Breaking Point (Article 5 #2)(40)

Sure enough, the first onslaught of smoke left a thick cloud grazing over the ceiling. It was a petrifying sight—swirling like the vortex of a building tornado. I kicked a rock into the jamb, kept my body hunched down, and pushed inside.

“Sean!” I shouted. Then coughed. I breathed in through my teeth, as though they might serve as a filter. “SEAN!”

I’d entered into the stairway. Where we’d first been searched by CJ, the guard posing as a homeless man in the lobby just outside the door. I glanced up the metal steps, but the white plumes wound up in a spiral, disappearing into the next floor. It was so hot; sweat immediately began to drip from every pore in my body.

Something broke upstairs. A wooden crack, a faint explosion, and then the building groaned so loudly I was sure it was going to topple down over me.

A hand smothered my face. Through the haze I saw Chase, squinting, eyes red. He was wearing just his T-shirt, his sweater overtop now ripped in two and held against both our faces. Billy was right behind him, the sleeve of his shirt tied around his nose and mouth.

“Get out of here!” Chase shouted above the crackling. “There’s no time!”

I didn’t know if he meant until the MM took the building, or until the building took us all, but I wasn’t about to wait around and find out. I took the stairs two at a time to the second floor, feeling his grip slide off my sweat-slicked arm.

No sign of Sean.

“Sean!” I tried again, but my shouts were getting progressively weaker. The urgency made me tremble. Sean had risked his life to help me at the reformatory. I owed it to him to return the favor.

The smoke took on an orange hue. It became so thick I could barely see right in front of me. My boots began to stick, like I was walking on gum. In horror, I realized that they were beginning to melt on the stairs. We were running out of time.

“Over there!” Chase shouted, sprinting past me to the top of the third floor. Sean was lying on his back on the landing; someone was desperately trying to hoist him up. The smoke made him weak, and he fumbled around like a drunk.

As I got closer, I saw that the person trying to help was Tucker.

My temples throbbed from the smoke and surprise. He had started the fire, I was sure of it, so what was he still doing here?

“Help me get him up!” shouted Tucker, struggling to grab Sean with the cast on his arm. His words spurred us back into motion. Chase pulled Sean’s arm over his shoulders and began lugging him down the stairs. Sean’s head hung limply; his feet dragged behind. The fear began to take over. Sean couldn’t be dead. Not here. Not like this.

On the second floor, Tucker lost his footing and dove into the wall. Without thinking, I grabbed his arm to steady him. We locked eyes for one short moment.

Don’t help him!

But the larger voice inside yelled we have to get out! And somehow right then “we” included Tucker Morris, too.

“Chase! Soldiers!” cried Billy, coughing with his mask lowered. He was standing in the stairwell, pointing out the blackened window. Soot couldn’t hide the fear blanketing his features.

Chase was beside him, scraping a clear spot in the glass to check.

“Exit’s blocked!” I could barely hear him. He turned fast, sweat streaming off his face. “Up to the roof! Go! Go!”

Billy went up first. Then Chase heaving Sean. I tried to help, but he wouldn’t let me. “Go!” he kept yelling. Tucker was right on my heels.

We were halfway up the seventh set of stairs when another eruption of gunfire came from just below. I braced reactively, and as I did, a piece of flaming drywall came crashing down from the ceiling and landed at my feet. My body twisted backward, slipping on my sticky soles. Tucker caught me beneath the arms; I could feel the sweat soaking through his shirt. In horror, I looked up, hypnotized by the fiery board on the steps that now separated us from the others. Sparks and burning ashes exploded from it, pinching my bare arms and neck in a dozen different places.

Tucker returned the cloth to my nose and mouth.

“We have to jump!” he yelled.

It was at least four steps up, and my muscles were burning. The fire was suffocating my strength from the inside out.

“Chase!”

He stopped at my voice and turned, terror lighting his face.

Balancing Sean on one shoulder he held his other arm out toward me, urging me to jump the four steps up to him. It wasn’t far, but it could have been miles. Sweat and smoke blocked my vision. The roar of the fire muted whatever words he shouted. I trembled, seized by fear.

“Jump!” Tucker ordered. I took a step back in order to shove off from a lower step. A sob raked my throat.

I hesitated.

Tucker rammed into me hard, sending me careening up the steps and into Chase’s chest. He grasped my shirt, pulling me the rest of the way. I screamed—for a moment I thought my pant legs were on fire, but they were only scorched at the bottom.

“Keep going!” Chase said. Billy ran ahead, disappearing into the mist.

A second later Tucker came colliding into the three of us. The door was three feet away. Tucker shoved past and kicked the door, once, twice. It burst open, and he disappeared outside.

Chase grabbed me around the waist and threw me after Tucker, into a day turned dark by black smoke. Sean’s limp form followed. Just outside the exit, Chase fell to his hands and knees. Billy was before me, shaking his head, as though waking from a dream.