"You're okay." Crying. Shaking. Her hands running over my face, my shoulders. "You're okay."
"I'm okay."
She looked past me. Saw Brian carrying Rebecca. Something complicated crossed her face.
The EMTs moved fast. Too fast. The kind of fast that meant they'd seen something in the thirty seconds since they'd taken her from Brian's arms.
Brian stood on the sidewalk, watching the ambulance doors close. He hadn't moved. Hands at his sides, still gloved, streaked dark with someone else's blood.
"She's going to be okay, right?" I said.
Brian's jaw worked. The way it did when he was choosing between honesty and kindness.
"They'll do everything they can." Which wasn't an answer. We both knew it wasn't an answer.
Then Sloane was there, and everything else fell away.
We stumbled out together. Into the night air. Into the chaos of lights and sirens.
I pulled off my mask and held her. The solid weight of her. Real. Alive. Here.
"I thought I lost you." Broken. "When I heard your voicemail?—"
"You didn't." She cupped my face. "You came for me. You always come for me."
"Always." Forehead to hers. "Always."
Behind us, the building burned.
But she was alive. Here. In my arms.
That was everything.
Rodriguez appeared beside us. That practiced eye.
"EMTs. Both of you. Now."
Shane fell into step as we walked. Clapped my shoulder.
"Hell of a night."
"Yeah."
"She's okay?"
I looked at Sloane. Smoke-stained. Exhausted. The most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
"She's okay."
Shane nodded. Squeezed my shoulder once. Then he was gone, back to the crew, back to the work of putting out a fire.
The EMTs checked her lungs, her vitals. I sat beside her the whole time.
She kept her hand in mine.
Outside, the building burned against the sky.
I pressed a kiss to her temple.
