by Nicole Snow
But only one of them matters.
Peters stiffens, whirling, hand tightening convulsively on the gun as he feels the bite.
The gun goes off, a bullet zinging wild, punching up into the ceiling and hitting something.
Whatever it is must be supporting a heavy load in the stage rigging, because upstairs, something comes crashing down – bringing the fire through the roof raining onto us, opening a yawning hole overhead, dumping flaming debris crashing in front of the exit.
Sparks whirl everywhere, a blast of heat that nearly blows me back.
Nine stumbles backward, staggering with the chair still attached to him, narrowly missing a massive burning crossbeam that plunges down where he’d been standing.
Then Peters collapses. The potent dose of SP-73 in the vial courses through his system and takes hold.
I’d kept it sealed tighter than a drum.
Just in case.
Undeniable proof in case I ever needed to reverse engineer it to find a cure, if these sick bastards let it loose to hurt innocent people.
But it’s served a better purpose now. The viral dose is ten times stronger than anything ever tested in the lab. The virus always moves like wildfire, replicating at a frightening pace, but in these numbers? It’s nearly instant.
I won’t lie.
I enjoy watching Peters convulse, his entire body going pale, his veins and tendons standing out, clammy sweat breaking across his body as his internals hemorrhage. His hands are claws, swiping at the air, and he gasps roughly, shivering, twitching.
“Y-you...you...”
“Gave back what was always rightfully yours,” I mutter. “Enjoy.”
Then I turn away from his last dying throes. This stuff isn’t airborne and it isn’t active for long. The pathogen was made to kill rapidly and dissipate within an hour or two, leaving ground zero ripe for occupation. I know the fire will consume it too, but we need to get the hell out of here.
Besides, I can’t waste another minute on him.
Not when I’m here to save lives rather than destroy them.
“Help them!” I snap at Warren and Blake, jerking my head toward Felicity, Barbara, and Nine. “But steer clear of Peters. Don’t touch him. Don’t go near him. He may be infectious.”
Warren stares at Peters grimly, his face a dark mask. Blake is paler, more horrified, his eyes a little too wide.
“Fuck, man,” he rasps. “What is that shit?”
“What they’d planned for all of us,” I say, striding forward to drop to my knees in front of Barbara Delwen.
“Where is she?” I ask, tearing the tape from her mouth as gently as I can.
There’s no time to delay; the fire’s roaring in, leaping higher all the time. Stray costumes and rigging and beams catch fire, spreading from the falling debris above. The entire theater is coming down with the familiar taste of choking smoke, the sting in my eyes, and we only have minutes, if that. “Where did he take her?”
The moment her mouth is free, Barbara gasps out, sobbing and shaking her head.
“Barbara?!” I grab her shoulder, gently shaking her.
“He lied,” she sputters, coughing on smoke, forcing herself to speak. “I don’t know, Doc! I don’t know where he hid her!”
Fuck.
I swear up a storm, launching to my feet and circling her chair to rip at the ropes binding her as she struggles to get free, making it harder as she pulls the knots tight. But I manage to tear the ropes away from her, and she stumbles to her feet, toward Felicity and Nine, who come loose as Warren and Blake untie them.
“Go!” I bark, thrusting an arm toward the blocked exit. “Clear the debris and get them out!”
Nine starts toward me, stretching a pleading hand out, his other arm over his mouth, his sleeve over his nostrils and lips. The women are suffocating in here.
Warren and Blake struggle to breathe as they fight to shove aside the burning debris without catching fire themselves, but Nine won’t budge.
“Dammit, Gray, I’m not gonna leave you here! You didn’t leave me.”
“Yes, you fucking are,” I snarl. “I didn’t drag you out of that fire only to lose you in another one, Leo. Go.”
He stares at me with pleading eyes. “Why? What’re you going to do?”
“Find Ember,” I say. “I’m not leaving until I do.”
23
The Hounds of Hell (Ember)
Everything is black.
Black as fear.
Black as a nightmare.
Black as creeping death.
I tried to run from it, and it chased me, stalking me into the dark. Now my heart beats to the terrible rhythm of its bony steps. The rushing heat feels too much like the Reaper’s breath.
I don’t even know how close the fire is with this black bag still tied over my head, in whatever strange space I’ve been stuffed into.
It’s cramped. I know that much. My hands are cuffed behind my back.
But I hear voices.
Gray first. Furious. Shouting.
Then Peters, abruptly cut off.
Finally, others.
Right before there’s more smoke, more fire, searing my nostrils worse with every breath. God, no.
The fire crackles louder, and the heat becomes blistering.
I scream against the duct tape over my mouth. A gunshot rings through the walls around me, muffled but too close.
Then there’s a crash that shakes the concrete floor beneath me like a plane crash.
And I sob, curling in on myself, unable to even do that when the cuffs binding my wrists are looped around something cold and metal. Even if I wanted to get up, to kick the door down, to try to run blind and hope I could find my way out, I can’t.
I’m trapped here.
Silenced.
I’m going to die.
And no one will even know I was here. They’ll just find my charred body in the theater’s ruins. One more piece of brittle slag they can’t identify.
Not like this, I beg, sobbing, struggling around the duct tape when I can’t even breathe. I can’t die like this.
Not just because of me.
Because of Gray.
Because of that beautiful, wonderful man who hid so much passion behind his stony exterior, so much warmth, poetry in his voice, and lyrics in his thoughts.
If he loses someone else in a fire, just like the way he lost his faith, his hope, his friend...I shut my eyes, the tears stinging even hotter than the invading heat.
It’ll break him. I know it will.
He’ll bury all that beauty away again where he’ll never find it.
I don’t want to be the thing that ruins him.
I don’t want to die, either, but I’m really struggling to find a way around that.
And I can’t give up. Hell no.
I’m not the kind of girl who goes silently. I can’t just make a martyr out of myself and gracefully expire.
If I go, it’ll be kicking and screaming. Shouting my last fading breath for help, praying there’s someone, anyone who can Get. Me. Out. Of. Here.
So I scream bloody murder, even when hardly anything makes it past the tape sealing my lips. And I kick. I punch, I bite at my gag.
Thrashing my feet, thumping my shoes against the wall, I push.
I’m still wearing the same freaking tennis shoes I had on for work, comfortable for moving around the clinic all day. They make a mighty, almost satisfying thud against the walls that echoes back.
Wood.
It’s wood I’m hitting, wooden walls, and they make a nice, loud racket as I kick and kick and kick.
I can’t hear the voices anymore, not Peters, not anyone.
Until suddenly something splinters next to me.
Gray?
“Ember!” He’s shouting my name, but it’s choked, raw. He must be breathing smoke. One reason I’m lucky is because I’m on the floor, sealed away low where the smoke from the flames can’t make me a coughing mess. I c
an hear crackling fire nearby, but it won’t reach me – not instantly. “Ember!”
Doc’s voice again.
“I’m here!” I try to shout, but my lips won’t move, and the duct tape muffles the sound.
Crap!
So I slam my feet against the wall again, kicking as hard as humanly possible, smashing out patterns like words, hoping he’ll notice.
Hoping he’ll hear.
Here-I-am-here-I-am-HERE-I-AM. I smash-smash-smash the same message again and again, and I can’t stop sobbing but I can’t stop trying, either.
I don’t hear him again. My heart leaps into my throat.
Pausing, I listen, begging wordlessly for him to find me.
“Gray?” I whimper against the duct tape.
Honestly, I don’t know if I want him to find me or want him to escape before the theater burns so bad it collapses on him.
I give one more stomping sequence, desperate, tired, my legs aching.
I can see light now – this bright glow filtering through the bag, and if the flames are that close, their light must be visible under and around the door, wherever I am. I don’t have much time.
Here-I-am! I stomp against the wood one more time.
Nothing.
Until there’s a sudden click like a latch, a rush of hot air pouring over me, the sounds suddenly louder, then the groaning flames and the roar of burning air and his voice.
“Ember!” Gray cries.
No flame compares to the cozy warmth of his body suddenly next to mine, his hands on me. The bag rips off my head, the tape from my mouth, and I lose it.
“Gray, Gray. Oh my God.” I sob as he gathers me against him, pulling me as close as he can when the cuffs yank me back every time he tries.
I’m in a storage closet, I realize. A tight storage space built beneath the stage.
Worse, I’m cuffed to some kind of drainage pipe that’s been welded to the wall. It won’t even bend when Gray snarls and yanks against it, pulling at the chain.
“Fuck!” he growls, ripping at it like he’d snap it with his bare hands, if only he could. “The goddamn key. Peters, he must—”
“No!” I gasp. “I heard—I heard what you did, if he’s contagious—”
“I don’t care.” Gray looks at me fiercely, haloed in gold, angry orange fire reflecting off his skin, burnishing those frantic green eyes framed by fire. He cups my face in his palms. “I’ll get you out of here, Firefly. Even if I wind up infecting myself. You’re worth it.”
I shake my head fiercely. “Gray, don’t—don’t—”
“A man has to stand for something, or he’s nothing. I’ve found what holds me up, and always will.”
Then he kisses me while I break into a crying mess: fierce, swift, heavy, dark, needy, promising.
I’m so scared it’s the very last kiss.
But the touch of his lips swears it’s not.
He pulls back, staring hard into my eyes. “I love you, Ember Delwen,” he whispers. “That’s what I’m willing to stand and fight and die for.”
Then he’s gone.
He leaves me sobbing after him, straining, struggling against the chains of my cuffs.
I can’t let him do this for me. It’s a human flipping sacrifice. There’s no chance against a virus so swift and deadly it can kill a person like lightning. Doc can’t do this.
Because – surprise! – I love him, too. I love him even more since he’s practically announced he’s the other half of my soul.
And I can’t stand him dying horribly, murdered by the very thing he’s already given so much to protect this town from.
He’s gone for a terrifying eternity.
I strain desperately on the tips of my toes before I flump down again. I can barely see him through the door, just a sharp-moving shape hunched over the body of a man that looks terrible, frightening. I hope I never, ever have to see Gray like that.
But then I realize he’s wearing gloves.
He’s wearing gloves!
That brilliant, gorgeous, sexy damned doctor of a man had neoprene gloves in his pocket like he always does. Whew.
There’s something else in his hand, too.
A bent piece of metal. Probably some debris that came down in the fire, the chaos, and genius that he is, he’s fashioned it into a makeshift hook.
It helps him handle Peters’ body gingerly, searching, digging in his pockets, and then —
A triumphant sound rips from Gray's throat.
Giving the keys a good pass over the radiating fire, he snatches them up into one hand. He walks back slowly and waits for what seems like forever after carefully plucking off his gloves and tossing them into the fire.
He returns just as the ceiling overhead showers sparks. I kick back, shying away as burning rain drifts down around me.
The whole place is screaming as it comes apart. The building creaks and groans and grunts like it’s a tree caught in a terrible wind. My stomach twists.
It’s going to collapse.
It’s going to crash down on us.
“Gray!” I gasp, looking up at him, searching for any sign of infection. “Are you?”
He shakes his head, giving me a reassuring smile – albeit strained, his face streaked in soot – as he reaches around me to search for the lock on the cuffs. “I waited after touching the metal. If I was going to show symptoms, I’d be a mess on the floor already. It’s fast-acting, the viral load I gave him. Near instantaneous. I’m fine, Ember. I’m fine.”
I bite my lips, staring at him in wonder. I’ve never heard of a plague so fast, so deadly, so unforgiving.
But then, I’d never met a beast-man until I fell for Gray. No surprise, it takes an impossible man to ward off an unthinkable horror.
His hands work quickly, loosening the cuffs, their hard edges biting against my wrists, then easing and falling away. He’s got me by the wrist now. That safe, wonderful strength hauling me to my feet, holding me steady and stable as he pulls me toward the door and out to the main area under the stage.
“Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Mind blank, heart thudding as wildly as the building crashing around us in pieces, I follow his lead.
Keeping my arm over my nose and mouth, I stumble a little, but for once I don’t fall.
Today, this man’s kind stability is all I need to hold steady.
We dash through smoke, through fire, my eyes stinging and half-blind.
My lungs ache, the heat licks around us and hurts so much until it feels like I’m boiling, boiling – but then we’re racing upstairs, into the main theater, so much fire everywhere. And even as we rush out into aisles flanked by burning seats, a massive section of the roof caves in right in our wake, sending flaming debris plummeting down.
It hits so hard it rocks the whole theater like an earthquake, flinging us to the ground.
I land hard on Gray with a cry, his arms coming around me tight, sheltering me as we skid and roll, then tumble to a halt. Coughing, aching, I push myself up gingerly, looking back at the massive burning rubble where we’d been standing.
Fear suddenly leaps to life inside me in sharp, bright flares.
“There’s no time,” Gray gasps, taking my arm and helping me up. “Let’s go!”
We run.
Still stumbling, we dodge falling debris that makes me scream every time it’s a near miss. The exit has never seemed so far away.
We struggle toward the double doors out into the lobby, slamming against them.
The pressure bounces us right back as the chain and padlock holding them closed from the other side make them rock and reverberate in their frame. It won’t open.
Great.
Just freaking great, we’re trapped in here, and I scream in frustration, beating against the doors while Gray curses, slamming his fist against the hard surface.
We were so close.
So close.
I’m going to die here now.
But at leas
t I’ll die with the man I love.
I just need to say it. I need him to hear it at least one time before the flames engulf us, and with a wretched sob, I reach for his hand, squeezing tight, tracing his scars.
“Gray, Gray, I—”
“Over here!” a voice I don’t recognize calls out, gruff and ragged and masculine, as if he’s been choking on smoke his whole life.
We both whirl.
It’s the tall man. The scarred man. The beast I saw with Fuchsia.
Nine.
He’s there at the side exit, that door where Felicity and I were caught, leaning in from the outside and beckoning to us with one thick, burly arm.
“Hurry!” he roars.
Gray and I exchange a look, breathless and hopeful.
Then we link our hands together and run.
It’s only a few yards. Only a few seconds.
But they’re the longest seconds of my life. We clamber over fallen beams and skirt walls of flame that nearly singe the hair from my nostrils.
I’m dizzy, too much smoke in my lungs, in my head, but I can’t stop now. Gray won’t let me stop, his warm, supportive hands hold me up as we fight our way to the door and burst free.
Outside.
Back under the cold moonlight, the clean air. People appear swiftly – Mom, Felicity, both of them sobbing, dragging me into hugs, crying “Ember, Ember” again and again.
We cling to each other in a weeping, messy heap of emotions. Relief, terror, adrenaline, and confusion.
We’re safe.
God, we’re safe, and even as my mother and cousin hold fast to me, Gray and Warren and Blake and Nine give each other long, grave looks. Then they clap each other on the shoulder in wordless acknowledgment.
A minute later, new sounds split the night. Sirens, probably from every emergency vehicle several towns over. Gray lifts his head sharply, and nearly everyone looks at Nine.
He takes a slow step backward. “I can’t be here,” he says raggedly, gravelly and deep, shaking his head. “Not when they get here. Gotta go. This ain’t the right day or right time for this shit.”
“We should all go,” Gray says firmly. “I’d rather not be arrested on the spot. We can explain everything to Langley later, once they’ve had a chance to dig deeper to uncover the truth. Although I’m sure they’ll wonder why my totaled truck is burning in the other alley.”