Flames spread from box to box, faster than I thought possible. Across from me, my father strains against the ropes. “Can you get free?” he shouts.
“What does it matter?” The fire is a physical being now. Roaring, climbing the walls, desperate for more fuel. The first bottle of liquor explodes, the sound of glass breaking, followed by another, and another, and another.
Coughing, my father chokes out, “Your friends…”
Holy shit. “Dad? What friends? Names!” I twist my hands, feeling for the ends of the rope trapping me.
“Don’t know…but your girl…she’s waiting…”
Oh God. Raelynn’s alive. She’s here.
“Slow your breathing, Dad. Please!” He’s closer to the fire than I am and drenched in vodka. If I don’t get to him fast, he’ll die. My swollen fingers send electric shocks of pain through my hands, but I find one blunt end of the rope and start working it through the knots.
Smoke burns my lungs. The first cough steals my breath. More bottles shatter. Bits of cork and plastic arc through the air. Another knot unravels. How many more? God, I need to be able to see. My eyes are watering, each cough pure agony on my ribs, and my father slumps forward.
Fuck! The flames are only a few feet away from him.
Tugging with all of my strength, I wrench my right arm free. Then my left. I strip off my shirt, tearing it in half and tying it around my mouth and nose.
It takes me precious seconds to loosen the ropes around my ankles, and when I try to stand, the room dissolves into a swirling miasma of orange, red, and gray.
“Dad,” I croak. “I’m…coming!”
Twice, the dizziness takes me down. Each time, the concrete under me gets hotter. Crawling the last few feet, I attack the knots. As soon as his arms are free, I drag him to the center of the room.
It’s getting harder to breathe. Harder to see. Smoke covers the ceiling, curling around the rafters, desperate for somewhere else to go. A window behind us shatters, and the whoosh of air fans the flames even higher.
My father coughs weakly. My t-shirt is the only article of clothing we have not soaked in vodka, so I rip it into two long strips and wind the second one around his head. “Dad, wake up,” I plead, slapping his cheek gently. “We have to find a way out of here.”
The smoke is so thick, I can’t see the door. There has to be more than one.
“Nathan…” he wheezes. “Leave me.”
“No. I lost you once. I won’t do it again!” A coughing fit steals my voice. We don’t have much longer.
Behind me, there’s a narrow gap in the flames. Crawling, my breathing ragged and tears streaming down my cheeks as I drag my father behind me, I see a metal door.
Ten feet away, I have to let him go. The fire’s too close.
I push to my feet, fighting the darkness creeping along the edges of my vision. The knob burns my palm, but I ignore the pain and twist. Nothing happens. Feeling all along the metal, barely able to see, I search for a lock. Some way to get through. But after a full minute, I collapse, my knees slamming into the hot cement.
Above me, windows shatter, and glass rains down over my head, shoulders, and back like hundreds of tiny missiles. I pound on the door with everything I have in me.
My father stirs. “Nathan…it’s…no use…”
He’s right. We’re going to die, and Raelynn will be the one to find our bodies.
“Sorry, sweetness,” I choke out. “I love…you.”
Raelynn
I take the corner on two wheels, and floor it down the hill toward the warehouse. The windows—all along the roof line—glow bright orange. Half a dozen of them have already exploded from the heat, and smoke rises fifty feet in the air.
Inara races across the parking lot, and I slam on the brakes to avoid running her down. “Shee-it!”
A shot hits the side of the van as I jump out. Another whizzes close to my ear before I duck. “Indigo! Takin’ fire!”
She drops to one knee, lifts her rifle, and sends half a dozen shots across the parking lot. “Get to the building. I’ll cover you.”
