Her eyes narrowed, a defensive quip likely rising in her throat.
“I can’t lose you, Sera.” He had tried to keep his voice neutral, but fear and longing coated every word.
Kieran pulled her into him, slowly, wrapping his arms around her and simply savoring the ability to hold her again. He had feared the worst when she disappeared and had pushed it all down in that buried part of him where all emotion went to die. Except it hadn’t and now it threatened to overpower him.
“Touching. Really. But can we maybe save this for when we’re not in a burning building?” Seth was right. Kieran began to pull back, but not before she yanked him to her height and kissed him.
“Sorry,” she said, her lips still close enough to brush his with each word, “but if we don’t make it, I had to do that one last time.”
He blinked, dumbfounded.
“Now,” Sera said, “the structure has been weakened on the eastern side and all the paths down are impassible. But I think I have a plan.” She ran to the door and opened it, checking the hall, which had started to fill with smoke, she motioned for them to follow.
“Stay low,” she warned, before crouching and heading to the apartments on the opposite side of the building.
She tried to push in the door of the first apartment she reached, but it wouldn’t budge. Knocking yielded no response.
Kieran moved in front of her and kicked. He chose not to comment on Seth’s low whistle of approval nor Sera’s audible intake of breath.
The door swung inward revealing a vacated apartment. The occupants things were strewn about the place. Once they had all shuffled inside, Sera shouldered the door back into its frame.
The air was clean in here, but they wouldn’t be safe until they were outside. Sera seemed sure of her plans when she moved to the window and shook her head. “Nope, next one over.”
While she shuffled through the apartment, searching for something, Kieran looked out the window to try and figure out what she was looking for. The building was much closer on this side, but still too far to jump.
“Perfect!” She hefted a large screwdriver with a heavy wood handle. Then she strode to the interior wall and studied it.
“Nothing in here was built to last, just to work.” She tapped the wall, listening with her ear pressed to the panel. “Most of this is tacked up or glued or just so hastily…” She paused, then jammed the screwdriver in the visible border of the panel and pried. With the barest obvious effort, the entire panel fell forward, two rusty nails the only signs of what held it in place. “See. Whatever worked at the time. Although, that’s worse than I thought.”
Sera stepped over the panel then used her shoulder to push through another, revealing the adjacent apartment.
“Here.” She handed off the screwdriver to Seth. “Don’t lose that.”
“Wouldn’t it be faster to just use the hall?” Seth asked, clutching the screwdriver and his box in a white knuckled grip.
“There’s smoke out there and more locked doors. If any of the tenants attempted their own repairs and upgrades, it would be in securing their front doors. But no one would think about the poor craftsmanship of interior walls.”
Gods, who approved this construction? None of this was to code.
Kieran would have to save his indignation for when they were not in mortal jeopardy, but he was mentally tallying the violations he would have to add to his list when he returned to the office.
“Don’t we want the structure to remainupright?” Seth questioned.
“We do, but only until we don’t,” Sera replied. Then she stopped, her feet rocking on the panel she’d dislodged. “In fact…”
She pressed on without finishing the thought.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Seth insisted.
A quick check of the front door as she shouted, “Close all doors you find. They’ll keep the fire back.”
Bolting to the window, Sera looked out. “Not here, either.”
She found the next interior wall and studied it. This one was made of numerous planks. She gave it a few kicks until one by one, the planks were jarred free and slammed to the floor in a cloud of dust.
The next apartment already had flames licking at the doorway, whoever had occupied it must have escaped in a hurry. Sera shielded her face to get to the door, but Kieran was already ahead of her. He coughed, smoke catching in his lungs before he could get it closed fully. He tried to brush the smoke from his hair, the scent adhering to his body in a way that muddled his senses.
The air began to clear, but the sting lingered in Kieran’s lungs and throat. The air was heating faster now, the flames adding to the already hot summer atmosphere. He’d never heard of a Winter Fae dying from heat exposure, but it felt possible right then. His body was reaching its limit of functionality and might fail him altogether if he didn’t get to some fresh air soon. Seth wouldn’t notice, his body thriving in the blazing temperatures. Sera might be uncomfortable, but humans could handle heat much better than he could.
