Lock Every Door(44)

“I’ll come with you,” I say.

Nick shakes his head. “It’s too dangerous. You need to keep going.”

I grudgingly oblige, stumbling down the steps to the tenth floor. On the landing, I peer down the hall, squinting against the smoke in search of Greta Manville’s apartment. The door is barely visible through the haze. For all I know, she’s already made her way out of the building. But what if she hasn’t? I picture her in the grip of one of her sudden sleeps, oblivious to the smoke and the screaming alarm.

Just like one of Nick’s tugs, the image pulls me down the hall, toward 10A, where I pound on the door. It opens immediately. Greta stands in the doorway, covered in a tent-like flannel nightgown and the same slippers she wore earlier. She’s tied a bandanna around her head, which hangs over her nose and mouth.

“I don’t need you to rescue me,” she says.

Only, she kind of does. When she sets off down the hall, it’s at a snail’s pace, rivaling me in hesitation. Although in her case I think it’s less fear than poor health. Her breath gets heavy before we even reach the stairs. When I try to ease her down the first step, her legs sway like windblown palms.

“That’s one,” I say.

Which leaves roughly two hundred more steps to go.

I peer down the stairwell, gripped by fear when I see nothing but smoke curling upward.

I cough. Greta does, too, the bottom triangle of her bandanna fluttering.

I grip her hand. We both know we’re not going to make it down those steps. Greta’s too weak. I’m too terrified.

“The elevator,” I say, hauling her back up that one meager step we managed to descend.

“You’re not supposed to use an elevator during a fire.”

I know that. Just like I knew about closing the apartment door.

“There’s no other choice,” I snap.

I head to the elevator, dragging Greta in the same way Nick dragged me. I can feel her wrist twisting beneath my fingers, resisting my pull. That doesn’t slow me. Fear propels me forward.

The elevator isn’t stopped on the tenth floor. Honestly, I didn’t expect it to be. Still, I had hoped that maybe, possibly it would be there waiting for us. A stroke of good fortune in a life devoid of it. Instead, I’m forced to pound the down button and wait.

But waiting isn’t easy.

Not with the alarm still bouncing off the walls and the strobe lights flaring and smoke still rolling up the steps and Nick now God knows where. I keep coughing and my eyes keep watering, although now it might be real tears and not from the smoke. Fear clangs in my skull. Louder than the alarm.

When the elevator finally arrives, I push Greta inside, close the grate, press the button for the lobby. With a rattle and a shudder, we start to descend.

The smoke is heavier on the ninth floor.

And still worse on the eighth.

We keep descending into plumes far thicker and darker than on the floors above, blowing through the elevator cage in choking drafts. When we reach the seventh floor, it’s clear that this is the source of the fire. The smoke here is sharper, stabbing the inside of my throat.

Through the smoke, I see firefighters coming and going along the seventh-floor hall with firehoses that have been carried up the steps so that they spiral around the elevator shaft like pythons.

Just when we’re about to move past the seventh floor, I hear something other than the elevator’s hum and the shrieking fire alarm and the clomp of firefighter boots on the stairs. It’s a sharp bark, followed by the skitter of claws on tile. A furry blur darts past the elevator.

I slam the emergency-stop button. The elevator comes to a quick, quivering halt as Greta gives me a fearful look.

“What are you doing?”

“There’s a dog,” I say, the words riding on the back of another cough. “I think it’s Rufus.”

The terrified part of my brain tells me to ignore him, that Rufus will be fine, that I should focus on getting us to safety. But then Rufus barks again, and the noise pierces my heart. He sounds almost as scared as I am. Which is why I pull open the grate. After that comes the thin-barred door, which is more stubborn than it looks. It takes both hands and an extra-hard tug to pry it open.

The elevator itself has stopped three feet below the landing, forcing me to pull myself up onto the seventh floor. I then crawl along the floor to evade the smoke—another of those things-to-do-in-a-fire facts I never thought I’d use.

While crawling, I cough out Rufus’s name, the sound lost in all the noise. I peer through the smoke, trying in vain to catch another glimpse of him. He’s so small and the smoke is so thick and my eyes are pouring tears. Through that watery haze, I see firefighters stomping into 7C, their voices muffled under helmets and face masks. Through the open apartment door comes a hot glow.

Flames.

Pulsing and bright and painting the hallway a hypnotic orange-yellow.

I climb to my feet, drawn to it. I’m no longer afraid. All I feel now is intense curiosity.

I take a step down the hall, coughing again as I go.

“Jules,” Greta calls from the elevator, “grab the dog and let’s get out of here.”

I ignore her and take another step. Although I suspect I have no choice at all in the matter. I’m being compelled.

I keep walking until there’s a noticeable warmth on my face. The heat of the flames caressing my skin.