I look over the edge. Four stories down. Too high. Way too fucking high. The fall would kill us faster than the flames would.
“I don't know.”
We’re trapped.
The realization settles over me and weighs me down like a physical thing.
Fallon grabs my hand and squeezes so hard it hurts. “I love you.” She says, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears.
I love you too.I want to say it back. I want to tell her she’s everything to me. That she saved me from myself when I thought I had nothing left to live for. But the words are lodged in my throat.
I squeeze her hand back. Harder. Hoping she understands. Hoping she knows.
Fallon smiles as her eyes slowly drift closed. I close mine too, bracing for the end. For the heat. For the smoke to finally win.
Then I hear a crash. A loud and violent one coming from somewhere inside the apartment.
My eyes snap open.
“What-”
Another crash. The front door explodes inward, sending splinters of wood flying in every direction. Through the smoke and flames, shadows move.
No.Not just shadows. Men. Two of them. Tall. Broad-shouldered, and cutting through the inferno like it’s nothing. Acting as if the flames don’t singe their clothes and the heat doesn’t scorch their skin.
I see Echo first, and relief swells inside of me. His name tears from my throat before I can stop it.
He’s here.
How is he here?
How did he know?
My brain fires questions faster than I can process them. Between the pounding in my head and the ash coating my lungs, nothing makes sense.
“Bambi!” He shouts, his voice rough and desperate as his eyes cut across the living room. “Where the fuck are you?”
“Here!” I scream back, and I’m crying now. Tears streaming through the soot on my face. “Over here!”
His head whips toward the sound. Our eyes lock. And then he’s moving. Fast. Purposeful. As if nothing in this world could stop him from reaching me.
He reaches us on the patio, and the second he does, his arms wrap around me.
“I’ve got you.” He says, his voice rough and strained in a way I’ve never heard before. “I’ve got you.”
I try to speak. To ask what he’s doing here. To ask how he knew. To tell him I’m not going anywhere without Fallon. But before I can, the other man appears through the smoke.
He looks like Echo. Same height, same build, same dark hair, but where Echo is all sharp edges and danger, this man is... different. Softer features. Warmer eyes andskin. But the way he moves? Just as lethal. He must be his brother.
He doesn’t say anything when he sees me staring at him. He just gives me a quick nod before scooping Fallon up and throwing her over his shoulder.
Then they’re both moving.
Echo leads the way, navigating through the smoke and flames in my apartment like he’s walked this floor plan a thousand times. Like he’s memorized every obstacle. Every exit.
I think about asking him how he’s doing that, but decide against it. Partly because it doesn’t matter right now and partly because I don’t want to know.
I bury my face in his neck, trying to block out everything. The ash. The flames. The way him being here makes me feel a strange warmth in my chest that has nothing to do with the fire.
