still alive.
If she’s even in there. Damn, I hope my gut didn’t fail me.
I turn my face away, keep my body low and out of the opening, then crack the door a few inches.
Smoke rolls over me from the hall, trying to push into the room.
I don’t give it much space.
No flash.
No roar.
No fire inside.
Just smoke.
I slip through the gap and pull the door mostly closed behind me.
Buy time.
Keep the heat out.
Protect the room.
“Livy!”
The room is dark, the air gray and low, but it’s not burning.
Not yet.
I drop to my knees and sweep my hand across the floor.
Toys.
A rug.
A shoe.
“Livy, sweetheart, make noise if you can hear me.”
Nothing.
My chest tightens.
Kids hide.
Kids panic.
Kids do exactly what their bodies tell them to do when the world turns into smoke and sirens.
I move toward the bed first.
One hand on the mattress.
The other sweeping underneath.
Empty.
“Livy!”
No answer.
Closet.
I find the door by touch and yank it open.
Clothes brush my helmet, but no Livy.
Damnit.
I turn toward the window. Still closed. Good.
Then I see something near the far side of the bed.
Small.
Curled tight.
Too still.
My heart stops.
Then the shape coughs.
Moving fast, I crawl to her and check for immediate injuries.
I find nothing.
Livy coughs again, weak and ragged, and the sound slices straight through me.
“I’ve got you, sweetheart.”
She doesn’t answer.
I lift her into my arms and take one second to map out a plan.
Something below us crashes hard enough to shake the floor.
I freeze.
Please don’t be the stairs.
The window is out.
For half a second, instinct pulls my gaze toward it. Fresh air. A way out. A desperate option.
No.
Not with a fire this angry.
If I break that glass, I could give the fire exactly what it wants. Air. A path. A reason to pull heat and smoke straight through this room.
Flow path kills.
I look back at the door.
That’s the way I came in.
That’s the way we leave.
Livy coughs again, and everything in me wants to rip my mask off and put it over her face.
But I don’t.
If I go down, she dies with me.
Instead, I pull her close, tuck her face against my coat, and angle my body around hers as much as I can.
“Stay with me, Livy.”
No answer, but she does wrap her legs around my waist.
Good. She’s still with me.
Plan made, I open the door and drop low into the hall with her held tight against me.
The heat hits like a wall.
Worse than before.
Much worse.
I force my mind back through the path I took.
Wall.
Landing.
Stairs.
Turn.
Front door.
Finding the stairs is easy.
Trusting them is harder.
I want to run.
Every part of me screams to run.
I don’t.
I can’t see a damn thing. For all I know, half the steps are burned through. I test each one with my boot before putting weight on it, one arm locked around Livy, the other skimming the wall.
Slow and steady.
The smoke glows orange by the time I reach the first floor.
Fire moves on both sides of me now. It crawls along the ceiling. Rolls over the walls. Snaps and breathes like something alive.
For one terrifying second, I lose the layout.
Everything is heat.
Smoke.
Noise.
The house is no longer a house.
It’s a maze trying to kill us.
I stop and think.
Then a stream cuts through the smoke from the right.
White spray. Hard pressure. Beautiful as salvation.
I almost laugh.
“Foster!”
Maverick’s voice.
I turn toward it.
Another hose stream punches into the fire, knocking flames back from the doorway. Through the smoke, I catch shapes outside.
Maverick.
Spike.
Tank.
All of them holding lines like they can fight hell by force alone.
“Keep going!” Spike yells. “Clear them a path!”
I hold Livy tighter and wait.
One second.
Two.
Three.
Four.
That’s all I can give them.
The fire folds back just enough.
Not safe.
Nothing about this is safe.
But enough.
I duck my head over Livy, shield her with my body, and run.