Page 32 of Freedom’s Inferno

Lana was already ahead of me by the time we hit the stairwell, hair a wild mess of curls. The red strobes pulsed against concrete walls, slicing the shadows into fragments.

“Go!” I barked, my voice stolen by the echoing sirens. “Keep moving!”

We descended two flights before the first wave of smoke followed us down, carrying that acrid, chemical bite that stung the back of my throat. My pulse spiked. I could feel it in my temples, in the center of my chest, a frantic hammering that had nothing to do with sprinting down the stairs. My hands clenched the rail, slick with sweat.

I caught the metallic tang of iron and copper as panic washed over me. The heat, the boom of something cracking open, my father’s voice, slurred and shouting, and the smell of burning plastic. The ghost of twelve-year-old me stared back from the bottom of the stairwell, barefoot and frozen, watching the light flicker under the door.

“Charlie!” Lana’s voice cut through the haze, but hearing his name only drove me further away.

The line between the present and the past blurred, and doubled, until all I heard was a woman’s voice calling for my father. In the chaos of my mind, I didn’t know who and where I was anymore.

“What are you doing? Move!” she shrieked. I saw her then, a few steps below, looking up at me, her face half hidden in shadow.

I forced myself to breathe. The smoke closed in, thicker now, slithering down from above, a gray fog descending on us. I pushed forward, gripping the rail until my knuckles ached.

We burst out into the second-floor corridor, and the heat hit like a slap. The sprinkler system burst to life overhead, icy water raining down in punishing sheets.

I blinked through the spray, water running into my eyes and mouth.

Lana gasped beside me, dress soaking through and clinging to her lithe frame. “Which way?” She coughed, pulling her sleeve over her mouth.

Flames hadn’t reached this level, but they were close. I could hear them, that low animalistic roar like a beast intent on consuming everything in its path.

“Service exit. Back of the building.” My voice came out rough, ragged.

I grabbed her hand before she could argue and ran. The corridor stretched longer than I remembered, and every door looked the same. They were all closed. Locked. The glass along the left wall was blackened at the corners, pulsing orange where the fire below clawed upward. Somewhere behind us, something exploded, a muffled boom that sent vibrations through the soles of my shoes.

Lana stumbled, but I caught her arm before she hit the floor.

“Keep going!” I shouted.

She nodded, eyes watering, hair sticking to her face. She didn’t look fragile then, she looked furious. She was a fire in her own right, burning with determination and a drive for revenge.

We hit the stairwell at the far end of the hall, but the handle was hot to the touch. I pulled my hand back with a curse, skin already smarting.

“This way’s blocked,” I said. “Fire’s below us.”

“What do we do?!”

I scanned the hall. Smoke rolled in, our visibility shrinking. My gaze landed on a window at the end, one of those floor-to-ceiling panes overlooking the parking lot. If we could get it open…

“Come on!” I tugged her forward. The glass wouldn’t budge. I slammed the heel of my hand against the latch, but it didn’t give.

Lana grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall, eyes meeting mine, quick and wordless. Then, she swung.

She hit the corner of the window, a perfect shot, and the entire pane exploded in a burst of tiny shards. Lana’s mouth fell open. “I wasn’t expecting that…”

“Tempered glass,” I said, offering no further explanation.

The fresh air hit me hard, dizzying. We were still one floor up. I poked my head out to scan the ground below.

“There!” Lana pointed toward the exterior fire escape attached to the adjacent office.

The windows didn’t align perfectly, but the gap wasn’t impossible.

“Jesus Christ.”

She climbed onto the windowsill, wet hair whipping around her face. “You got a better idea?”