by Olivia Rush
“What’s up?” called Chief from inside.
I opened the door and stepped in, and Chief looked at me with a concerned expression.
“What’s going on, Stokes?” he asked. “Tell me everything, and tell me now.”
Not taking a seat, I filled him in. I told him what we’d learned from our investigation, I told him about meeting the man at the diner, I told him about the scene at the apartment, and I told him that Chloe was gone.
“They…took Chloe?” he asked, his voice grave.
I could only nod.
Chief looked down for a moment, his mind at work. He seemed to know just as I did that whatever we did next, the plan would have to be unconventional.
“What you got in mind, Stokes?” he asked. “I’m all fuckin’ ears.”
“We know where they’re going to strike next,” I said. “And I’m sure that they know that we know. This probably means there’s some kind of trap, but I can’t risk letting anything happen to Chloe.”
Chief nodded.
“But we can’t send the whole crew out unless we have confirmation,” he said.
“That’s right,” I responded. “So, I’m thinking that I can check the business out, get in there and see what’s going on. If I find any sign that there’s some shit about to go down, I can call you in.”
“You want to go in there solo?” asked Chief. “Stokes, this isn’t black ops—we’re firemen.”
“Desperate times, Chief,” I said.
His mouth formed into a hard, flat line. He knew I was right.
“This is totally and completely not by the book,” said Chief. “But they’ve got your woman, so all bets are off. And you know that as soon as you make the call we’re gonna have to get the NYPD involved, right?”
That could mean some blowback. But I didn’t care. All I wanted was Chloe back safe.
“I’m willing to do whatever it takes, Chief,” I said.
“I know you are, Stokes,” he said. “I know.”
The moment hung heavy in the air.
“Then get your ass moving,” he said. “You know as well as I do that we’ve got no time to waste.”
“Thanks, Chief,” I said.
A grunt and a nod were his only response.
I hurried out of the office.
“Stokes!” shouted Stone as I rushed through the kitchen. “What’s the story?”
I paused for a brief moment and turned. A half dozen men were gathered in the kitchen, seated at the table as they picked at their food and played cards.
“Shit’s going down,” I said. “And that’s all I can tell you. Be ready for action tonight.”
I didn’t wait around to hear the responses. There wasn’t much gear I could bring along if I was going to do this stealthily, but I got what I could, throwing on a light fireproof coat and slipping a multi-tool into my pocket.
Then I was off.
Fifteen minutes later, I arrived at the scene of the next fire. The squat little business looked small and cramped next to the school, the looming figure of Chloe’s workplace jutting up into the night sky like a castle, the moon silver and bright overhead.
I tried to remember what the business looked like on the inside. There were only a few small rooms on the main floor, and if it was like every other building in the city, it likely had a cavernous, dingy basement. If Chloe was there, this is where she’d be.
But I knew that I couldn’t just go in through the front door—I might as well give them a call to let them know I was coming if I was going to be that obvious. A quick glance at the connection between the school and the adjoining apartment showed that they were likely connected by some kind of window.
I approached the school, squatting down at one of the small, rectangular windows that led into the lowest floor. The multi-tool made quick work of the locks on the windows, and soon I was in.
The basement of the school was stone-walled and drafty. I looked around and saw that I was in some kind of janitorial supply room. All sorts of flammable-looking materials were stored here and there. To my horror, I realized that if a fire next door managed to spread down here, it’d likely mean that the entire building would be gutted with flame—along with anyone who happened to still be here.
I ran to the wall between the business and the school and saw that, sure enough, a boarded-up area appeared to hide some kind of connection. My heart raced as I ripped the boards off one by one and found a small, metal passage between the two buildings. The multi-tool in my fist, I pounded at the lock, and the door swung open as the broken lock fell to the floor with a clatter.
The passage was just large enough to slip my body through. The room on the other side was as dismal and dingy as the room I’d just left. I investigated the area, noting that the basement was surprisingly large—almost mazelike.
But time was ticking, and I had to find Chloe before it was too late. I knew that at any moment this building could go up in flames, and if I didn’t play this smart, I could lose the woman I…
…I what? The word “love” seemed to fit so easily. Trying to figure out just what Chloe meant to me was…difficult, to say the least. Whatever we had was more special than anything I’d known with any woman before, despite the fact that she’d only been in my life for a short time. Just the thought of losing her felt like a knife to the gut.
It wasn’t going to happen. Luckily, my time in the service had trained me for occasions just like this. I’d done more than a few stealth ops in my day, and my training was going to serve me well.
I made my way from one room to another, amazed at the labyrinth under the building. One dingy brick room led to another, and I had to make sure to both move silently and keep track of where I was.
To my surprise, I spotted a stairwell that led to a sublevel of the basement. A map of the place formed in my mind, and I knew that if a fire did break out here, I’d need to remember the layout for when my crew moved in.
It was all becoming more complicated by the second.
I descended the stairs, my boots echoing as I moved down the narrow passage and arrived at a metal door at the bottom. After taking a full breath, I opened it carefully.
As soon as I stepped into the basement sublevel, I heard the low murmur of voices through the walls. It had to be the scarred man and his assistants, and likely Chloe. More careful, quiet movement brought me closer to the voices, and soon I arrived at another metal door.
The voices continued, and I could tell that they were just on the other side. I cupped my hands around my ear and pressed against the door. The metal was thick, but I could make out scraps of conversation here and there.
“Boss…she’s gonna wake up…after that?”
“Just...what I say…paying you to follow orders, not ask questions.”
It was them, all right—no doubt about it. And it was almost certain that the “she” they were referring to was Chloe.
“What’s gonna happen…this place goes up?”
“Yeah, boss…not many exits.”
“And...big badass fireman…what happens when he comes?”
“...your mouths….I’ve got this under control, goddammit!”
That meant they were expecting me. Barging through the door would draw way too much attention, and I had no idea what kind of shape Chloe was in. No, I had to play this smart. I took a look around the room for any advantage I could find, anything that might help me get the drop on these assholes.
It was going to take all of my skills to get Chloe and me out of this in one piece. But I was determined.
Nothing was going to stop me.
22
CHLOE
My head pounded as I came to. My first instinct was to put my hand to where the pain was radiating from, but I realized as soon as I tried that my hands were bound. Through blurry vision, I tried to look around and figure out just where the hell I was, and what was going.
“What…” I moaned, my head throbbing. “What…is…”
“Boss!” came a surprised voice from somewhere around me. “She’s coming to!”
I blinked hard and then again and again, a little more of the blurry film lifting with each open and close of my eyes. I could soon make out three figures around me, and despite just how disoriented I was, I knew who they were.
“There she is, boss,” said one of the men. “She’s coming back to the world of the living.”
“Just shut your goddamn mouth,” said one of the men whose voice I recognized right away as the scarred man. “I don’t need a fucking play-by-play.”
I looked around and saw that I was in a filthy room in a basement somewhere. The air was cold, and the smell of something astringent, like paint thinner, assaulted my senses.
“Where the hell am I?” I asked, feeling more cognizant by the second.
“You’re down in the belly of the whale,” said the scarred man. “Right at the scene of our latest little project.”
My eyes were clear and, sure enough, the men gathered around me, sinister expressions on all of their faces. I glanced down and saw that I was seated in a cheap metal office chair, my hands and feet bound to it. Packed onto the shelves that lined the walls were cans of some kind of cleaning supply, all of them marked with the symbol indicating that they were very, very flammable.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I said. “Tell me right now.”
The men raised their eyebrows.
“Wow,” said the one on the right. “She’s a bossy little thing. Don’t you see what kind of predicament you’re in, sweetheart?”
“Yeah,” said the other man. “You’re not exactly in a position to be demanding answers for shit.”
The scarred man raised his hand. “Now, now,” he said. “She might be as screwed as it gets, but that doesn’t mean we can’t at least let her know what kind of shit she’s in.”
“Tell me now,” I said.
“Here’s the deal, kiddo,” said the scarred man. “You’re in the basement of that business you and your lantern-jawed fucking boyfriend were checking out. I know you two’ve gotten up to some detective work, and if it does your little ego any good, you two were right on the money.”
“Is that so?” I asked.
“Yep,” he said. “See, the boys and I got hired by this upstart distribution company to scare the shit out of some local business, clients of our boss’s biggest competitor. So, our job was to let them know that it was in their best interests to, ah, have a change of heart about their contracts.”
“And if they didn’t go along with it?” I asked. “You’d just torch them?”
“You got it,” he said. “Starting fires is what we do best, and the best thing about them is that they send quite the fucking message.”
“You assholes are sick,” I said. “People could die!”
“People are going to die,” he said. “Namely, you. See, we’ve been making this joint a personal project of ours. You’ve noticed all this shit on the shelves, I’m sure? Well, this all goes up like the Fourth of July when a match touches it. If all goes according to plan, this place is gonna be nothing more than a smoking crater when we’re done.”
“But…the school next door,” I said. “The fire’s not going to be self-contained. It’ll jump right over.”
“That’s what we’re hoping for,” said the man. “There’s more cleaner over there, and once the fire hops next door, that school won’t last more than an hour before it’s a damn charred corpse.”
My stomach tightened. It wasn’t school hours, sure, but I knew that all sorts of evening clubs took place over there around this time. There were almost certainly kids over there, and if they got stuck in the building when it went up…
Just the thought was enough to make me want to leap out of my chair and tear these fuckers a new one.
“But why?” I demanded. “Why burn the school?”
“Because these fires are our business cards,” said the scarred man. “Once we take out these buildings and get away with it, we’ll have quite the little fucking addition to our resumes.”
“Every goddamn gang in this city will want our services once we’ve shown what we can do,” said the man on the right. “We’ll be the top firestarters in New York.”
I grit my teeth and stared at the men with hateful eyes.
“You’re not going to get away with this,” I said. “Once Ethan—”
“You don’t get it, kiddo,” said the scarred man. “Your little buddy coming here is exactly what we’re hoping for. Once he shows, he’ll go up just as surely as you will. We’ll be taking out the only two people who know both our game and our faces. Easy as fucking pie.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but the scarred man held up his hand.
“No more talk,” he said. “You’re screwed, Ethan’s screwed, and we win—that’s the end of that. Only thing left is to get this little fire started.”
He gestured to the ground, where long line of some kind of power led to the flammable material.
“Gunpowder,” he said. “It’ll do very nicely.”
He turned to his men and nodded toward one of the doors.
“Let’s get this going and get the fuck out of here,” he said. “I’m hungry.”
The men sounded their agreement as the scarred man pulled out a pack of matches. He struck one of them and let it drop to the ground. It landed on the line of gunpowder, and it caught fire instantly.
“Let’s move, boys,” he said. “Don’t want to be here when this goes up, am I right? Listen, cutie pie—I know this looks painful, but if it’s any consolation, you’ll be dead as soon as this fire sucks all the air out of the room. Not a bad way to go, actually.”
The other men laughed. The scarred men led them out of the room in a hurry, the door locking with a “clank” behind them.
Horror gripped me as soon as I was alone. I watched as the flame raced down the line of gunpowder and reached the combustibles. As soon as the fire reached the materials, the entire wall went up in an orange and blue “whoosh.” I could feel the heat on my skin instantly, that familiar feeling of smoke in my lungs returning as the air filled with haze.
Was this it? I looked around for any way to escape, but I saw nothing that could help me. Desperation and panic gripped me as I struggled against the chair, and whatever traces of hope faded as the flames grew brighter and hotter.
23
ETHAN
As soon as the men left, I slammed my body into the steel door as hard as I could. Pain exploded through me as I hit it, but I didn’t care—all I was concerned about was getting Chloe out of there.
“Chloe!” I shouted. “I’m gonna try and break through the door! Stand back!” I hit the door again and again and again, each impact causing the hinges to buckle more and more. Finally, after taking a deep breath and bracing myself, I struck the door so hard that the hinges broke, the door falling off and landing onto the floor of the other room with a “bang.”
The heat was almost overwhelming. Smoke blasted out of the room as soon as the door fell. Through the haze, however, I saw her.
Chloe was there, tied to a chair in the middle of the room, the flames moving closer and closer toward her by the second.
“Ethan!” she shouted, her eyes locking onto me.
A dry, sputtering cough exploded from her lungs as soon as she spoke.
“Stay still!” I shouted, rushing into the burning room.
I dropped to my knees at the side of the chair and pulled out my multi-tool. Once the knife was out, I sliced quickly through Chloe’s bindings. Moments later she was free. I scooped her off the chair and carried her out of the room as fast as possible.
As soon as we arrived in the adjacent room I realized that if I’d been just a minute too late the smoke very well would’ve killed Chloe. But she was safe—for now, at least.
“This place is gonna go up!” I shouted.
“Yeah!” she cried out over the roar of the fire. “And then it’s gonna burn
the school! What’s the plan?”
“Plan is we get the fuck out of here!” I yelled. “Crew’s on their way!”
I started off toward the stairs leading to the first-level basement, but Chloe squirmed in my arms.
“I can walk!” she shouted. “I’m not a damn cripple!”
“Stubborn to the end!” I shouted.
“It’s what you love about me!”
I dropped her down to her feet. Chloe took a brief moment to get her bearings, and was soon ready to move. Despite the situation all around us, I couldn’t help but admire how take-charge she was.
“This way!” I shouted, pointing toward the stairwell.
We arrived just as the flames began to consume the basement. Fear boiled in my stomach—I knew that if the boys didn’t get here soon, the flames would burn through to the school. And once they hit those flammable materials over there…
I didn’t even want to think about it. I let Chloe run up the stairs first, following closely behind as the flames nipped at the heels of my boots. We soon reached the door and hurried through to the other side.
There, I was greeted with about the sweetest sight I could’ve possibly hoped for: A squad of my boys from the station, all clad in their yellow and black gear.
“There’s the man!” shouted Stone, his eyes showing that he was more than ready for the challenge ahead.
I felt the hard clap of a hand on my shoulder. I turned and found myself face-to-face with Chief.
“Good to see you’re still in one, non-burned piece!” he shouted.
“Wouldn’t let you guys handle this on your own for the world!” I shouted back.
Chief flashed me a warm smile, showing that his words were sincere. He looked over Chloe, making sure she was still in working order.
“What’s the story?” he said. “We should be able to handle this fire, but is that all?”
“No,” I said, feeling the air grow warmer by the second. “Those assholes had it planned so that when the fire jumps over to the school the flames will ignite flammable material over there—it’ll bring the damn block down if we don’t get it under control!”