Chasing Fire (Gilded Knights Series Book 2)

by Emilia Finn

  “Let’s go, Cootes. Now you’re slowing us down.”

  “I’m comin’!” She hurdles another table and circles the fallen chandelier.

  Above her, the ceiling groans. The blackness grows. Just as she jumps to clear yet another table, the ceiling cracks and gives. Fire, timber beams, and a bed from upstairs shoot down and crash to the dancefloor with a deafening boom.

  “Cootes!” Training and instinct have me whirling back into the ballroom.

  The ceiling continues to collapse, furniture fills the space, and somewhere in the wreckage, my crewmember lays hurt.

  “Cootes! Where are you?”

  “What happened?” Rizz’s deep timbre demands over the radio. “What’s your situation?”

  “The ceiling fell through. I can’t find Cootes!” I hold Max close with one hand, and with the other, I toss tables, chairs, bedside furniture, and a heavy fridge that once lived in the room upstairs. “Cootes! Mayday,” I cry into my radio. “Mayday, firefighter down!”

  Max screams against my neck, the throat-tearing kind of screams that rob his tiny body of what oxygen he has.

  “I’ve found Max!” I shout for Rizz. For Mitchell. For Idalia, if she’s listening. “He’s safe and okay. But I have to get Cootes.”

  More of the ceiling falls, and because of the hole it creates, more oxygen is fed to the fire.

  “We need a ladder around here!”

  “Go!” Cootes’ voice, pain-filled and in agony, makes my heart stop. “Get him out, Lew. He’ll die if you don’t.”

  “You’ll die if I leave!”

  “I’m kitted up,” she shouts from the rubble. “I have air, and they’re sending a ladder.” Her voice breaks away until a wheezing cough wracks her body. “I’m—” She coughs. “Go!” She coughs again. “You have to go.”

  “Cootes!”

  Max’s tiny frame spasms in my arms, and when I glance down, I find him choking on the filthy air. His eyes are too red, his face too pale. His lips… turning blue.

  “Fuck! He doesn’t have enough oxygen.”

  “Get him out,” Rizz orders. “Go, go, go, go, go!”

  I spin on my heel, sending up a silent farewell to my team member, and then I run. Just like I said I would, just like I said I could. I run until my legs turn weak and my lungs squeeze.

  I skid out of the ballroom and onto the staircase landing, and when I look up, I find furious flames eating away at the ceiling.

  “Down!” I crush Max in my arms and sprint down the stairs. One hand on the banister, one hand on my boy, I race so fast I only touch down on every third or fourth step.

  My heart thunders in my chest as the ceiling falls in above. The massive chandelier releases from the falling wood, and though I continue to run, my eyes follow its descent until the crystal shatters against the tiles of the ground floor.

  The hotel crumbles in on itself. Every time a new hole opens up and the nighttime cold rushes in, the fire rages harder, hotter, more consuming. Flames follow us down the stairs, they eat up the wallpaper Idalia had installed, the carpet she had laid.

  Ribbons of fire race me down the stairs, so when I reach the last flight, I jump with six stairs to go, only to slip and crash to the floor when the sea of crystal makes my landing too slippery.

  My head slams against the tile, my helmet saving me from the brunt of the impact, and luckily, my body saving Max from hitting the ground at all. But the momentum pushes my helmet off and tears the mask from my face until both slide across the tile and disappear into the darkness.

  I look toward the front doors, the very doors I ran through when I arrived on scene, but a thick beam falls from somewhere upstairs and lands so the doors explode from the frame, and the beam, boiling hot and angry with fire, blocks our exit.

  Red and blue lights shine outside. So close, and yet, so impossibly far away.

  Scrambling to my feet and holding Max close, I spin away from the front entrance and race toward the breakfast room. More tables. More tablecloths. More places for a child to hide. But no visible exit.

  “How do I get out?” I shout into my radio and swallow my first lungful of dirty air. I choke, my body’s natural response to get the filthy oxygen out, and with the smoke stinging my eyes, I search for the exit. “Command? How do I get out?”

  “Working on it!” Rizz hurriedly answers. “Sourcing structurals now. Hold on a second.”

  “I don’t have a second!”

  I glance down into Max’s eyes, staring, but unseeing, glassy and aching. And then down to his lips. His chest heaves and searches for something clean, something life-sustaining. But he’s giving up. He’s too small, too young.

  “Hold on for me, Max.”

  I grab the napkin he isn’t using and press it to my mouth. Drawing in as much filtered air as I can, I remove the cloth and close my lips over his. I breathe for him, pump him full of oxygen, and pray it’s enough to help.

  More of the ceiling falls in. More oxygen is let in from outside, and with it, more accelerant for the fire.

  Frustrated, I spin a full circle in search of exit signs. It’s too dark to see which way to go, and the lights I made damn certain existed now go unseen. Their absence becomes a tomb for us.

  Outside, Idalia will be watching on, just as she watched her husband burn, and after him, the firefighter who went in to save him. This is all of her worst fears in one.

  This is the very outcome I promised would never come; a lie, since this is the risk I face every single time I clock-in at work.

  She’s on the outside, watching us burn. And on my orders, she’s being held down and kept under lock and key.

  “I don’t know where to go. I’m sorry, Idalia.”

  24

  Idalia

  Mitchell doesn’t hand me the radio like Nixon ordered when we were still inside. But he stands at the end of the ambulance and relays what he thinks I need to hear.

  His eyes come to mine when something crackles over the line. Something good. And then something I need to know, because he shouts, “He’s got him! He’s got Max.”

  Sobbing tears wrack my frame and make me weak.

  Nadia hugs me on one side, and Arlo found us a few minutes ago, so she hugs me on the other. Abby and Spencer stand outside the ambulance, Abby’s eyes on me, Spencer’s on the Oriane.

  “He’s got Max,” Nadia croons. “See? It’s all gonna be okay.”

  “I’m so scared.” I rock in place and press the heels of my hands to my eyes. “I can’t take this much. I can’t… I can’t do it.”

  “Max is with Nixon,” Arlo repeats. “Now he’s gonna bring him down.”

  “Mayday! Mayday, firefighter down!”

  I release my eyes and rip them up to meet Mitch’s. But then a scream, bloodcurdling and terrifying, tears through the radios so every person on scene stops in their tracks.

  “That was Max!” I heave and search for my sickbag. “Max is screaming.”

  “I’ve found Max!” Nixon shouts again. “He’s safe and okay. But I have to get Cootes.”

  “Get him out.” I cry inconsolably, and when selfishness wins, I speak my horrible thoughts out loud. “Leave her and get my baby out safe.”

  “It’s gonna be okay,” Arlo chants. “Max isn’t alone, and Nixon won’t fail him. Have faith.”

  “I have none,” I admit on an anguished sob. “I have no faith left.”

  “I have enough to share,” Abby says from where she stands cuddled into Spencer’s chest. “I choose to believe.”

  “They’re sending a ladder up,” Mitchell announces. “He’s leaving Cootes behind.”

  “Why doesn’t he just go out by the ladder too?” Tears and snot coalesce above my top lip. I bring an arm up and swipe my face clean, though the cleanliness lasts only a second before more comes out to take its place. “If Cootes is using the ladder…”

  Spencer’s eyes come to mine, pity and sadness in one, then he shakes his head. “Cootes is gonna be left behind.�
�

  Enraged, Mitchell shoots a glare at his brother-in-law. “Serrano! She’s one of us.”

  “I know who she is,” he rumbles. “But it doesn’t change the fact that your guy on the radio knew Nixon wouldn’t leave the chick behind. He told a lie to save two lives instead of losing all three.”

  “There’s no ladder?” I cry. “They’re not going to even try?”

  “They’ll try,” Abby murmurs. “They never leave someone behind if they have a chance of saving them.”

  “Where are the exits?” Nixon’s voice cuts across the radio. “Where do we go?”

  A minute of silence passes—silence for me, but for everyone else, it’s business as usual as trucks race on scene, and firefighters spray lines of water toward my hotel—but at the end of that minute, comes Nixon’s voice once more. Broken, hopeless, and so defeatingly sad.

  “I don’t know where to go. I’m sorry, Idalia.”

  25

  Nixon

  Fire grows hotter around us, brighter, so for snatches in time, I’m able to see further into the room I pace. Black smoke billows around us, and though the putrid air lines my lungs and threatens to kill me long before the fire, I keep pushing. Keep searching for a way out.

  “Do you know the way, Max? Mazzi?” I look down and meet his glassy-eyed gaze. He’s here, but he’s floating on too little oxygen and too much shock. “Can you show me which way to go? You’ve spent way more time here than I have. Can you think of any sneaky ways out?”

  He shakes his head, slow and lethargic. “Don’t know.”

  My heart skips in my chest. “Idalia? Did you hear that? He said two more words!”

  “Nixon?” Her voice crackles with pain, on a radio system that may be failing on the job. “Can you hear me?”

  “I hear you, baby. Did you hear Max? He said two new words.”

  “Yep.” She sniffles, loud and heartbreaking. “I heard him. Can he hear me?” The channel breaks up for a moment. “Nixon? Can Max hear me?”

  “No. He’s… No. You’re in my ear.”

  “Can you tell him Mommy loves him?” she cries. “Tell him I’m right outside, waiting for him to come out.”

  “I’ll tell him.” I have to steel my voice. I’m dangerously close to succumbing to her pain, to my own.

  When I’m met with a fresh wall of fire, I turn back and search in a new direction for an escape. “We’re really close, okay? We’ll be out soon,” I promise her.

  “Is he okay?”

  “He’s tired,” I reply truthfully. “But I’ve got him.” I try to silence my grunt when I kick a heavy square of wood out of the way of a door. “He’s listening to his music, actually. He’s got his Walkman.”

  “Oh god,” she sobs. “Let him keep his headphones on. He doesn’t have to hear the fire.”

  “He’s cuddled into me. He’s looking at me and listening to the Beach Boys. Where does this door lead to?”

  “Huh?”

  “This door?” I kick it open and peer inside, only to find familiar stairs that lead down. “Is this the basement?”

  “Are you at the basement door?” Idalia whimpers. “You’re going the wrong way.”

  I don’t have any way to go.

  But I keep that information to myself.

  “I’m just looking,” I tell her. “Checking every avenue so we can get out of here. Did the builders finish the gym down here?”

  “Not yet,” she cries. “They were getting ready to pour the new floor next week.”

  “Did they get the ventilation dug out?” I take a step into the darkness. One step, then two. “Idalia? Did they dig the new ventilation?”

  “They were going to start soon,” she whimpers. “There’s no door down there. There’s no way out.”

  “It’s gonna be okay.” I speak to her. To Max. And hell, to myself. “Hold on a sec, okay?”

  “Me?” Idalia clarifies. “Are you talking to me?”

  “Yup. Just give me a sec.”

  I stop on the third step down, then pulling Max away from my body with one arm, I use my free hand to unzip my turnout coat.

  It’s the very opposite of what I’m trained to do in a fire. This uniform is meant to protect me, to save my life. Still, I push the zipper to the bottom, but not so far that it releases, then bringing Max closer again, I feed his legs inside so he straddles my hips.

  He’s small for his age, he barely takes up any room.

  I settle him in close, tuck his arms in next, then I zip my jacket up again so it holds him in and frees up my hands. I fix the jacket so it becomes somewhat of a sling under his butt, tuck his face against my chest, then I finish the zipper so it stops just above his head.

  “You can still breathe, okay?” I look down at the gap and find his shadow huddled in close. “You can still breathe. Feel my heart, try to time your breaths to mine. We’ll make a game of it, okay?”

  Max stares back at me for too long. So long that, no doubt, he figures I’ve lost my mind. So long that it’s possible he thinks if the smoke doesn’t smother him, I will.

  “Max?”

  “Okay,” he grits out. His tiny toddler voice is too soft, too croaking, too innocent.

  “Just breathe, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “Nixon?”

  “Idalia.” With my hands now free, I place one on the wall, and the other on the stair railing. Then I continue down into the darkness. I’m burying us; I’m sending us to our death unless my crew can come up with a plan. “He’s right here with me. He said okay. What’s our word tally now? Am I winning?”

  She chokes out a desperate laugh that screams of just how broken she is. “He told me he loved me this morning. And after that, he asked for Coco Pops for breakfast.”

  “Did you give him the Coco Pops?”

  “Yes!” she cries. “I gave them to him. I’ll give him anything if he uses his words and asks for it.”

  “Even cocaine and bad women?” I shake my head. “That’s terrible, Mazzi!”

  She snickers, but it’s so pathetic and sad. “No women. Not for a long time. What are you doing?”

  “I’m getting us some distance from the fire. Idalia? Baby, can you put one of the guys on the radio?”

  “I don’t want to go,” she whimpers. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “I just need to talk to them for a bit.”

  Hot wind bites at my back as the ground level of the hotel loses its fight with the fire. The basement being a new space, with new oxygen, means it’s following us. Like the evil dragon she is, she follows me every step and hunts us down.

  “Put one of the guys on, Idalia. Right now.”

  “Nixon, I—”

  “I got you,” Mitch’s voice cuts over Idalia’s. “What’s up?”

  “Get some space for a sec.”

  “Alright. Hold on.”

  He speaks to his partner for a second, orders the guy to stand guard over Idalia, then he’s back. “What’s going on?”

  “Command?” I say instead. “Do you read me?”

  “I hear you,” Rizz murmurs.

  “Me too,” Mitch says.

  “I’m here,” Troy’s voice comes next. Fuck knows when he arrived on scene, or who the hell called him. But he’s here, and he’s commandeered a radio. “Where are you?”

  “We’re in the basement. There’s no exit, and thankfully, no ventilation.”

  “Thankfully?” Mitchell snaps. “What do you mean thankfully? No ventilation means no air. That means you die!”

  “It also means the fire dies. She’s on my heels, eating up the air we have down here, but she’s not barreling in. She knows there ain’t much down here.”

  “Great plan, Sherlock,” Mitchell snarls. “But you forget the bit about you also dying.”

  “I’m still trying to work out a plan for me and Max. But, Rizz?”

  “Yeah, Lieutenant?”

  “I need you to get that fuckin’ fire out. She’s looking for a meal, an
d I don’t wanna be it.”

  “We’re working on it, Lew. But no matter how fast we are, you can’t survive in the fucking basement. The air will be gone in a matter of minutes.”

  “Yep.” My lungs already feel it. My head is already scrambling for more.

  I touch the last step with the toe of my boot, then I set us down and distance us from the rickety, wooden stairs. Using my flashlight, I illuminate the area in front of me, and remember being down here with Idalia on the night of our first date.

  We were on our way out the door, on our way to the start of the rest of our lives, but first, we had to inspect the soon-to-be gym. The machines I saw that night now shine back at me when the flashlight hits the steel. The weight racks. The treadmills, and beside those, the bikes.

  I catch a ray of light coming from somewhere high on the wall… moonlight, flashing through what was supposed to eventually be expanded from single drilled holes into a full ventilation system. Those holes are enough to suck out the dirty black air and recycle new oxygen for us to breathe. But with that comes a beckoning lighthouse for the fire to follow.

  It won’t be as fast as when ceilings fall in, but it’s still a siren for the flames. It’s still sustenance for a ravenous beast.

  Stopping in the middle of the room so we stand beneath supporting beams that keep the roof up, I drop down and lean against the column for a moment to collect my thoughts. I sit carefully, so I don’t crush Max, and when I’m down and the breath struggles to fill my lungs, I push my zipper down two inches and get a look at the little boy who long ago stole my heart.

  “How you doing in there, Mazzi? You doing okay?”

  Licking his lips, he nods and fights to free a hand. I help him, twist my body to give him room where he needs it, then I sit back and exhale when he brings his hand up to remove his headphones.

  “Oh, leave those on, M—”

  “They’re not working,” he rasps out. “Batteries.”

  “Oh!” Laughing nervously, I bring the headphones to my ears and test them, because I guess I don’t trust a four-year-old to know if batteries are dead or not.