Consumed (Firefighters #1)(8)

With a yank, he pulled her PPE back up so she would be protected from the heat, making sure the tough fabric was flat and tight over her forearm for a clean cut—

Another warning creak from up above had him ducking and looking to the ceiling at the same time.

“Do it!” she yelled.

The long-handled axe was on his belt, and he popped it free and removed the head cover. The grip was insulated, certified to handle up to twenty thousand volts of electricity. Too bad the bitch was not rated to cover the shock of cutting off a piece of your partner.

Just so you could maybe, possibly, probably-not-but-still, save her life.

Anne stared up at him, unblinking, unafraid. And that steely expression on her face reminded him, not that he needed it, that she was the single most courageous person, man or woman, he had ever met.

I love you, he thought. Not for the first time.

“Put your oxygen on,” he ordered. “Or I’m not doing shit.”

When she complied, Danny closed his eyes, but only for a second. Then he masked himself and changed position so he could get a clear swing with good aim. Testing his angle, he lowered the blade so it rested on the PPE sleeve in the middle of her forearm. And then he settled his body into a stance, and thought about all the firewood he had been chopping for the winter.

This is no different, he told himself. This is a piece of wood.

If he thought for one second it was Anne’s flesh and blood, he was going to lose his nerve and fucking maul her.

Clean cut.

One chance.



* * *



As Anne went numb, she watched from a great distance as Danny lifted the axe over his shoulder, his powerful arm rising high. For a split second, the reflection of flames on its polished steel blade made the metal glow orange.

She couldn’t look away, but she couldn’t watch it happen. So she focused on his face, the angry, strobing illumination of the fire making his features animated even as they didn’t move behind his mask. She had thought of him as a surgeon no more than two minutes ago. Who could have guessed he was going to—

Raw human survival instinct made her open her mouth to tell him to stop—but she didn’t get far. The ceiling across the room caved in with the sound of galloping hooves, bricks from an outer wall landing fifteen feet away from them.

She looked at that beam. That slope. How much was above them. “Do it!”

Danny didn’t move.

Until he did.

In a single, decisive surge, he brought the axe down. Blink-of-an-eye time. Nothing more than a quick inhale.

As she was freed, momentum from her pulling back carried her away from the trapping tangle, the blade . . . the hand that she left behind.

The hard landing reverberated not just in her ass but through her whole body, her teeth clapping together, her legs banging into the floor, one shoulder taking the brunt with a holler as her spine torqued.

The cut she did not feel whatsoever.

She brought her arm up, and her brain was so compelled by the absence halfway down that even the fire and the danger went away. The PPE’s tough material had been pulled tight as a result of her leaning away from the axe, and there wasn’t any fraying of the fabric or insulation. There was blood, though, and—

Like time wanted to catch up to itself, everything went from slow motion to speed of light.

All of a sudden, Danny’s grip was biting through her heavy jacket and he had her up off the floor and over his shoulder. As he took off at a run, she bounced around and tried to figure out where he was going—and then she saw it. The most recent collapse had wiped out part of warehouse’s outside shell, and though it wasn’t a clear shot to an escape, it was better than the flames—

The world went tilt-a-whirl again as Danny swung her off him and started shoving her over a landslide of debris, through the gaping hole that was about five feet from the ground.

People reached for her. People on the outside . . . were reaching for her. Firefighters—it was Moose, Danny’s former roommate, who helped pull her out.

Except then she did the math.

“No!” she yelled as she kicked and fought. “Not without him, I’m not leaving without—”

There were voices, a volley of talk around her as she was dragged over rough concrete blocks and bricks, splinters of beams and hunks of metal.

“Danny!” she yelled. “Get Danny!”

A gust of wind pushed the smoke back into the building and his hooded head and mask were briefly revealed, his arms pinwheeling as he tried to get over the avalanche. Their eyes met one last time, and even though they were separated by so much, she could make out the blue of his stare—or at least told herself she saw it—

The entire building collapsed without warning, the three floors dominoing down, ash, soot, smoke, and flames joining the rush of dusted concrete, brick and mortar, that exploded out of the hole.

“No!” she screamed. “Danny!”





chapter




5



Tom had been waiting for three years for this call. This screaming trip across town. This pull-up-to-a-scene with screeching tires and sweaty palms, this choking panic, this paralyzing fear.

This reality that his sister was trapped in a burning building.

The slide show in his head was single frame, from the past and without a soundtrack: Anne at seven stuck up in a tree, jumping down so he could catch her; her at ten pedaling like mad on her bike to keep up with him and his friends; her at twelve with a jackknife slice across her leg, telling him he needed to take her to the ER, but not to say anything to Mom . . .