I wrench free from Anya's grip and run toward the inferno.
The heat hits me like a physical wall, scorching my lungs with each breath. Flames climb what's left of the warehouse walls, consuming everything. The roar of the fire drowns out my sister's screams behind me.
"Maksim!" My voice tears from my throat, raw and desperate. "Maksim!"
The devastation is complete. The entire structure has collapsed into itself, twisted metal and shattered concrete creating a hellscape of destruction. Nothing could survive this. No one. There’s one side of the building left but it’s nothing but rebar and walls that are crumbling into dust.
My legs give out twenty feet from the flames. I drop to my knees on the cracked pavement, the impact jarring through my bones. "No, no, no."
This can't be happening. I can't lose him again.
"Maksim!" I'm screaming now. "Please! Please don't be dead!"
Anya crashes down beside me, her hands gripping my shoulders. "Kira, we have to go. We have to—"
"I'm not leaving him!" I try to stand, to run into the flames. I don't care if I burn. I don't care if I die. I just need to find him.
Semyon appears on my other side, blood streaming down his face from a gash above his eye. "Kira, he's gone. The whole third floor came down. No one could—"
"Shut up!" I round on him, fury and grief warring in my chest. "Don't you dare say it. Don't you dare tell me he's dead!"
My skin feels like it's blistering even from this distance.
Anya is crying, her arms wrapping around me from behind. "Kira, please. The baby. Think about the baby."
The grief threatens to swallow me whole. I can't breathe. Can't think.
"We need to move," Semyon says urgently.
"Let them come! Let them kill me! I don't want to live without him!"
"Kira, you don't mean that." Anya's voice breaks. "Please. We have to go."
"Holy shit." Semyon's voice cuts through my grief.
I barely register it.
"Holy shit!" He's shouting now, pointing. "Look!"
Anya gasps. Her grip on me tightens.
I follow their gazes through my tears, not understanding what I'm seeing at first.
Movement. On the second floor where part of the wall still stands. A shadow against the flames.
Then the shadow becomes a figure. A man.
He's at a window, silhouetted against the inferno behind him. Even from here, even through the smoke and fire, I recognize the way he moves.
"Maksim," I breathe.
He doesn't hesitate. Doesn't look down to calculate the fall. He just jumps.
Time slows. I watch him arc through the air, his body twisting. He's aiming for a pile of debris to break his fall.
He hits with a sickening thud that I feel in my bones. The pile shifts, absorbing some of the impact, but not all of it.
"Maksim!" I'm on my feet, running before I realize I'm moving.
