The stairs were still holding. Barely. I could feel them shudder with every step, the structure weakening beneath us.
"Stay close," I said. "Move fast."
We were halfway down when the ceiling groaned.
I knew that sound. Deep. Terrible. The sound of a building about to give up.
"GO!"
I shoved Maya and Tommy forward just as a section of the ceiling collapsed behind us. Debris rained down—plaster, wood, burning fragments. Heat blasted my back. Something hit my shoulder, hard, and pain exploded down my arm.
I didn't stop. Couldn't stop.
Maya was ahead of me, pulling Tommy along, coughing through the smoke. I pushed them both forward, one hand on Maya's back, keeping them moving.
The front door was a rectangle of light through the black smoke.
Thirty feet.
Twenty.
Ten.
We burst through it into the night air.
Chaos.
Fire trucks. Ambulances. Police cars. Red and blue lights strobed across the scene, turning everything into a nightmare of color and shadow. B-shift had the hoses running, water arcing toward the flames. Captain Okonkwo was shouting commands, coordinating the attack.
Paramedics rushed toward us the moment we cleared the door. Two of them took Tommy from my arms, guiding him toward a waiting stretcher. Another team descended on Maya, pressing an oxygen mask to her face, checking her for burns.
Tommy didn't resist. Just went limp, let himself be taken. But as they strapped him onto the stretcher, he turned his head, searching until he found Maya.
"I'm sorry," he called out, his voice cracking completely. "Ms. Cummins, I'm sorry."
Maya pulled the oxygen mask away from her face. "I know, Tommy. It's going to be okay. I’ll find you."
She swallowed.
"I promise."
Two cops moved in, flanking Tommy's stretcher as the paramedics wheeled him toward a separate ambulance. He looked back once at Maya, his face crumpled with something that might have been gratitude or grief or both.
Maya watched him go. Something broken in her expression. Something resolved.
Then the paramedics guided her oxygen mask back into place, and she let them.
I stood apart. Bent over. Coughing smoke out of my lungs. My shoulder screamed where the debris had hit me, but I ignored it.
A familiar voice cut through the chaos.
"Shane!"
Brian. He was running across the parking lot in jeans and a hoodie, Garrett right behind him. Brian reached me first, grabbed my good shoulder, and looked me over. "I heard you told Okonkwo to write you up later."
"He told me to wait for a sweep."
"So you just... went in anyway." Brian shook his head, but there was a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You knowRodriguez is going to lose his mind, right? Going in without orders, ignoring the incident commander?—"
