“I applaud you Thierry,” Alistair smiled. “Coming back from the dead just to wind up getting roasted alive again.”
He brought his hands forward then struck a match and dropped it. The second it hit the red carpet of the stairs; flames shot up. He was a pyromaniac. Alistair loved fire, hell he probably got off at the sight of it.
“Save the girl or kill the mobster? Your choice,” he called darting away.
Fuck, I thought again as I realized he would once again get away.
The flames were eating everything in sight and that was when I heard someone banging on the door to my right. It sounded like clawing and screaming as the smoke began to hit my eyes and the heat touched my skin.
Naomi!
Alistair had used her, and no one deserved to be burned alive. The fear that I’d had tried to bury was returning. Flashes of my childhood home went through my mind as I remembered how the flames had licked at my body all those months ago.
Not again, I thought.
Going to the door, I tried to open it, but it wasn’t budging. My fingers ran around the seams of the doorway. The sick bastard had done it. He’d nailed the door shut.
“Holy shit!” Enzo exclaimed behind me.
“Help me,” I hollered to him.
I watched him try to leap through the flames in an unsuccessful attempt. They were rising higher and higher, and Naomi’s screams were echoing deep in my ears.
“Naomi,” I told her.
“Theee-Thierry is that you?”
“It’s me, I’m here.”
She seemed to be struggling even more. The oak of the door wasn’t going to budge and there was a ticking sound.
“Oh God,” she said. “There’s a device attached to the wall. It’s counting down.”
“What!”
“It’s counting down…. Thierry…it was me. I drugged…I drugged her.”
Naomi was crying frantically. “I just need her to know, that I’m sorry. I didn’t know what he truly was.”
The ticking was getting louder. My fist pounded against the door and the heat was becoming unbearable. Another woman was going to be lost to Alistair and his schemes.
“Naomi, I’m going to get you out of here!”
“You can’t save me…. you need to go. Tell Ivy….”
There was a pause. God couldn’t possibly be this cruel. There had to be a way out of this. Looking behind me for anything that might help, I saw Enzo still trying to shield himself from the flames but he hadn’t left. My throat was starting to feel rough as I began to cough myself. Soot was piling into the air.
“Help me,” I cried out.
“Brother…we need to go!”
Fire was roaring all around me and Naomi’s coughs started filling me ears. I came to the realization that if she didn’t burn to death first, she would most certainly die from inhaling smoke.Helpless.The feeling decided to bury itself into my gut and I hated it. I hated feeling helpless.
“Theirry!” I heard Naomi say in between coughs. “You need to go. The timer is ticking down….you have to tell her that I loved her. Be good to her, Thierry. She is fragile but she’ll pretend otherwise.”
Enzo finally made it through the flames and was pulling me away. The heat and smoke were beginning to overtake me.
“Bomb,” I could feel how wide my eyes were.
